Beonex Communicator

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Beonex Communicator
Beonex-icon.png
Beonex.6-book-of-mozilla.png
Beonex Communicator 0.6 displaying the Book of Mozilla
Original author(s) Ben Bucksch
Developer(s) Beonex Business Services
Initial release 0.6, 11 November 2000 (2000-11-11)[1]
Discontinued 0.8.2-stable / 21 March 2003
Development status discontinued
Written in C++, XUL, XBL, JavaScript
Operating system Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD
Available in English, German
Type Internet suite
License MPL/Netscape Public License[2]
Website www.beonex.com

Beonex Communicator was an open source Internet suite based on the Mozilla Application Suite (MAS) by Ben Bucksch, a German Mozilla developer.[3] It was intended to have a higher security and privacy level than other commercial products.[4][5][6]

The Internet suite contained a Web browser, an email and news client, an HTML editor (based on Mozilla Composer) and an IRC client (based on ChatZilla).[5][6][7]

Beonex Business Services offered the suite for free and provided documentation, easy install routines for third-party plug-ins, and tried to sell support and customer-specific changes on the browser.[8][9] The main goal was to implement Kerberos, OpenPGP, and LDAP in Beonex,[10] but that was marked as failed in mid 2004.[11]

Contents

[edit] History

Overall, this project seems most interested in staying as true to Mozilla as possible.[12]

The Mozilla Organization stated that the Mozilla Application Suite was only for developers and testing purposes and was not meant for end users.[13][14][15][16]

On 5 January 2001 Beonex was included in the Linux distribution kmLinux version S-0.4, but was removed in version S-0.5 released on 23 March 2001.[17]

Beonex 0.8 released in June 2002 received positive reviews about its speed.[18][19]

a BeOL preview

Beonex Launcher(BeOL, spoken B-O-L), was an additional upcoming product that never left alpha status which was a stripped down version of the Internet suite Beonex Communicator. It was a Web browser combined with an email client and a chat client.[20]

With a few preview releases of version 0.9 in mid 2002 he showed some new features he wanted to integrate, but before this version gained a stable status, he announced on the 2 March 2004 that no new releases were planned until the Mozilla Foundation decided its future policy.[21] In 2005, the Mozilla Foundation officially changed its policies and created the Mozilla Corporation to provide end-user support.

Beonex Communicator 0.8.2-stable has several known security issues.[22] Beonex never received much market share.[14]

[edit] Comparison with Netscape and MAS

The browser disabled referrers by default and had the possibility to create a fake referrers.[23] The browser deleted all cookies when the program exited and also disabled several JavaScript functions which could have served as attack vectors.[6][24][25]

In the following comparison table not all releases of Netscape and MAS are included. For a more complete table see Gecko (layout engine).

Mozilla Application Suite Netscape Beonex Communicator
Version Releasedate
0.6 6.0 0.6[1] 14 November 2000
0.9.2 6.1
0.9.4 6.2
0.9.4.1 6.2.2 0.7[1] 8 November 2001
1.0 0.8[26] 5 June 2002
1.0.1 7.0 0.8.1[27] 19 September 2002
1.0.2 7.01 and 7.02 0.8.2[28] 10 March 2003
1.1 0.9pre 27 August 2002[1]

[edit] Differences to Netscape

In contrast to Netscape, Beonex had included nearly the same features except the proprietary parts like the integrated Net2Phone,[29] and the AOL Instant Messenger.[29] The chat tool ChatZilla was integrated[30] and the sidebar and the search engines were also preconfigured.[3][19] Beonex was less resource-intensive than Netscape.[31]

Beonex included a migration tool to include the old profiles from Netscape Communicator.[6][19]

[edit] Differences to MAS

Beonex Communicator was not a fork of MAS, it was a separate branch, so no significant changes were made.[32] HTML email and JavaScript had been turned off by default and thus displaying email only in plain text with bold and cursive additions[6][33] which was added later in MAS 1.1.[34] The search engines were compatible to the Mycroft project and were located in the sidebar providing more features.[35]

