Camino, the best Gecko-based browser NOT named Firefox 3, has just been updated to version 1.6.3. This update, which seems to have rolled in 1.6.2 along with it (at least I never got the 1.6.2 notification, and I use Camino pretty frequently), sports the latest update to the Gecko 1.8.1 branch, including several critical stability and security fixes with better ad-blocking. Plus, it no longer crashes if a pop-up is displayed while dragging a bookmark.

Even though Firefox 3 is now a largely native Cocoa application, I still appreciate Camino's interface and speed. If nothing else, it's great to use as a Firefox 2/Gecko 1.8.1 testing agent when developing websites for compatibility.

You can download Camino here; optimized builds aren't available as of this writing, but check this site over the next few days for updates.

You hate Entourage, and you're not particularly fond of iCal. You've waited endlessly for Nighthawk, Contactizer Pro is too complicated, and you want a native app instead of using Google Calendar or another web calendar. And, since you're saving money for an iPhone 3G, you don't want to spend any money on a calendar app.

Maybe it's time to look at Mozilla Sunbird 0.8 for Mac OS X. It's developed by the same people who brought us Firefox and Thunderbird. It's almost identical to the Lightning calendar plugin for Thunderbird, but doesn't require that email app to run. Upon first startup, Sunbird will import events and tasks from your existing calendar application.

The UI is plain and simple, probably because this is a multi-platform application (Windows, Linux, and Solaris in addition to Mac OS X) that shares a lot of code between the different flavors. Sunbird can tie into CalDAV servers such as the one in Mac OS X Server 10.5, and can subscribe to any .ics format shared calendars. In limited testing, Sunbird felt responsive in searches and was quite stable for betaware.

Sunbird, of course, is free. If you are searching for a new calendar app, give it a try.

The graphic above says it all -- Firefox 3 Download Day was a success, with 8,002,530 downloads in 24 hours. Amazingly, this happened despite all of the initial download glitches that happened on Download Day. The Mozilla team is reporting that 29,116,621 copies of Firefox 3 have been downloaded as of 1:13 PM ET today.

If you signed up for Download Day notifications, you'll receive this email as well and you can get your own cheesy certificate, suitable for framing (or not).

Since I downloaded Firefox 3, I've been enjoying some of the plugins that are now residing at the bottom of my browser (Twitterfox and the Accuweather Forecastfox plugin). Firefox 3 seems faster to me, and I like the way it displays sites that are using certificates by putting a wide, clickable banner in the address bar. What are your opinions about Firefox 3?

As reported earlier here on TUAW, Firefox 3 Download Day began with a whimper instead of a bang. Starting shortly after the official launch, TUAW received a number of tips from readers who tried downloading the vulpine browser and got...nothing.

It appears that things cleared up fairly quickly. Several TUAW bloggers were able to successfully download the new browser about 90 minutes after the 10 AM PDT launch. The Mozilla Blog has a message from Paul Kim, Mozilla's VP of marketing, talking about the early difficulties and the subsequent download trend:

"Our systems were quite busy earlier this morning so individual requests may not have gotten through - but they are all up now and serving a tremendous amount of traffic and downloads. We are currently serving almost 9,000 downloads a minute, which puts us on track to achieve 5-7 million downloads our first day of general availability."

More highlights and records are outlined on the blog. Be sure to download your very own customized Thank You! Certificate, available here.

[via the Mozilla Blog]

The news that Apple has stealthily included Safari in its Software Updater bounced all over the Mac blogosphere today, and earned cheers and jeers (well, mostly jeers). Here's a quick roundup.

• The most attention probably comes from John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, who unequivocally calls the decision "wrong," and says that doing something other than "updating" with an "updater" betrays the public trust.
• Darby Lines at The Angry Drunk says that the whole matter is just plain "whining" and that Apple is hardly forcing the software on anyone, especially considering that there's a checkbox right next to the name of it. And it's not like, as many people have said, installing Safari on a PC is actually a bad move.
• The Inquirer actually makes a worthwhile joke: "Some iTunes users report that the box to sign up for Safari appears pre-ticked." At least we think that's a joke -- you'd only say Apple was "targeting" and "hijacking" Windows users if you were joking, right?
• Microsoft Watch calls the program a "rogue updater," while Paul Mison fisks them pretty completely and shows that even if Apple did somehow hurt the computers by installing a reasonable, standards-compliant browser, Microsoft has done much, much worse.

