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The SeaMonkey Council has announced SeaMonkey 1.0, the first end-user release of their internet suite. This open source application, available as a free download from its mozilla.org-hosted website, features a state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well.
I've been using SeaMonkey 1.0 alphas and betas since September, and it's become my favorite of the Mozilla/Gecko based browsers, which also include FireFox, Camino, and Mozilla. I've found it rock-stable and very fast, which should be no surprise, since it uses the same "Deer Park" version of the Mozilla Gecko browser engine as is used in FireFox.
Why a separate browser project under the Mozilla.org umbrella? The still available Mozilla 1.7.12 is no longer under active development, but maintained with security updates, so SeaMonkey is focused on keeping a suite browser available from Mozilla.
Seamonkey pretty much continues where Mozilla 1.8 (yes, there was a 1.8, which is downloadable as a beta, but it never got beyond the beta stage) left off. SeaMonkey comes with the the look and feel familiar to users of its predecessors, the Mozilla Application Suite and Netscape Communicator packages, but adds many new features as well as back-end changes that improve security, stability and performance. Some highlights are: drag&drop reordering of tabs, phishing e-mail detection, support for a single shared inbox when using multiple accounts, and support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).
At the dawn of the Internet as a mass participation phenomenon, there was Netscape Communicator, the dominantly popular choice in Internet software. Communicator included a browser � Netscape Navigator, plus an email client -- Netscape Messenger, and an HTML authoring module � Netscape Composer, thus enabling users to do most of their Internet-related computing in one application.
Then Microsoft Internet Explorer came on the scene and shifted the dominant Internet software paradigm to single-purpose applications. Explorer was a browser only, and for email you could use MS Outlook Express. Web authoring required a third application, and so on. This motif suited me fine. I was (and remain) a Eudora fan, so I never really used the Messenger module in Netscape anyway, And I preferred Claris Homepage or just a good HTML-savvy text editor for Web authoring. However, many Netscape users liked the all-in-one approach, which the program has stuck with to this day.
Netscape is no longer being developed for the Mac, but Mozilla.org, which was formed in the late 1990s to develop Netscape 5, finally released to the public as Netscape 6, have also offered a Mozilla suite browser that incorporated the classic Netscape multi-module motif, but with a cleaner, interface and fewer commercial bells and whistles.
Mozilla's new browser, Firefox, adopted the Internet Explorer single-purpose application motif, with a companion, freestanding email client program called Thunderbird.
But suite browser fans need not worry. The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the Mozilla suite browser. The SeaMonkey project is a community-based project hosted at mozilla.org that emerged around Mozilla's suite codebase when the Mozilla Foundation announced it would discontinue further development of its suite product. The new project is dedicated to keeping this suite alive and developing it into an even more modern and complete internet software package.
Sea Monkey otherwise looks almost exactly like Mozilla 1.7 in terms of appearance, as well as including a Netscape Communicator style email client, a WYSIWYG web page composer and an IRC chat application, but underneath the hood much of the core code is shared with the Firefox 1.5 Beta browser.
Using the SeaMonkey 1.0 preview for most of my workaday browsing for several months now, I've found it to be just as stable as Firefox, basically with the familiar solid, competent feel users have come to expect from Mozilla-based browsers. If you are familiar with Mozilla or classic Netscape, you'll feel right at home in SeaMonkey.
With its highly developed email client, WYSIWYG Web page Composer and an IRC chat application, plus mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta is a powerful, comprehensive, and secure internet software package.
I'm delighted that the Sea Monkey team has chosen to continue offering a Mac OS X version in their development plans. There seems to be in mini- trend back toward suite browsers, with Opera also recently adding built-in email, newsreader, and instant messaging clients with Opera 8.x. The downside of that of course is size, Sea Monkey is a pretty big download at 13.2MB.
As a browser, I find Sea Monkey pleasant to use. Like the other Mozilla Gecko-based browsers, (except for Camino), it does not support OS X Services, and doesn't have Opera's wonderful resume last session feature, but aside from those points, it does pretty well everything most of us need a browser to do, and does it well.
SeaMonkey Suite features:
Navigator
Tabbed browsing, which is a feature I got totally addicted to in about the first half-hour I used it when first introduced by Mozilla, gives you a better way to surf the Web. All modern browsers now have it, but IE5 doesn't, so if you;re switching from it you;re in for a revelation. You no longer have to open one page at a time. With tabbed browsing, open several pages at once with one click. Plus, your homepage can be multiple pages, in tabs.
Popup blocker lets you surf the web without interruption from annoying ads.
Image Manager lets you block images to remove offensive images or speed up the rendering of web sites.
Find as you type gives you another way to navigate a page. Just start typing to jump from link to link or to find a word or phrase within a page.
Plus other modern browser features including: advanced security settings; Password, Download, and Cookie managers; Themes; multi-language and multi-platform support; and, the latest in Web Standards.
Mail & Newsgroups
Junk mail controls helps you take back control of your e-mail from spammers. SeaMonkey's adaptive junk mail control gets smarter with use and is personalized to the email you receive.
Manage your mail with customizable Labels and Mail Views. Color code your e-mail to help you prioritize. Sort your mail with views to help you through your email much faster.
Multiple Accounts support helps you manage all your mail through one interface.
SeaMonkey Messenger includes Enterprise ready features such as S/MIME, return receipts, Address Books, LDAP support, and digital signing.
Composer
SeaMonkey's HTML editor keeps getting better with dynamic image and table resizing, quick insert and delete of table cells, improved CSS support, and support for positioned layers.
I did not check out the mail and HTML authoring modules other than to open them for a quick look, but I anticipate that if you're a user of Netscape/Mozilla Mail and/or Composer, you will feel right at home in SeaMonkey's version of those programs too.
If you;re migrating to SeaMonkey from Internet Explorer, your IE Favorites are imported automatically. To access them, open the Bookmarks menu and choose Imported IE Favorites.
New in version 1.0:
Full release notes can be perused here:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/releases/seamonkey1.0/
System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.2 or later
• PowerPC processor (266 MHz or faster recommended)
• 64 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
• 100 MB of free hard disk space (significantly less space is required if you reduce the cache size)
For more information, visit:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
Charles W. Moore
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