Mozilla 1.2 lives

UPDATE Although we have experienced no problems with this Mozilla release, discussions on Mozilla's bugtracking site, Bugzilla here, suggest some code may not have made it into the final version. A version 1.2.1 could be imminent. Keep an eye on mozilla.org, we suggest.

MOZILLA is the Open Source web-browser spun off by Netscape-AOL a while ago. After a too long development cycle and teething it's done.

The latest release, Mozilla 1.2, is out and it's good for prime time.

It has versions for Windows, Macs, Unix, and uh... Linux systems too.

Mozilla is a superior web-browser, much nicer to use... and more secure than Internet Explorer. The list of unique features is mind-boggling.

But don't just take my word for it. Check all this out for yourself here.

If you happen to use Linux, here are some helpful installation hints:

(1) Install into a fresh directory. Older versions can mess this up, so install Mozilla 1.2 into something like /usr/local/mozilla. The earlier versions dropped the executables into /usr/bin and /usr/lib/mozilla-1.1 or such. Now everything goes into the directory you direct it to use.

(2) Read the Release Notes. If you don't you'll likely miss the help.

(3) The easiest install is using the installer. Download that and unpack it somewhere like ~./mozilla1.2 . "tar -xvzf (filename)" unpacks it.

Follow the instructions. Install to a place like /usr/local/mozilla .

(4) Go ahead and run Mozilla a first time, update your user profile.

(5) Install the Flash 6 Beta software. It's another download install.

(6) Copy your previous plugins symbolic links:

"cp -ud /usr/lib/mozilla-1.1/plugins/* /usr/local/mozilla/plugins"

Your Java, RealAudio, Plugger and other links will be copied by this.

(7) Now you can delete /usr/bin/mozilla and /usr/lib/mozilla-1.1:

"rm /usr/bin/mozilla"

"rm -rf /usr/lib/mozilla-1.1"

and your download directory:

"rm -rf ~./mozilla1.2"

You're all done. Change your menu items to run Mozilla 1.2 to use it.

Enjoy. µ