So what's the deal overall? As we said earlier, Jobs very plainly told us this was going to happen, and though, yes, users who don't pay attention may end up with extra software, it's extremely easy to not install the software. While a warning might have been nice, Apple isn't really outside its bounds here, so it's unlikely that they'll change it anyway.

The only real result is that users, whether PC or Mac, are reminded once again to pay attention to what they're clicking on. It's unexpected that Apple would be the company to remind us of that, but it's as true as ever.

Soon, Netscape Navigator - the first highly successful graphical web browser (yeah, yeah, I know Mosaic came before Netscape, but I don't remember seeing Mosaic floppy-disks bundled with my PC World and Macworld magazines in 1995, at least not under the name "Mosaic") - will be nothing more than a footnote in Internet history. Let's take a moment of silence for the big N. OK, that was long enough.

AOL, the parent company of this blog and Netscape, has announced that they will cease support for the current version of Netscape as of February 1, 2008. Netscape, which at its peak in the mid-1990s held 80% of the web browser marketshare, and was a player in Browser Wars 1.0.

Long before Apple released Safari in 2003, Netscape was a pretty familiar application to scores of Mac users. Even after Apple started shipping Internet Explorer for Mac with OS 8.1 and enabling it as the default browser, Netscape Navigator was still included, and at least in my experience, often preferred over IE for Mac. The very first web browser I ever used was Netscape Navigator 1.something on a Power Mac 6200 (which some say was the worst Mac ever) way back in 1995. Although other browsers were available at the time, Netscape was the first to be cross platform (and perform the same across platforms - which was an important distinction).

Shortly before AOL bought Netscape in 1998, the code base of Netscape Communicator 4 was released under an open-source license. This project, which was called Mozilla, eventually resulted into what we now know as Firefox (note that the Mozilla team basically rewrote the code for what became the basis of the Mozilla suite, later forked as Firefox, from the ground up, as the Communicator code was too much of a mess).

Although Netscape is gone, a theme is available for the current version of Firefox to make it look like Netscape 9. No word on when a theme like the image below will become available. Be careful what you joke about: Kroc Camen in the comments pointed out this.

Thanks C.K. Sample III

[via Download Squad]

We Mac users take our web browsers seriously, which helps account for the fact that there are just so many of them to choose from. For my money the top browser on OS X is Camino (though Safari 3 is closing in fast). Camino, as you can see from the accompanying picture here, makes a big deal out of its 'Mac Style,' and it does feel much more at home on a Mac than Firefox does (though the Firefox team is working on that).

Camino is free, as are most browsers these days (Ominweb, I'm looking at you), but that doesn't mean you can't chip in to support development. The Camino Project recently announced that they can now take donations. Working with the Mozilla Foundation the Camino Project has setup a way for you to donate money to support the app, and get the added bonus of writing it off on your taxes. Best of all, the Mozilla Foundation will offer a 2 for 1 match until the end of the year, or until the donations reach $10,000, whichever comes first.

If you're a big Camino user be sure to head on over to their donation page and send 'em a few dollars.

John Lilly, COO of Mozilla, has a bone to pick with Steve Jobs and Apple. As you might imagine, John keeps an eye on the browser market space, and he was interested to see Apple port Safari to Windows. This was a big deal, but the slide above had John worried. As you can see the pie chart shows Internet Explorer's market share and what Apple would like Safari's market share to be. Notice anything?

That's right, Firefox is no where to be found. John Lilly argues that this wasn't an oversight on Apple's part, but rather a glimpse into their intentions. They want Firefox users to switch to Safari and have the web controlled by 2 dominant products coded by the two dominant OS makers. John seems to think this would be a bad thing, and I agree with him. Having a choice of browsers is good for the web, and good for people who use the web (like you!). As John points out, Safari for Windows is a good thing since it offers uses another choice, but if Apple hopes to use Safari to stifle competition... well that's not very good at all.

What do you all think? Is this a paranoid dream, or a valid worry?

[via CNET]

There was a time, dear ones, when a giant walked the Web: Netscape Navigator, the browser sovereign, held a massive 80%+ share of the market back in the mid-1990s, until some funny business (where "funny" = "anticompetitive & monopolistic") led to the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The open-sourced core of Netscape 4 led to the development of the Mozilla, Firefox and Camino browsers we all love today.

