Firebird and Phoenity

My FAVORITE browser is Mozilla Firebird. It's an offshoot of the Mozilla browser (the open source development project that eventually builds the Netscape browser). This browser is light-weight - no mail client, chat client, "free" add-on product placement icons, etc; has a ton of cool features, and is highly customizable. Right now they are at version 0.7, so it's not quite a production release, but in my normal everyday browsing at home and at work, it functions WONDERFULLY. Any bugs that I encounter aren't show stoppers and are mostly very minor anyway and I can wait until the next release of the software for the fix.

Firebird, and Mozilla in general, allows tabbed browsing, which I find to be one of THE best features of the software. Instead of opening a new window to visit a new website, or using the same window over and over to follow links -- makes it hard to dual task read websites or compare information or even remember how you ended up on this other site, instead each window opens as a tab in the browser. Then, another clever person built an extension (add-on) for the Mozilla browsers to allow the user to highly customize how the tabs work: top of the screen or bottom? Links outside of the current website open in a new window? Javascript windows open in new tab? Bookmarks open in new tab? All kinds of cool features. See here for more information.

Another cool feature of Mozilla browsers is pop-up ad blocking! SUCH a life saver when surfing the web. I'm hardly ever annoyed anymore by those pop up or pop under ads anymore!

In any case, Firebird recently had a new build available: 0.7. The old release 0.6 was nearing four to six months of age, so it was time to play in major bug fixes and new features. Wonderful! Well, almost. Mozilla.org changed their website navigation about the same time, so things that were very obvious before (ie, instructions on how to upgrade), weren't so obvious anymore. It took me nearly an hour to install my new version so that it worked correctly and then tweak it to how I like to use it. They've since improved the navigation of the site.

Another feature is the ability to change the skin/theme of the browser. This means the look and feel, ie, icons for the back and forward buttons, thick or thinness of the window frame, even menu options! (See here for the entire list of available themes for Firebird.) My favorite is Phoenity Lite. This theme uses up the least amount of screen real estate and is crisp and clean. I LOVE this theme. Unfortunately, it didn't work with the new version of Firebird. :( Installing it caused my screen to jump up and down. Yuck. Oddly enough, it DID/does work on my work computer. But the instructions clearly state that it is not compatible with the new version. :( I downloaded another interesting theme that was good as a temporary theme (Doodle), but honestly, I didn't like using my browser anymore. I like using it TONS better than Mozilla or Netscape or IE (bleck, ick, EWWW), but I just didn't want to browse anymore at home.

HOWEVER, today I went searching to see if anybody updated the theme, and YAY!! somebody had! Woo hoo! Happy browsing Anna again! Yippee! It's a temporary fix, and I'll have to keep looking for updates, but I have my theme back! I am sooo JAZZed about this? Or can't you tell by the number of capitals and exclamation points (ausrufezeichen)???? :) Posted by Jinglelady at December 16, 2003 10:24 PM | Previous Blog | TrackBack