The Mozilla Foundation has revised and renamed its development browser, and added enterprise features to its developmental email client. New versions of the “Firefox” (formerly “Firebird”) and “Thunderbird” browser and email clients are available now for download.

The Firefox browser was renamed to avoid conflict with another open source project over the Firebird name, according to the Foundation.

Firefox 0.80 marks progress toward a 1.0 release that will enable it to replace the current Mozilla codebase. According to the Mozilla Foundation, the new release features includes:

• New download manager makes tracking multiple downloads easier
• Numerous improvements to bookmarks handling
• Improved handling of extensions – small applications that can be installed with a few mouse clicks and extend the browser's functionality. Community members have created more than 200 such extensions, including add-ons that add spell-checker functionality, and add the ability to search Amazon.com, eBay or other popular sites from the Firefox toolbar
• An easy to use installer for Microsoft Windows users
• A new default theme for Mac OS X users that integrates seamlessly with the OS X desktop environment

Thunderbird 0.5

The Mozilla Foundation also announced the latest preview release of its new email application, Mozilla Thunderbird, with new features aimed at enterprises and educational institutions. Including:

• The ability to synchronize address books with Palm devices
• IMAP performance and interoperability improvements
• Secure password authentication using SSPI NTLM for SMTP and POP3
• Improved LDAP support
• Improved migration from Netscape 4.x
• Improved spell checker and English dictionary
• Numerous other bug fixes and improvements

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.