Open Source
Browser and Email Client:
Firefox and Thunderbird

Before describing the Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client, first let me get the Microsoft rant out of the way. Only a few short years ago I quite liked Microsoft, in a familiarity-factor kind of way, but these days I am wiser and Microsoft are uglier. I am moving away from using MS products and services. Likewise I avoid Microsoft-owned web sites such as MSN, which, due to Microsoft's damaging browser wars offensives, refuse to work properly with non-IE browsers. (Note: Until recently, MS lost a fortune on MSN, but supported it through profits made through Windows and Office, and promotes it and Messenger through it's dominance of the desktop. This is an unpleasant, monopolistic practice that destroys competition). And as for Microsoft's record on security? Outlook, Outlook Express and Messenger are virus/worm breeders, use those systems and you risk being screwed over. There are dubious privacy issues too: Microsoft passport and XP product activation are just the beginning of Microsoft's unhealthy activities in tracking you, reducing your rights over your machine, and generally treating you like a criminal, whilst being ineffective against real pirates.

Another reason I dislike Microsoft is they have illegally made money - and put an awful lot of competitors/people out of business - through unfair, monopoly-fuelled business practices, as proven by US anti-trust suits.

Not liking the direction Microsoft is taking, I quietly ditched MS Internet Explorer (MS IE) in favour of Opera. These days I use the superb Firefox browser (from the non-profit Mozilla foundation), which is open source. One of the reasons I prefer open source applications is because I want my data (such as emails, bookmarks etc) to be safely stored in open source data formats. So should you. If our data is stored in open file formats then that data will always be accessible to you, whereas proprietary (corporate owned) formats quickly become out of date. This data decay happens because more recent proprietary releases/upgrades discourage the use of older formats - a classic Microsoft trick, that. Microsoft's ultimatum is, upgrade or you can't read new data other people have sent you in the latest MS formats.. But in the rush your old data is left behind. MS don't care whether you can read your old data because there is no money in it for them, unless you pay them for a "solution", of course. Tried reading 10 year old MS proprietary files? Expect loss of data. I don't want my emails, documents, etc. to be at the mercy of Microsoft's proprietary file formats - or anybody else's proprietary file formats for that matter.

Another advantage of Open Source software like Firefox, is that it is 100% free of ads, spyware and other scumware that spoils so much free stuff from comercial organisations.

After installing Firefox (or any browser/software) it is definitely worth taking a step back and going through the "preferences" options. They have excellent privacy features and other goodies. Abhor pop-up ad Hell? Firefox blocks pop-ups unless you tell it not to. Peace! MS IE does not kill pop-ups because that would upset the marketers of Microsoft's business "partners" that use pop-ups to shower you in their exasperating pop-up ads. One reason Microsoft does not want you to have full control of your computer is so that you have no choice but to receive ads. In non-MS browsers, the option of using the pop-up killer feature puts you back in control, and makes surfing much more pleasant.


Microsoft browsers can get you infested with "Spyware"!

An even worse MS IE nightmare is that merely surfing the web using IE is likely to get your computer infested with spyware that reveals information about you to God knows what foul organisations and cripples your machine - if you run Windows (Windows: because Linux and other non-Microsoft operating systems are immune in practice to spyware due to superior security architecture and settings). The major non-Microsoft browsers are less vulnerable to spyware, not because of popularity, but because of their fundamental design. Even though non-Microsoft browsers provide a lot of protection, if you run MS Windows and are on the web then you always run a huge risk of having your machine ruined by worms/viruses etc that bypass the browser completely. If security is a burning issue to you, consider Linux or other UNIX like operating system or buy a Mac, provided that they have the apps you need.

Microsoft's mail clients are Outlook or Outlook Express, Opera has a mail client, as does the Thunderbird email client. Like firefox, Thunderbird is open source and from the Mozilla Foundation). Thunderbird is the email twin of the Firefox browser. Which to use? As I mentioned before, I want my emails in an open format. Therefore I decided to ditch Microsoft Outlook and upgrade to an open source mail client. Good as Opera is, it is not open source (at time of writing) so Thunderbird won.

Then there is spam. If I accidentally open a spam message, then I don't want HTML to display, as HTML is used by the enemy as a clandestine spying tool. HTML allows the sender to detect your machine, and in this way relentless spammers will know your account is live and bombard you with more junk. Often they will sell your email address to other spammers. (Such clandestine spying techniques are common). MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express do not feature this plain text default and Microsoft have persistently declined to implement it. All mail clients should prevent mails from phoning home, or at least warn you about it, and ask your permission. Thunderbird does have a solution to this problem.

Firstly, if you haven't already done so, enable junk mail filters for your accounts. Ensure the "sanitise html" option is checked. If you mark an email as "Junk", then Mozilla "sanitises" the message. This means that, should you need to check a message really is spam, you can mark the message as spam, then open it, safely knowing that it will be unable to contact any of the spammers' servers. (Spammers, parasitical scumbag wretches that they are, use this technique to monitor if your email account is live). In the Mozilla view menu: setting Vew->Message Body As to Plain Text will also safely ensure the spammers' servers will not be contacted. This is a compelling reason to use Thunderbird.

Just viewing an email in Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange, even in the preview pane, can get your machine trashed by a virus. This is due to the notoriously defective security of Microsoft software, and is one of many reasons why only Microsoft-targeted virii and worms wreak global havoc.

It is a myth that if Unix/Linux/MacOS were as common as Windows then viruses would create just as much damage on those too. The reason is that non-MS Windows operating systems are more secure by design, they are intrinsically virus-hostile. It is virtually impossible to write an effective virus that affects Linux boxes out there in the way virii routinely affect Windows. Viruses do not affect computers per se, they affect MS Windows.

