Moving to Mozilla: A user's perspective

Would you want to move away from a browser like MS Internet Explorer and an email client like Outlook express to the Mozilla application (MozApp), which includes a browser and a mail client? You probably have apprehensions about the process of transition to Mozilla. One of the primary concerns would be how to migrate the address book entries and the mail boxes from one mail client into the Mozilla mail client.

Mozilla as a Mail client is pretty robust, albeit with minor bugs since it is open source and continually developing. The latest stable release of Mozilla is ver. 1.3. Being open source has enabled the implementation of various features that makes it a robust mail client. One such feature is the process of migration from other popular mail clients. The entire process of migration of a mailbox from other clients into Mozilla takes just a few minutes.

Mozilla Navigator (the browser part of the MozApp) is more robust with many features that can be added-on as required, browsing will be that much easier.

One hidden feature that is available is the use of the about:config option, which lets you make advanced preferences that can change different settings about the MozApp. You must be careful though, since this is a hidden feature and it must have been hidden from the regular browser to prevent any change affecting the working of the MozApp.

You can visit mozdev.org, where you can find various utilities that help browsing with Mozilla that much easy. One such project that will be of interest, is the AutoScroll project for mozilla. This is a utility for those without a scroll mouse, but a 3-buttoned mouse. The AutoScroll add-on lets you use the middle mouse on a lengthy web page and lets you scroll the Mozilla browser automatically based on the movement of the mouse, just as the scroll mouse allows you to use the scroll to move around a document!

Another interesting add-on, is connected to the about:config, Mozilla configuration feature that has been developed into a complete Advanced Preferences add-on named Preferential. Mycroft (earlier named Sherlock) is another add-on project, which lets you add most search engines to your search side-bar on Mozilla.