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<html>
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<title>Mozilla Firebird - A review LG #97</title>
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<h1>Mozilla Firebird - A review</h1>
<p id="by"><b>By <A HREF="../authors/shekhar.html">Raj Shekhar</A></b></p>
<p>
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0>
<TR><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"><A HREF="firebird.html#SEC1">1. Firebird</A></TD><TD> </TD><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"></TD></TR>
<TR><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"><A HREF="firebird.html#SEC2">2. Installation</A></TD><TD> </TD><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"></TD></TR>
<TR><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"><A HREF="firebird.html#SEC3">3. Making it the default browser in GNOME</A></TD><TD> </TD><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"></TD></TR>
<TR><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"><A HREF="firebird.html#SEC4">4. What's Good</A></TD><TD> </TD><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"></TD></TR>
<TR><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"><A HREF="firebird.html#SEC5">5. More tips</A></TD><TD> </TD><TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="TOP"></TD></TR>
</TABLE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
<A NAME="SEC1"></A>
<A NAME="Firebird"></A>
<H1> 1. Firebird </H1>
<!--docid::SEC1::-->
I have been using Mozilla Firebird for some time now and have stopped
my search of a better browser. I had used Mozilla earlier, but it was
so bloated that I switched to Galeon. However, if I had a beefier
system, I would have been happy with Mozilla, bloat or no
bloat. Mozilla took a lot of time to startup and came bundled with a
chat client and a mail reader, which I seldom used. On the other hand
its <SAMP>`tabbed windows'</SAMP> reduced a lot of desktop clutter. The
Firebird is a spin-off from Mozilla. The project aims to
develop software that is smaller and faster than Mozilla by extracting
and redesigning the browser part of the application suite.
<P>
The developers of Firebird started out with the aim of creating a
browser to provide an efficient (speedy, easy to use, useful) web
access. According to the
<A HREF="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/charter.html">Mozilla
Firebird 1.0 Development Charter</A>:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The goal was, and is not to have more or less features than any other
client (Mozilla included) but to have the <EM>right set of features</EM>
to let people get their jobs done.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
From what I see, I must congratulate the developers on a job very well
done.
<P>
<A NAME="Installation"></A>
<A NAME="SEC2"></A>
<H1> 2. Installation </H1>
<!--docid::SEC2::-->
<DL COMPACT>
<DT><STRONG>Using RPMs</STRONG>
<DD>I used the RPM to install Firebird on Red Hat 9.0. I am sure the hints
provided here will prove useful for installing on another RPM based
system. I used the RPMS for Red Hat maintained and built by
<A HREF="http://dag.wieers.com/packages/mozilla-firebird/">Dag Wieers</A>. If
you want to locate the RPMs for your own distribution, try searching
at <A HREF="http://rpmseek.com/">rpmseek</A>. Use <SAMP>`mozilla-firebird'</SAMP> as
your search string.
<P>
After downloading the RPM, you can install it from the command prompt <BR>
<CODE>rpm -ivh <package-name></CODE> <BR>
</P><P>
If you had installed Mozilla or Galeon earlier, you should have no
dependency problems. Otherwise, you may have to search, download and
install other packages too to solve the dependency problems. Again the
best places to find the packages are
<A HREF="http://rpmseek.com/">rpmseek</A>,
<A HREF="http://rpmfind.net/">Rpmfind.Net</A> and
<A HREF="http://rpm.pbone.net/">Rpm pbone</A>.
</P><P>
If you installed Firebird using the RPM package provided by Dag
Wieers, then you can launch Firebird by giving the command
<CODE>mozilla-firebird</CODE>. If you installed using the package provded by
some other repository, type <CODE>rpm -ql <package-name>|grep -i
/usr/bin</CODE>. That will provide you the command to launch Firebird.
</P><P>
<DT><STRONG>Using official Firebird Release</STRONG>
<DD><STRONG>Disclaimer </STRONG> I installed from a RPM and not from the official
Firebird Release.
