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Mozilla Software Technology

Mozilla Releases SeaMonkey 2.0 185

Posted by timothy from the little-people-in-fishbowls dept.
binarybum writes "Often forgotten, but the independent open source spirit lives strong in the once Mozilla project — now SeaMonkey. Version 2.0 is finally out and rivals Firefox with similar features but integrated email with a small footprint." The Register has a short piece on the 2.0 release, which mentions that SeaMonkey is now based on Firefox 3.5.4. Stephen Shankland lists some of the features in a handy bullet-point style, too. I'm using the new release right now; it's crashed once — but only once — in several hours of use.
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Mozilla Releases SeaMonkey 2.0 More

Mozilla Releases SeaMonkey 2.0

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  • Who cares anymore? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    All we need is a web browser. Users need the flexibility to choose their own mail program. Besides, webmail is today's king. This is why "Seamonkey" is often forgotten.

    • SeaMonkey Composer is the best... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @03:32PM (#29914853) Homepage
      SeaMonkey Composer is the best way to make WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get, HTML files.

      Unless, of course, you want to deal with the quirkiness and huge expense of Adobe Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver has more features, but SeaMonkey is usually all you need.

      Use TsWebEditor for Tidying SeaMonkey HTML files.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Here [kompozer.net]. SeaMonkey's Composer as a stand-alone program.

        You're welcome.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • WYSIWYG was a new feature in the word processors in the early 90s but in HTML is has never been true.

        That said, the Composer is a great and very useful feature for copying and pasting text from an HTML page.

      • make WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get, HTML files.

        As a ex-professional web developer, I have to say: You're doin' it wrong!

        HTML has nothing, I repeat, NOTHING to do with looks. If you so much as THINK about looks while writing HTML, you completely and utterly fail. ^^
        (Yeah. Really. :)

        CSS is for the looks. HTML is about structuring your code, by adding markup that explains what it is you have there. So software can make sense out of it. RDF or other ontologic languages would be an extension of that idea.

        That's the best way, to test if the webdev you want to

      • SeaMonkey Composer is the best way to make WYSIWYG, What You See Is What You Get, HTML files.

        From what I read, no one even merged the Nvu code improvements back into the Composer source tree, much less the improvements to Nvu that now form KompoZer [kompozer.net]. Besides, there are other up-to-date and free WYSIWYG editors for HTML. Do SeaMonkey Composer for example even support modern HTML standards and cross-browser validation?

    • I don't see the benefit of using webmail instead of a client and IMAP? A client can give me notifications, and search faster. I can use it offline. And I can integrate all my mail accounts together.

      There are plenty of very good mail programs out there, just choose the one that sucks the least (Sylpheed/Claws for me).

      • I was the same way until I got my G1. Now I get notified with that, so gmail is easier to use as I simply don't need anything more.

    • Totally Your Opinion (Score:4, Insightful)

      by repetty ( 260322 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @04:08PM (#29915413) Homepage

      > Users need the flexibility to choose their own mail program.

      Could you please direct me to the RFC that stipulates this?

      Maybe by choosing SeaMonkey they HAVE chosen their own email program.

      Well, you got first post, at least.

      --Richard

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Spad ( 470073 )

        Bingo.

        I thought I liked having my email & web browsing integrated, but apparently I've had it forced upon me without realising it...

    • Some people enjoy using Outlook even if webmail is king.

      However, until Lightning and Thunderbird get a better overhaul, Seamonkey will never catch on. The calendar and mail interface is mediocre at best compared to Outlook 2007.

      Its sad that we use Open Office at the nonprofit I work at, but still use Outlook.

    • Re:Who cares anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mqduck ( 232646 ) <(ten.kcudqm) (ta) (kcudqm)> on Thursday October 29, 2009 @07:59PM (#29918545)

      Users need the flexibility to choose their own mail program.

      They have that flexibility. They can use Firefox.

      Besides, webmail is today's king.

      I don't know about you, but I can't stand webmail.

    • If Mozilla organization had some vision and asked themselves "why does companies choose MS/IBM (Lotus) based solutions instead of us?".

      Yea, all uses a browser now and check their gmail/hotmail, that is how companies etc. work these days right?