[edit] New features

Beonex integrated a special tool to change the user agent.[36]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Bucksch, Ben (12 March 2003). "News". Beonex Communicator. http://www.beonex.com/support/announce/news.html. Retrieved 28 January 2011. 
  2. ^ Bucksch, Ben. "Legal notices". Beonex Communicator. http://www.beonex.com/communicator/legal/. Retrieved 28 January 2011. 
  3. ^ a b "Mozilla-Entwickler mit eigener Browser-Distribution" (in German). Heinz Heise. 14 November 2000. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Mozilla-Entwickler-mit-eigener-Browser-Distribution-27527.html. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  4. ^ Huchler, Andreas (February 2001) (in German). Frische Ware. LinuxUser. https://www.linux-user.de/ausgabe/2001/02/007-software/software-02.html?print=y. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  5. ^ a b "Beonex". Kefk Network. 4 June 2002. http://kefk.net/Open_Source/FS/Beonex/index.html. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  6. ^ a b c d e D'Hollander, Peter (February 2004). "Alternative Browsers" (in Dutch). Personal Computer Magazine: 96, 97. ISSN 0772-8077. 
  7. ^ "Beonex User Agent Strings". UserAgentString.Com. http://www.useragentstring.com/pages/Beonex/. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  8. ^ "Vielversprechender Netscape 6 Konkurrent" (in German). Blindschleiche.de. 26 November 2000. Archived from the original on 16 October 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20041016061010/http://www.blindschleiche.de/shownews.php3/258. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  9. ^ Foster-Johnson, Eric (30 November 2003). "Just browsing, thanks". ComputerUser. IDG. http://www.computeruser.com/articles/just-browsing-thanks.html. Retrieved 4 April 2011. 
  10. ^ "Announcing Beonex". Mozillazine. Mozilla. 29 November 2000. http://mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=1745. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  11. ^ "Bug 124026 - Roaming - funding via Beonex". Mozilla. 24 May 2004. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124026. Retrieved 30 January 2011. 
  12. ^ "Beonex Communicator 0.6 Pre". Tucows. 30 November 2000. Archived from the original on 14 November 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20021114125904/http://linuxberg.surfnet.nl/x11html/preview/154164.html. 
  13. ^ "CyberSecurity.ru" (in Russian). CyberSecurity.ru. 23 January 2008. http://www.cybersecurity.ru/net/40269.html. Retrieved 30 January 2011. 
  14. ^ a b Metzger, Holger. "Über Mozilla" (in German). http://www.holgermetzger.de/faqabout.html. Retrieved 30 January 2011. ; shorten English version available here
  15. ^ Violka, Karsten (2002). "Zahmes Monster" (in German). C't (Heinz Heise) 13: 218. 
  16. ^ Bager, Jo (2002). "Surfen ohne e - Mit Opera und Mozilla sicherer ins Netz" (in German). C't (Heinz Heise) 25: 106. 
  17. ^ "Entwicklungsgeschichte". Schleswig-Holstein. 6 December 2004. http://www.lernnetz-sh.de/kmLinux/changes.html. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  18. ^ Kluge, Oliver (2002) (in German). Jagdgesellschaft. Linux-Magazin. p. 2. http://www.linux-magazin.de/Heft-Abo/Ausgaben/2002/12/Jagdgesellschaft/(offset). Retrieved 29 January 2011. [dead link]
  19. ^ a b c Behrens, Fionn. "Slimfast für Mozilla" (in German). Linux-Community.de. Archived from the original on 12 July 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20020612045509/http://www.linux-community.de/Neues/story?storyid=691. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  20. ^ Bucksch, Ben. "BeOL". Beonex Communicator. http://www.developer.beonex.com/beol/. Retrieved 7 February 2011. 
  21. ^ Kluge, Oliver (September 2005) (in German). Soll der Fuchs ihn holen. 9. LinuxUser. http://www.linux-magazin.de/Heft-Abo/Ausgaben/2005/09/Soll-der-Fuchs-ihn-holen. Retrieved 7 February 2011. 
  22. ^ "Mozilla Browser Cross Domain Violation Vulnerability". Security Focus. 16 April 2003. http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/7363. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  23. ^ Schulzki-Haddouti, Christiane (31 January 2003). "Digitale Spuren - Surfer hinterlassen im Netz Spuren" (in German). Telepolis. Heinz Heise. http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/14/14052/1.html. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  24. ^ "Beonex-Browser: Mozilla 1.0 mit mehr Sicherheitsfunktionen". Golem.de. 7 June 2002. http://www.golem.de/0206/20223.html. Retrieved 30 January 2011. 
  25. ^ Huchler, Andreas (March 2001) (in German). Tore zur WWWelt - Sieben aktuelle Web-Browser im Vergleich. 3. LinuxUser. http://www.linux-community.de/Internal/Artikel/Print-Artikel/LinuxUser/2001/03/Sieben-aktuelle-Web-Browser-im-Vergleich. Retrieved 8 February 2011. 
  26. ^ "Open-Source-Browser Beonex Communicator in Version 0.8" (in German). Heinz Heise. 7 June 2002. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Open-Source-Browser-Beonex-Communicator-in-Version-0-8-62640.html. Retrieved 5 April 2011. 
  27. ^ Bucksch, Ben. "0.8.1". Beonex Communicator. http://www.beonex.com/communicator/version/0.8/release-notes/security-alert/081.html. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  28. ^ Bucksch, Ben. "Release-notes". Beonex Communicator. http://www.beonex.com/communicator/version/0.8/release-notes/. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  29. ^ a b "Zweiter Ableger vom Mozilla" (in German). GIGA Television. Archived from the original on 3 December 2002. http://web.archive.org/web/20021203134841/http://www.giga.de/dbout/reporter5/fullstories/nr20925.html. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  30. ^ Behme, Henning (2001). "World Wide Web" (in German). iX (Heinz Heise) 1: 26. 
  31. ^ "Netscape 6: Fett, aber schnell (Update)" (in German). Heinz Heise. 14 November 2000. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Netscape-6-Fett-aber-schnell-Update-27315.html. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  32. ^ Bucksch, Ben. "We are accepting patches". Beonex Communicator. http://www.developer.beonex.com/communicator/patches/. Retrieved 30 January 2011. 
  33. ^ Violka, Karsten (2002). "Nur-Text-Mails im Mozilla" (in German). C't (Heinz Heise) 17: 188. http://www.heise.de/ct/hotline/Nur-Text-Mails-im-Mozilla-312910.html. Retrieved 7 February 2011. 
  34. ^ "Mozilla 1.1 Alpha ist da" (in German). Golem.de. 12 June 2002. http://www.golem.de/showhigh2.php?file=/0206/20285.html. Retrieved 7 March 2011. 
  35. ^ Krause, Ralph (1 March 2002). "Browser Comparison". Linux Journal. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5413?page=0,1. Retrieved 29 January 2011. 
  36. ^ Лепихов, Константин (17 March 2004). "Прыткая ящерица" (in Russian). Computerra.ru. http://www.computerra.ru/hitech/32389/print.html. 

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