<P>
You can get Firebird from the
<A HREF="http://texturizer.net/firebird/download.html">Mozilla Firebird
download page</A>. At the time of writing, the website recommends to
install Mozilla Firebird 0.7. There are downloads available for
<A HREF="http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firebird/releases/0.7/MozillaFirebird-0.7-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz">GTK (9.1 MB)</A> and
<A HREF="http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firebird/releases/0.7/MozillaFirebird-0.7-i686-linux-gtk2+xft.tar.gz">GTK2
and XFT (8.6 MB)</A>. Read the
<A HREF="http://texturizer.net/firebird/download.html#install">How To
Install</A> section to learn more on installation.
</P><P>
I will give a brief outline of the installation process. After you
have downloaded the appropiate tarball from the above mentioned links,
login as <CODE>root</CODE>. Unzip the files into the directory
<TT>`/usr/lib/'</TT>. Next, issue the command <BR> <CODE>chown -c -r
root:root /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird</CODE> <BR> In case you unzipped the
tarball into a different directory, remember to substitute the proper
name of the directory. That's all to the install process. To launch
your brand new browser, issue the command <BR>
<CODE>/usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird</CODE> <BR> However, if you
want to make it your default browser in GNOME and want to avoid the
hassle of typing the full path every time, see the next section.
</P><P>
<DT><STRONG>Installation in Windows</STRONG>
<DD>If you have a 100% Linux shop, you can safely skip this
step. However, if you have to use Windows, I would strongly suggest
that you consider switching from Internet Explorer to
<A HREF="http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firebird/releases/0.7/MozillaFirebird-0.7-win32.zip">Firebird</A>. I
tested it out on a Windows 2000 PC. As in Linux, you have to just
unzip the files, click on the <TT>`MozillaFirebird.exe'</TT> and that is
the end of the installation process. The first time it starts up,
Firebird imports your IE bookmarks and also asks you if you would like
to make Firebird your default browser.
<P>
</DL>
<P>
<A NAME="Making it the default browser in GNOME"></A>
<A NAME="SEC3"></A>
<H1> 3. Making it the default browser in GNOME </H1>
<!--docid::SEC3::-->
Login as root and in your <TT>`/usr/bin/'</TT> directory create a file
called <TT>`firebird-remote'</TT>. Put the following lines into it
<P>
<TABLE><tr><td> </td><td class=example><pre>#!/bin/sh
/usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird -remote "openURL($@, new-tab)" ||
exec /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird "$@";
</pre></td></tr></table>Just change the directory locations to suit your installation. Use
<CODE>chmod a+x /usr/bin/firebird-remote</CODE> to assign everyone the
permission to execute the script. That is all the work required by you
as root.
</P><P>
In case you are wondering what this shell-script does, here is a brief
explanation. When Firebird is invoked with the <SAMP>`-remote'</SAMP>
argument, it does not open a window, but instead connects to and
controls an already-existing process. The argument <SAMP>`openURL
(URL, new-tab)'</SAMP> creates a new tab displaying the specified
document. If you would rather have it open a new window, use
<SAMP>`openURL (URL, new-window)'</SAMP> instead. The page
<A HREF="http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html">remote control of unix
mozilla</A> has more explanation about this. Thie above script first
checks if we already have a Firebird running and displays the page in
a new tab. If it does not find one, it creates a new process and
displays the page in it.
</P><P>
Next, if you wnat to make Firebird your default browser in GNOME, you
have to edit the file <TT>`~/.gnome/Gnome'</TT>. You will find it contains a directive
<TABLE><tr><td> </td><td class=example><pre>[URL Handlers]
http-show=nautilus "%s"
https-show=nautilus "%s"
:
[ other non-interesting suff ]
:
</pre></td></tr></table>Add or edit the lines so that it becomes
<TABLE><tr><td> </td><td class=example><pre>[URL Handlers]
http-show=firebird-remote "%s"
https-show=firebird-remote "%s"
ftp-show=firebird-remote "%s"
:
[leave this portion unchanged]
:
</pre></td></tr></table>Thats all to it. Your default browser for GNOME and its associate apps
like Evolution is now Firebird.
