I ain't afraid of no code.

This site is a resource for independent Mozilla-based development.

The basic vision is to list every past and present mozilla-based effort and provide resources or links to resources. It is long past time to continue doing that.

In addition to the list of XUL (and beyond) Mozilla-based applications and the resource links in the sidebar… We are currently providing code cross-reference and (additional) IRC Channel Logging for the SeaMonkey Project, among other bits and bobs that help fill the gap. Such as the newly launched SeaMonkey Contributed Community Infrastructure which lists all the SeaMonkey community resources not just the ones we provide.

Keep in mind, this is all merely the smallest sample of what can be done when we remember that even if Mozilla, the corporation, has long stopped being "mozilla", that in no way should mean WE should stop as well. Our Netscape forefathers gave us a powerful legacy that some simply don't want. I, however, refuse to accept that I or you, for that matter, can't have it at all for that reason.


The 90s Summarized.

“If you believe that mozilla.org is just a smokescreen, that the organization exists only to swindle you out of your hard work for the benefit of some shambling inhuman beast of a corporation, then don't contribute to it.
Take the source code, and build your own browser based on it. Fork the tree. Do what's right.”
— Jamie Zawinski (23-Nov-98)

The Original Rebellion

The SeaMonkey Project IS the original Mozilla fork in more ways than one. It has been an inspiration to many for some 20 years as it has charted its own unique course and continues to navigate towards The Future™.

SeaMonkey Internet Application Suite by The SeaMonkey Project
SeaMonkey consists of a web browser, which is a descendant of the Netscape family, an e-mail and news client program, an HTML editor and an IRC client (ChatZilla).

Other Pioneers

  • Classilla [No longer active]
  • TenFourFox [No longer active]
  • Kompozr [No longer active]

The Tobin Factor and a rebel BinOCzilla.

This website and its infrastructure is part of it. As was much of the Pale Moon-centric sphere of the Classic Rebellion. Including their now out-dated PHP software infrastructure such as the Add-ons Site. But their (and my) expression and my intended vision (on which it supposed to be based) long ago stopped being the same thing.

Didn't I mention? I am the creator of the Unified XUL Platform Take 2 (the one that worked) and originator of the idea of forking Mozilla as FULLY FEATURED Mozilla XUL Platform with continued evolution and not just (and only) a Firefox browser. Not to mention, uplifting a Firefox 24-based application directory up 14 codebases, twice. So it could continue as its self and not a recreation based on Australis and hacked old extension code. I didn't complete it single-handedly but it wouldn't have happened at all if not for my research, effort, and coordination.

Unfortunately, I got lost for a long time trying to advance a failed paradigm, so this resource accomplished very little (let alone BinOC or its former projects). Still, lessons are learned and my original vision really has to be pretty great for them to keep ridding off a decrepit corruption of it without ANY major change. But that version sure isn't the way forward. Not without a cost of somewhere around… everything.

Where are the apps?

While Borealis Navigator, the most popular piece of vaporware ever to grace a mozilla codebase that it somehow has its own downstream, will never be released. UXP is still as much a BinOC creation as it is MCP's and it sure needs some love as well as an ACTUAL classic style browser. Not to mention dozens of experiments that can only be ran on a fully featured XUL platform.

Modern Mozilla is also in the sights as is helping ANY willing independent mozilla-based project. Such as the SeaMonkey Project featured above!

As always, stay tuned for this section to be updated with actual things.

-nsITobin

The Classic Rebellion

PART of the Classic Rebellion is a story of abandoned hopes, crippled projects, Unified eXclusion Platforms and DRAMA.

Sooo much drama: "X is not Y and never will be again" or simply screaming at users for not understanding programming.. type stuff.

Prideful excellence, unchecked, devolves into a quest of purity and supremacy and while technological purity has some benefits.. Its costs are VERY high, perhaps too high.

Unified XUL Platform

— Might be simpler to just leave the Bronx. —


That is not to say that EVERYTHING "classic" happens to be in lunar orbit or employs this tech supremeist mentality. There are many other projects and forks that have come but most have gone. They will be listed here as they are (re)collected.

Other Projects

  • GNU IceCat
  • Firefox-based Flock Social Browser
  • Cyberfox
  • Waterfox Classic and earlier
  • 64bit Firefox Rebrands
  • Thunderbird-based Eudora
  • The Original GeckoFx
  • Every XULRunner-based Project (UXP Doesn't count).
  • Anything that used MozEmbedding in the late-2000s
  • Others…

The Modern Rebellion

Rather than abandon hope or be limited to concepts like technological purity, these projects have gone beyond the quantum divide and past classical XUL to continue the good fight in arbitrarily charted waters. Some are newcomers to the fray.

Zen Browser by The Zen Browser Project
Beautifully design, privacy-focused, and packed with features that cares about your experience, not your data.

Betterbird by The BetterBird Project
Betterbird is a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird, Thunderbird on steroids, if you will.

Waterfox by BrowserWorks Ltd
Fast and Private Web Browser based on Firefox

MyPal by Fedor2 (and MSFN Community Contributors)
Looking for the perfect Windows XP web browser? Mypal is a current and maintained browser for Windows XP. Turn that old PC into something useful!

Conclusion

We're all smart enough to know there isn't —ONLY— XUL out there. Well some of us are, anyway.

There are always those who will begin to believe their own propaganda.

For the rest of us, the technology is just that.. The technology. The benefits come from what you can do with it. Which is still unmatched even on the modern web let alone for its time. XUL becomes a set of principles and a declaration to follow them.

Indeed, far from being some long dead XML technology from an old and insecure Mozilla codebase, it is THE technology, that regardless, has remained a KEY inspiration for much of today's modern web. Even if those new technologies are lesser than their conceptual predicessors and often miss the point. Additionally, XUL continues in many forms to this day.

This is the lasting legacy of Netscape. The Netscape that they gave us, trusting, it would NOT be handed to the next America Online that sprung up to be subsequently gutted and then eradicated without question or regard. No one can take it away from any of us.. and it cannot be killed. Not utterly. That's the whole point. However, some will sure try.

Mozilla certainly gave it a shot and eventually changed their logo to a flag, often depicted in white on their website. With their Github org reading "This technology could fall into the right hands" with a green version of the Mozilla Flag.

Draw your own conclusions.


I do want to thank you, the visitor, for taking the time to read this page and visit the site. Specifically for keeping an open mind about XUL and other classical mozilla technologies, even if some proponents of them struggle to do the same in return.

Also, if any one cares, Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are still a thing and STILL contains XUL. Not much and after a fasion but XUL none the less. Until that changes… There is only XUL!