  • Really, you're OK with that? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29, 2009 @02:51PM (#29914289)

    one crash every couple of hours is where we're setting the bar now?

    if this was a Microsoft product you'd be outraged and laughing about the ridiculous uptime.

    • Seriously, I was going to say the same thing. Crashing once with a few hours of use is pretty iffy...

      Of course, it depends on what crashed it. But still. The bias towards liking it is obvious, too.. "but only once."

      That's like saying that I got a virus in Windows - but only once. So Windows is actually really secure! ...

      I am a software tester. If the software I test crashes and I am inclined to think it was a problem with the software, I actually am paid to try to reproduce the problem... not pass it o

      • Re:Really, you're OK with that? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jeffstar ( 134407 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @10:25PM (#29919887) Journal

        here's reproducability for you

        1. install adobe flash player
        2. browse the web with any browser, especially visit sites with flash content. For extra daring attempts, open multiple tabs with flash content at the same time.
        3. the crashes!!!

        That being said youtube doesn't normally cause crashes for me, so it is probably shitty flash applications from shitty websites.

        i hope to god something has replaced flash in 10 years.

  • Totally forgot this existed... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sleekware ( 1109351 ) * on Thursday October 29, 2009 @02:51PM (#29914291)
    Time to give SeaMonkey another shot!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by rattaroaz ( 1491445 )

      Time to give SeaMonkey another shot!

      No thanks. I tried it when I was a kid. They are just brine shrimp. Nothing special, definitely not monkeys, and don't waste your money by giving them another shot.

  • 50% ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by daveime ( 1253762 )

    it's crashed once -- but only once -- in several hours of use

    As "several" could (potentially) refer to any number more than two, then it could (potentially) "only" crash 8 times a day, or 56 times a week, or 2912 times a year.

    Not a terribly positive endorsement to be honest.

    • Even giving the benefit of the doubt and calling it 8 hours, that's still once a (working) day, or 5 times a (working) week. Still not acceptable.

      Of course, extrapolating a statistic out of such a small sample size (2 or even 8 hours) is somewhat premature. That may have been the only crash in 10,000 hours, just so happens it was at the beginning. Or it normally would crash 5,000 times in a year, and he just went to "safe" sites. Neither extreme seems likely, but merely possible given the low sample siz

  • I'm browsing with SeaMonkey 1.1.17 right now, I prefer they way it handles tabs over firefox.

    Hope they didn't change that!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by trb ( 8509 )
      Me too. I like the way seamonkey handles tabs, that's mostly why I use it. I use it for most of my browsing, and was long suffering with an obsolete rendering engine. I have not been able to figure out how to mimic seamonkey's tabs behavior on firefox. Is it possible to get the seamonkey tabs behavior on firefox (with existing settings or add-ons)? -Andy

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Your version is outdated for v1.1 series. v1.1.18 exists.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by chebucto ( 992517 ) *

      Seems to be the same. The new-tab button is still in its fixed position on the left-hand side.

      The interface looks the same, except for a few differences
      - The classic theme button icons look more firefox-like and less netscape 3-like (bad thing, in my books). A theme can solve that.
      - There is now an rss icon w/ drop-down list on the right hand side of the address bar. So far its been unobtrusive.
      - The url-guessing algorithm has been changed; it's now supposed to guess based on URL and page title. Not sure ho

      • The Javascript is much faster over the 1.x series. For instance, loading slashdot.org no longer brings up the dialog 'the javascript on this page is too convoluted and is taking too long. we're going to make you click okay just for the hell of it'.

        Hopefully it doesn't crash as much as Seamonkey 1.x. I never figured out what was causing the crashes, possibly the gcc version I was using or maybe Flash. In any case, I will gladly make Seamonkey my backup browser to Chrome (goodbye, Firefox, I won't miss yo

        • Also, I have something of a Javascript benchmark, my email obfuscater [wisc.edu]. Seamonkey 1 required me to click continue on the 'slow javascript' popup something like three times. Seamonkey 2: zero times.