Whence the original Netscape browser? The 8.0 release skipped the Mac, but believe it or not, the big N is back: Netscape Navigator 9 beta is available now as a Universal Binary. Under the surface, Navigator 9 is really a rebranded, tweaked and gracefully skinned version of Firefox 2.0 (including add-in compatibility), but nevertheless it's nice to see the green giant back in the saddle.

Note: TUAW and the Weblogs, Inc. network are corporate siblings of Netscape under the AOL umbrella.

Over at the Office Google Mac Blog, Mike Pinkerton, Google Mac Team Software Engineer, just announced a Google Tech Talk he gave back in January. Now the reason this is of interest is that Pinkerton also just happens to be the project lead for the Camino web browser and the talk he gave (as part of Google's Open Source Developers series) discusses the history of the Camino and Mozilla projects back from the Netscape days, as well as some future plans for Camino.

Check it out over at Google video (where else?)

Right behind the update to Firefox, the Mozilla crew has bumped resident email/news/RSS client Thunderbird to version 1.5.0.9. Several security and bugfix changes are included. You can lift your wings and download it at mozilla.org.

I will admit that I've never used Thunderbird on a regular basis, as I am bound to Entourage/Exchange at work and I've gotten (reluctantly) used to it. Email clients are like your barber; even if the haircut isn't that great, switching to a new one involves a degree of discomfort. I'd be interested to hear what T-bird users like or dislike most about their feathery friend. (No John Travolta jokes.)

Firefox, the web browser that needs no further introduction, has been updated to version 2.0.0.1. This update includes a few security patches and also adds general support for Windows Vista, which I have to keep reminding myself is somewhat relevant to a Mac-themed blog now!

Grab a copy for your favorite OS (if your favorite is a not-too-ancient flavor of Mac OS X, Windows or Linux), in your native tongue (ok, not every language is there, but it's a broad sweep), on the Mozilla's downloads page.

A deal-breaker for many potential Thunderbird users is its lack of integration with Mac OS X's Address Book. While we found a web-based exporting tool back in January that worked for some users, plenty of others have their reasons for sticking with Apple's digital rolodex.

We've heard about unofficial Thunderbird builds and plugins that can allow it to use contacts from Address Book, but it seems their developmental progress has been stop and go over the past year. Enter Robert Coleman, a quintessential knight in coding armor who has released an updated build of Thunderbird that traverses the void between Mozilla's and Apple's address books - though it isn't without a little bit of fiddling and a catch. Robert had to post some vital instructions with the build which you must follow before you can get your hands on the goods, so read carefully. The catch? Address Book integration is read-only; you can't add new contacts from Thunderbird, but hey - it's a start.

[via Hawk Wings]

Firefox is fantastic... on Windows. I don't think there is much argument that Firefox is sorely lacking when it comes to fitting in to the OS X environment. Camino is a great alternative for those seeking a browser with the Gecko engine, but it doesn't have nearly the flexibility and expandability of true-blue Firefox. Lucky for those who wish to keep the expandability of the Fox but have a sleek Mac-like browser, Mozilla has started development on a Cocoa based version of FireFox codenamed Minefield. Being a native application, the Minefield will have all the goodies of a real Mac browser like native GUI objects and OS X spell checking. Before you all rush off and announce that this is your next main browser, keep in mind that these are early development builds, and crashes, missing features, and bugs all come with the territory. Running Minefield from a disk image broke my dock, and I had to restart the dock process to get it working again.

[via MacUser]

For Intel Mac users who are just ga-ga for Camino, a helpful MozillaZine Forums user by the name of heronstalker has posted a build of Camino optimized for Intel Macs - but only for Intel Macs. This is not a Universal Binary, it's a... Singular Binary, er something.

I ran my old 'n busted copy of Camino against this new hotness Intel build on my 2.0 Ghz MacBook Pro, and I *think* it feels zippier. Of course, it could just be the fancy new Intel shine, so YMMV. For those users interested in saving some disk space, however, this build shaves 17MB off Camino's footprint; my Universal Camino is 39.9MB, while the Singular Binary Camino (yes, I know that isn't a real term) is only 22.3MB (this is a great example of why apps like Monolingual exist).

This Intel build, which is the latest 1.0.2 version, btw, can be had from this MozillaZine Forum post.

Thanks Jason Piper