SeaMonkey 1.1: A Nice Upgrade with Tab Preview Capabilities
SeaMonkey is Mozilla’s browser that is more of an all-in-one type of solution with a built-in email client. I think this overview from Mozilla sums up SeaMonkey quite well for those:
The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the application formerly known as “Mozilla Application Suite”. Whereas the main focus of the Mozilla Foundation is on Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, our group of dedicated volunteers works to ensure that you can have “everything but the kitchen sink” — and have it stable enough for corporate use.
SeaMonkey 1.1 was released just the other day, and I have to admit that it features some nice enhancements. It is mostly stuff that can already be found in Firefox 2 since that is the basis for the browser. Here are some of the highlights:
- Inline spell checking
- About:config warning page
- Drag and drop URL’s between existing tabs
- Tab preview
- Improved phishing protection in the email client
The tab preview functionality is pretty cool, but Firefox users can get an extension that does that. I have always found that feature to be useful when you have a bunch of tabs open and can’t see the name on it, but I’m not a very big fan of installing a lot of extensions to help keep Firefox slimmed down a little. It would be cool to see implemented in Firefox but there are a lot of other things I would rather see first.
I think SeaMonkey might be a good solution for some people looking for a packaged deal, but I still find it funny that the theme used with SeaMonkey is the old-school Netscape style.
Thanks to “Jack of all Trades” for the tip!
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Tags: Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Browser, Features, Settings
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I have been using this for about 4 days now at work and it works very well. The additions are great and it’s nice to see that this project is still active. The only gripe that I have is what you mentioned
I hope the theme would be updated soon to bring it update to date in the visual department.
Wowies… Why don’t they add tab preview to Firefox ??
I was wondering the same thing, but Mozilla obviously tries to stay away from the “eye candy” type of features and tries to add more things, like the spell checker, that are useful to everyone.
I HATE SEAMONKEY! This is one of my few major prejudices. It is old code that is very inefficient, and needs more maintenance than it is given. The project page says that they are not trying to tie together Firefox and Thunderbird, but that is exactly what they should do! Then they could throw in Sunbird, Composer, and their IRC client, and it would be amazing! Firefox and Thunderbird are much better products than Navigator and Mail & Newsgroups (not to mention much better looking), and Mozilla would do well to take my suggestion.
This also brings to mind my idea that Mozilla should re-release Composer as a separate program. Right now the only way to have that is to use Nvu, which is poorly maintained and rarely ever gets updated, not excluding bugfixes and much needed features. I find it painful to use Nvu, especially when used to using Dreamweaver.
By the way, if you don’t like the way Seamonkey looks, there is an option to change the theme under the View menu. They include an alternative theme called “modern” or something like that. It does look much better.
Yeah, SeaMonkey is a nice idea for having an all-inclusive package, but I just can’t get used to using it. Especially after using a browser like Opera who also has a lot of features to offer and it operates so smoothly…and looks so nice. I think that Mozilla realizes that Opera dominates the market for people looking for an all-in-one solution so they are more focused on slim and fit.
SeaMonkey is anything from slim and fit, and I doubt users of all-inclusive packages like this care too much about that, either. Also, SeaMonkey still uses the old Mozilla Suite code, which is no where near as “slim and fit” as the Firefox and Thunderbird code. Both of those applications were re-designed from the ground up, and are much better for it. I don’t think swapping Navigator and Mail & Newsgroups for Firefox and Thunderbird would hurt the application. In fact, it should then be even better, as that would make it slimmer and fitter. Again, throwing in Sunbird would then make it an even more all-inclusive, and creating and maintaining new versions of Composer and the IRC client would round the whole thing off. Just a suggestion, though.
I agree that SeaMonkey is not slim and fit which is actually what I meant to say. I was actually trying to say that Mozilla is focusing on slim and fit in regards to Firefox/Thunderbird, and no longer worry about the path SeaMonkey takes since it is community developed.
They should worry about it, though, as it would let them more directly compete with Opera, as well as make some of their other technologies more popular.