If you use a Microsoft email client, never double-click/open any attachments in a junk mail, unless you want to get hosed by a virus. Indeed, opening attachments from people you know is equally risky, because they may be unknowingly infected. On the other hand, double clicking a file in Thunderbird will not open that file. Instead, it asks you if you want to save that file. (In Linux, Mozilla saves the file in non-executable form, so to execute it you have to explicitly make it executable, which is one (but not the only) reason why it MUCH harder for would-be worms and viruses to propegate themselves in Linux).

Thunderbird comes with a message filter. I used to find it useful to send spam to its own mail folder where you can skim it for genuine emails, then hit Ctrl+A (select all) and hit the Delete key. I don't use it any more because Thunderbird has a junk email filter. (It's a Bayesian filter for those in the know). The idea is that you tell Thunderbird which emails are genuine (ham), and which are junk (spam). After a certain amount of training, Mozilla begins to detect junk and moves it to the "Junk" folder. The more you train the filter, the better it gets at discriminating junk from genuine email. Unfortunately the spammers are learning to beat such filters, and so the arms race between scum (spammers) and saints (anti-spam engineers) continues. It is worth reiterating that it is important to tell Thunderbird which messages are not junk, as well as those that are. (See the tools menu). I love that anti-spam filter, it still catches most of my spam.

And it is good news all the rest of the way. Thunderbird imported my emails from MS Outlook seamlessly. As a precaution, before importing, I saved most of the attachments I wanted to keep to the hard disk and deleted them from the mail messages. Thunderbird ported the data in the MS Outlook address book into the Mozilla address book without problems too.

Firefox and Thunderbird have rarely crashed on me. (MS IE crashes frequently, and when it does, it usually brings Windows down with it. That MS Windows should be destabilised by its integrated browser is another testament to bad (marketing-driven) design decisions by MS.

Firefox (as do most non-Microsoft browsers) features tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing means no more pollution of multiple I.E. windows cluttering the task bar; and you can save multiple web pages with a bookmark: the bookmark, when activated, brings up those pages again, saving time and hassle.

Firefox and Thunderbird fully support open standards (W3C) and prevent sites sneakily changing your "homepage" and meddling with your bookmarks (favourites). Firefox also gives you options to prevent sites resizing windows and other javascript annoyances. Oh and did I mention vastly superior security?

The down side of Firefox and Thunderbird is that you have to download the things, and there are still a diminishing number of sites, that stubbornly refuse to work with non-IE browsers, at the time of writing.

Download Firefox and Thunderbird

Download: Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird.



Firefox and Thunderbird were derived from the Mozilla combined browser and email client. Development on the Mozilla suit has halted, as the developers are now working on Firefox and Thunderbird instead. But the Mozilla suit is quite handy. You can find Mozilla here. .

Newsflash: Microsoft is slow in their development of Outlook Express. Their aim may be to move users to MS Outlook or Hotmail/MSN. I do not recommend you use either of these. MS Outlook is expensive and insecure, I have to use it at work because of groupware lock-in. I do have a Hotmail account, which I use purely as a spam trap/disposable email address. I'd never use it for important email for various reasons. Microsoft wants your emails/data on their servers, where they can control it. I would not trust MS (or any IT/marketing corporation) with my really personal stuff, with the wary exception of some e-commerce sites. Thirdly, online email is clumsy compared to an email client like Thunderbird. It is more accessible away from home however, and I confess to quite liking Yahoo email. Finally, MS has a track record of ugly, monopolistic behaviour. If you need a web-based email alternative to hotmail, these guys are quite good, apparently, though I've not tried them yet: FastMail. Or there is Yahoo, etc.



Gaim : Gaim is a cool MS Messenger replacement, that can talk to Yahoo clients, MSN Messenger clients, the lot. If you wish to port over your Mozilla settings, to Thunderbird see this link.

Thunderbird Tips (which may be out of date): Be sure to look at the tools/junk mail controls menu to activate the Bayesian spam filter. Also click on tools/account settings and select "server settings" - ensure that you don't leave unread messages on the server, unless you wish to, of course.

Evangelist bit: Please do your bit to help undermine the Microsoft's ill-won dominance in the browser wars. Help to reduce IE's percentage of hits on web sites, and the future of the Internet will be less prone to a back-door corporate takeover. (In such a world, Microsoft, AOL, MPAA, RIAA etc would control what you can and cannot do, see, listen to or save/copy/back up. Goodbye freedom, rights and convenience, all in the name of some sinister ruse like "Trusted Computing": i.e. they don't trust you). Corporations will use DMA (Digital Rights Management) to remove rights from the user, you and me. Please support free Open Source software, like Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, and explain to your friends why it's a very good thing.

Feedback: I received this message: "I am converting from IE to mozilla because i like the better stability and options to change things which i do not like. J March 2003." Indeed! Once they try the alternatives, few go back to Microsoft/IE/Outlook.

Links:
Mozilla The official site
Mozilla Europe The official Europe-specific Mozilla site

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From:	MadPole	Subject:	Comment	2002-07-19 17:45:21
From:	Mykolas OK	Subject:	Opera: Identify as MSIE 5.0	2002-10-02 11:28:18
From:	Navneeth	Subject:	Nice work	2003-04-23 09:20:53
From:	Andrew Hallock	Subject:	Switch to Mozilla	2003-05-30 22:08:03
From:	Ciki	Subject:	This is what I have on my mind	2004-03-19 17:59:55

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