Seamonkey vs. Firefox & Thunderbird - what's your mileage?
Hi,
I'm currently busy doing the final "polishing" of my "Microlinux Enterprise Desktop 13.37", a Slackware-13.37+Xfce-on-steroids based desktop I intend to install for professional clients. (Actually, a couple dozen of a first prototype are already installed at one client's network as well as my office and doing very well under heavy load so far...) I did quite some testing for some time, but still can't decide which browser/mail client to finally adopt as "best-of-the-breed", since I'm following a one-app-per-task logic here. Over the last few weeks, I've been using the Seamonkey suite for browsing and mail, and I must say I'm very satisfied with the stability of the suite. Pros: zero (!) crashes, mail is one click away, seems to eat less RAM than FF, not prone to any version number frenzy like FF & TB, apparently (Google says so) cleaner and healthier codebase (don't know). Cons: ugly default interface (which can be amended by installing the Firefox theme plugin), some rare FF plugins don't exist for Seamonkey, Zindus plugin won't work with Seamonkey mail, web browser interface slightly less "usable" than FF I'd be curious to have your various opinions and/or hard facts about these applications. |
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I don't use Firefox, Thunderbird or Seamonkey at the moment (I use Opera for browsing and mail), but when I did, I needed to use the calender plugin Lightning and that didn't work with Seamonkey, although it apparently does these days.
So I would say the choice depends on whether your clients need things like an integrated calendar. My personal preference would be Seamonkey. |
As you've gone for pure Xfce with this, it's probably desirable to avoid qt stuff like konqueror? And as it's Slackware based, do you want to avoid the gnome 3 apps such as evolution (I would think yes)?
I like Seamonkey, but I tend to stick with Firefox because that seems to be where Mozilla's focus is. I think your best bet is to give people something which is well known and which they may already be familiar with (and likely to outlast Seamonkey). Chromium I've not used much, but I'm not a fan - it may be worth considering however. Opera I also like, but it lacks features such as autocomplete, the address bar drop down list and the huge selection of add ons available for firefox some of which I find to be vital. If you care about such things, it's also a closed source browser. Firefox is probably what I would go for, it's not perfect and it's certainly getting bloated but there is not much out there which is better. As for mail clients, I use Thunderbird, but sadly it's been put on the back burner by Mozilla: http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/...ty-innovation/ IMO if Thunderbird can be axed, then so can Seamonkey... It has a lot to do with this: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/b2g/ As for claws mail, last time I checked, it lacks the automatic detection and set up for mail accounts. Some things to consider anyway... |
I've been using Firefox since, roughly, day 0, same for Thunderbird and Seamonkey (because I really liked Netscape back in the day and can't stand using anything Microsoft-branded or look-like). I'm happy with all three and find them usable for all the basic things one does with a browser and mail; I don't load 'em up with add-ons (other than AdBlock Plus and NoScript).
I like being able to do a quick and dirty web page in Seamonkey's built-in HTML editor, I like having mail announced, click an icon and read and perhaps answer it. I always liked Netscape's composer and I'm happy it's included in Seamonkey -- of course I'm old and I'd be happy with a terminal, say, a VT-220 or something like that, simply because pretty much everything I do is done in a console window. I've just recently figured out how to answer and make calls on a Motorola Razor I've had for years and haven't a clue what the rest of the thing does (not having a 10 year old handy to show you how to do techie stuff can be a burden). I should also own up that I'm perfectly happy using mailx; I kind of like stuff that works without a lot of folderol. I like simple. I like elegant. Over the years that Mozilla has been building these useful tools they've come a long way. They worked, they got bloated, that got fixed, a pretty much complete re-write, they got better and when problems popped up they got fixed quickly. The current crop appears to work just fine and I can't see any reason to fiddle around with anything else. I've tried various release of Opera, had problems, OK, enough of that. I've tried Chrome, had problems, OK, enough of that. I don't care if a browser takes a second or two more than some other browser to open, I'm just not in that much of a hurry. I keep an eye on system loads (I have GKrellM running all the time and the CPU's crank along at something close to zero when Firefox or Seamonkey are running (which one or the other is doing most of any given day) and I just don't see a problem there. I'm not a great fan of eye-candy, I find most of it annoying. Mozilla's products present a clean, fast, easy to work in layout that doesn't get in your way (particularly if you have AdBlock Plus and NoScript installed) plus the ability -- if you want eye-candy -- to add a plethora of stuff. If you want it you can get it and if you don't want it it ain't there to annoy you. Firefox shines as a browser. Seamonky shines as a browser but also lets you do other related things without having to crack open some other application or even flip to some web mail site. Seems that Mozilla more or less invented tabbed browsing (I really, really like that, center-click a link or hit Ctrl-T and there you go) and everybody else had to play catch-up. I cannot see a reason to not offer Firefox, Thunderbird and Seamonkey to users. After all, Linux is about individual choice and, uh, different strokes for different folks, eh? Hope this helps some. |
Another vote for Claws-mail and Firefox. Claws-mail-3.8.1 is very light on system resources and feature rich. I like Seamonkey, but, when I use it my CPU load spikes.
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My preference is Firefox for browsing. Claw Mail for email. Seamonkey reminds me to much of the Netsrape Communicator.
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http://www.matusiak.eu/numerodix/blo...d-opportunity/ I've tried Claw Mail several times and just don't see the appeal. Just about everything, i.e., function or feature, has to added via a plug-in of sorts and it lacks functions that are taken for granted in other e-mail clients such as Thunderbird or SeaMonkey Mail. Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Mail are very similar, but between the two, I prefer Thunderbird. |
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Having no "automagic mail detection" is thus a big plus for Seamonkey, since this mail client doesn't simply assume in a completely idiotic manner that my mail login sure has to be all the stuff before the "@". |
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This page, http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/008433.html claims: Quote:
Then, there's a Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_%28GUI%29 (that I won't quote) that says a whole lot of other stuff, some of it agreeing with the first link above. Holy toot! Bottom line, it look like neither Mozilla or Opera deserves the kudos. Sigh. Hope this helps some. |
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Does anyone know how to prevent the automatic nature of Thunderbird so I can just manually create a pop3 setup on the first attempt instead of having dangerously high blood pressure for 30 minutes while I try to add an email account? It sounds like others (kikinovak) would like to know also. |
My 2 cents...
SeaMonkey is the main project for Mozilla. It's the same as FireFox and Thunderbird with Mozilla's IRC chat client built in, all one convenient package. You really have a choice. An all-in-one package or a split project package? I've used both, but I find myself any more only needing the Web Browser portion rather than anything else. Because of security issues, I do not use a mail client and since I rarely use IRC, I don't need it. |
I usually use Firefox/Thunderbird. Sometimes I use Opera or Chrome. I rarely use Konqueror or Seamonkey.
Speaking of Seamonkey, 2.12.1 was released on the 10th of September. It compiles fine under 14.0RC4 (-current). Update: Seamonkey has been upgraded to 2.12.1 according to the latest ChangeLog. |
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I'm right now experimenting with the Firefox ESR browser and the Thunderbird ESR mail client (Extended Support Release), and they look quite promising. Not the latest and greatest, but just what a FF & TB user might need... with a focus on stability and long-term support. First impressions are excellent.
If you're curious, take a peek here: Code:
$ svn co svn://svn.tuxfamily.org/svnroot/microlinux/slackware Build time is roughly an hour on my battered AMD64 with 2GB of RAM. Careful: work in progress. "Release" planned for the end of september. |
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