</P><P>
<A NAME="What is Good"></A>
<A NAME="SEC4"></A>
<H1> 4. What's Good </H1>
<!--docid::SEC4::-->
Firebird packs quite a lot of power under its hood. The feature I like
the most is <EM>tabbed-browsing</EM>. When you <KBD>Ctrl + click</KBD> on a
link, it opens on a page in background <EM>Tab</EM>. This way, you go on
reading the current page and the new page gets loaded in the
background.
<P>
Firebird stops annoying popup windows dead in their tracks. This is a
good example of a good thing implemented in a very non-intrusive
manner. When it blocks a popup window, it displays an icon in the
status bar. Clicking this icon shows a breakdown of the popup that
Firebird stopped when loading the current page. You can then allow
some or all of the popup windows to be shown.
</P><P>
Quite a few people think
<A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">Free Software</A> means
an ugly user interface. Firebird is aesthetically designed, with nice
icons and colors. If you are not happy with the default look-and-feel,
checkout the <A HREF="http://www.texturizer.net/firebird/themes/">themes
collection on display</A>. Some themes simply change the colors of
Mozilla Firebird, others can change every piece of the browser
appearance. I have switched from the default theme to the
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/alfredkayser/mozilla/thunderbird.htm">LittleFirebird theme</A>, which reduces screen-space usage.
</P><P>
Firebird allows enhancing of the basic browser by use of
extensions. If there a particular feature which you think Firebird
lacks, check out the
<A HREF="http://www.texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/">extensions</A>
available. In all probability, you will find what you need there.
</P><P>
<A NAME="More tips"></A>
<A NAME="SEC5"></A>
<H1> 5. More tips </H1>
<!--docid::SEC5::-->
<DL COMPACT>
<DT><STRONG>Plugins</STRONG>
<DD>Whenever Firebird comes across a page which needs some particular
plugin to be installed, it asks you whether you want to install the
plugin or not. It then takes you to the download page of that
particular plugin. However, you can get all the major plugins from
<A HREF="http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/linux.html">Mozilla Plugin Support
page for Linux</A> (or the
<A HREF="http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/windows.html">Windows page</A>).
<P>
<DT><STRONG>Block opening new windows</STRONG>
<DD>Firebird doesn't stop web pages from opening in new windows (i.e using
the <CODE>target="_blank"</CODE> or the illegal <CODE>target="_new"</CODE>
properties.) you can tweak your settings to do this. In the address
bar, if you type <CODE>about:config</CODE>, it takes you to the browser's
settings page. Use the <SAMP>`Filter'</SAMP> to find the string
<CODE>browser.block.target_new_window</CODE>, right click on it and
<CODE>Modify</CODE> the value to <CODE>true</CODE>.
<P>
<DT><STRONG>Increase text size</STRONG>
<DD>If you find the text size of a site too small, you can increase it by
using the <KBD>Ctrl</KBD> + <KBD>+</KBD> key.
</DL>
<P>
There are more tips on the
<A HREF="http://texturizer.net/firebird/tips.html">Tips & Trick page</A>.
</P><P>
<BR>
<FONT SIZE="-1">
This document was generated
on <I>December, 4 2003</I>
using <A HREF="http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~obachman/Texi2html
"><I>texi2html</I></A>
</p>
<!-- *** BEGIN author bio *** -->
<P>
<P>
<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<P>
<img ALIGN="LEFT" ALT="[BIO]" SRC="../gx/2002/note.png">
<em>
I have completed my Bachelor in Information Technology from University
of Delhi. I have been a Linux fan since the time I read "Unix Network
Programming" by Richard Stevens and started programming in GNU/Linux in my seventh
semaster . I have been trying to convert people right, left and center ever
since.
</em>
<br CLEAR="all">
<!-- *** END bio *** -->
<!-- *** END author bio *** -->
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Copyright © 2003, Raj Shekhar. Copying license
<a href="http://linuxgazette.net/copying.html">http://linuxgazette.net/copying.html</a>
</p>
<p>
Published in Issue 97 of Linux Gazette, December 2003
</p>
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