  • flash ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by polar red ( 215081 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @02:59PM (#29914391)

    it's crashed once -- but only once -- in several hours of use.

    flash ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gaspyy ( 514539 )

      Interestingly, I noticed Firefox no longer crashes because of flash. I don't know who fixed it (Mozilla or Adobe) but the last crash must have been more than 6 months ago.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nimey ( 114278 )

        I've been getting a lot of Flash crashes on AMD64 Karmic the last couple weeks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Picass0 ( 147474 )

        On linux platforms it is unstable because Flash and Pulse Audio do no play well. Firefox would be doing everyone a favor if they allowed users to block flash from sites the same way you can block images from specific servers.

  • hmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 )
    I'm using the new release right now; it's crashed once -- but only once -- in several hours of use.

    In other words, it's even less reliable than the IE I'm reading this on?

  • More similarity with Firefox isn't all good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ktistec Machine ( 159201 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @03:04PM (#29914465)

    I've used Seamonkey as my default browser for a long time now, mainly because I like the user interface better. Seamonkey 2.0 now uses Firefox's printing system, though, and this is one of the main things I don't like about Firefox. I use lpr for printing, not cups, and I liked the fact that earlier versions of Seamonkey (and "Mozilla" before it) remembered any changes I made to the "lpr command" in the print dialog. Firefox uses gtk-print, which reverts back to the default lpr command every time you click print, even in the same session. I've reported this as a bug in the Seamonkey bugzilla.

    Regarding crashes, I've seen another report of this at LWN [lwn.net].

    • I use lpr for printing, not cups

      Well, I can see another way of solving your problem...

    • You should probably file a bug on gtk-print instead.

      I use SeaMonkey as my main browser, and the only time I have crash problems is during the alpha phase, and even then it usually isn't bad.

    • Maybe there is a global setting for Gnome that allows you to set the default print command. I agree that this is not acceptable interface design. State is a very useful concept. Especially for printing setup.

  • This is just brine gecko...don't be fooled!

  • Why?! (Score:2)

    by fluch ( 126140 )

    "Web-browser, advanced e-mail, newsgroup and feed client, IRC chat, and HTML editing made simple -- all your Internet needs in one application" ... for what reason do we need this all in one single application?

    • Re:Why?! (Score:5, Informative)

      by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday October 29, 2009 @05:10PM (#29916499) Homepage Journal

      Because a lot of people like having that integration.

      You don't? Then use something else and quit whining.

    • ... for what reason do we need this all in one single application?

      Because some people want it that way?

      There are a lot of alturnatives. If you're a Mozilla fan boy, just use FF if that's all you want. And of course there are always Safari, Chrome, Opera, and even IE...

      SeaMonkey might not be for you - don't use it. But it does have a feature set that clearly some people want. Just because it's Open Source, don't feel that you are *required* to use it.

  • It did what once? (Score:5, Informative)

    by glwtta ( 532858 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @03:19PM (#29914691) Homepage
    Wait, this is the final release and it crashed within a few hours?

    That's... not good.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Spad ( 470073 )

      I've been running the Betas & RCs of SM 2.0 for the last couple of months on Windows 7 x64, Ubuntu 9.04 & Windows XP SP3, and while I got regular crashes on closing the browser if I'd been using Flash (Seems to be fixed in the final so far) I didn't have any non-Flash related crashes.

      I don't know why Timothy felt the need to make the comment other than to put a negative spin on the release;

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by glwtta ( 532858 )
        I don't know why Timothy felt the need to make the comment other than to put a negative spin on the release;

        If it has a tendency to crash, that's relevant information, not "spin".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Spad ( 470073 )

          It crashed once on his computer; without any context it's just a dig.

          I can guarantee you for *any* release of software that at least one person will have had it crash on them within a few hours.

    • Every single final version of browser out there even including IE has some feature like "tab recovery". Guess the reason for it?

  • I have filed a bug under Debian where I am offering $250 if someone can get a .deb out before the end of next week.

    If you are not already aware, the Firefux/Thunderturd/Seamonkey art licensing prohibits it's use under Debian/Ubuntu. As such, the packages must be renamed Iceweasle/Icedove/Iceape with new art.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by b0bby ( 201198 )

      Maybe Debian, but Ubuntu uses Firefox.

    • Debian (Score:2)

      by Ilgaz ( 86384 )

      I love their attitude of being a purist, totally free, politically free distro... Oh wait! They allowed Mono junk to their distro for a simple note taking app right?

  • Overall it's pretty nice. Takes a while to load on older hardware, though. Maybe they could release just the browser as a separate component? ;-)

  • When it asks you to import profiles, it will ONLY work if you select a profile that comes with Seamonkey i.e. default. This is not intuitive and counter to all previous upgrades.

    You have to manual crate a new profile with the profile name you want, and then use the command line to import that ONE profile.

    c:\%APPATH%\mozilla\seamonkey -P -migration

    The profile name is case sensitive and MUST be in dbl quotes.

    This was a pain in the ass for people like me that have a profile for each person in their home. It's LAZY DEVELOPMENT and the should be ashamed of themselves.

    I know, you're thinking 'So you have to got o the command line, so what?" well that's a deal killer for a lot of people. There is NO GOOD REASON why this is a manual process.
    The documentation that explains this comes across as hubris and with a too damn bad attitude. People want to know why OS hasn't defeated MS? it's because of shit like this, I actually considered loading outlook.

    No, this is NOT a troll or flame bait, it's facts.

  • SeaMonkey, Portable Edition 2.0 for USB drives (Score:3, Informative)

    by CritterNYC ( 190163 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @05:45PM (#29917057) Homepage

    Well, I certainly remember it well and fire it up from time to time. It was what I used before Firefox and Thunderbird came along. Now that 2.0 has gone gold, hopefully some new users will find it and be intrigued.

    As we (at PortableApps.com) do with Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird, we've packaged it as a portable app so you can use it on your flash drive/portable hard drive or try it out without installing it locally. 10 languages are available.

    SeaMonkey, Portable Edition 2.0 at PortableApps.com [portableapps.com]

  • "I'm using the new release right now; it's crashed once but only once in several hours of use"

    When did crashes stop being an embarrassing programming mistake and become a metric?

  • Been using it since way back around M8, when it was still the Mozilla Suite. Thanks to the Seamonkey crew for keeping it alive. Firefox hasn't been faster in a long time, and the menus and configurability of Seamonkey offer far more configuration options. I deny cookies as my default, and allowing session cookies for a given site is a PITA on Firefox that requires diving through the preferences. In Seamonkey, it's right there in a menu, takes under a second. At the risk of starting a flamewar, Firefox remin

  • The single most annoying misfeature to me with Seamonkey is that someone thought that editing pages in the web browser was such a heavily used feature that it deserved to be bound to a command key. Yeaaaah, no. Many times I have hit that stupid command-E by accident and had to interrupt my concentration to close it.

    I'm providing these instructions for those of you who agree that this is not only a pointless feature, but worse than pointless because it's annoying. So open up a Terminal window and get cracki

  • I have been using Seamonkey since the beginning of September(the alpha) updating it nightly and I can tell you this browser is the sh!t. I have had only 6 crashes since I started using it. All six times I had over 20 tabs open and 5 out of the six times I was able to fully recover right back to where I was before the crash.(so in essence I only had 1 complete crash) The only problem I have with the browser is some fonts (Tahoma in my case) look jagged when set in an H1 or H2 tag. But generally this browser

  • Seriously dude, if you think seamonkey is "small" then send me some of what you've been smoking (likewise for firefox). These browsers are some of the largest programs on Linux. It is difficult to even get firefox started (using "ulimit -Sv") in less than 100MB of memory (seamonkey presumably requires more). I routinely run firefox/seamonkey sessions that range from 300-800 MB (lots of windows/tabs). (And limiting the amount of memory is also likely to produce inelegant terminations or outright core dum

  • I tried it on Mac OS X.

    1) You can't move the mailbox list to the right side. (I know, that's "standard" for GUI mail programs nowadays, but I hate that interface.. the other two choices available aren't any more usable, IMHO.)
    2) When I bring up the Preferences, the menubar except for the Apple menu & app name went away -- not disabled, went away. What the heck?
    3) I can't change the toolbar style (icons, icons & text, text only) via normal means -- control-click in the toolbar, nor go into Customiz

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