Beonex Communicator
Original author(s)Ben Bucksch
Developer(s)Beonex Business Services
Initial releaseNever
Preview release
0.8.2-stable / 21 March 2003
Written inC++, XUL, XBL, JavaScript
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD
Available inEnglish, German
TypeInternet suite
LicenseMPL/Netscape Public License[1]
Websitewww.beonex.com

Beonex Communicator is a discontinued open-source Internet suite based on the Mozilla Application Suite (MAS) by Ben Bucksch, a German Mozilla developer.[2] It was intended to have a higher security and privacy level than other commercial products.[3][4][5] The Internet suite contains a Web browser, an email and news client, an HTML editor (based on Mozilla Composer) and an IRC client (based on ChatZilla).[4][5][6]

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.[7][8] The main goal was to implement Kerberos, OpenPGP, and LDAP in Beonex,[9] but that was marked as failed in mid-2004.[10] It was discontinued before reaching production release stage.

History

Overall, this project seems most interested in staying as true to Mozilla as possible.[11]

Mozilla Organization stated that the Mozilla Application Suite was only for developers and testing purposes and was not meant for end users.[12][13][14][15]

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.[16] Beonex 0.8 was released in June 2002 received positive reviews about its speed.[17][18]

a BeOL preview

Beonex Launcher (BeOL, spoken B-O-L), was an additional upcoming product that never left alpha status; it was a stripped-down version of Beonex Communicator: a Web browser combined with an email client and a chat client.[19]

With a few preview releases of version 0.9 in mid-2002, Bucksch showed some new features he wanted to integrate, but before this version gained a stable status, he announced on 2 March 2004 that no new releases were planned until the Mozilla Foundation decided its future policy.[20] 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.[21] Beonex never received much market share.[13]

In October 2020, the distributor of Beonex joined the Coalition for App Fairness, which defends the rights of app developers.[22]

Comparison with Netscape and MAS

The browser does not transmit referrers by default and has the possibility to create a fake referrers.[23] The browser deletes all cookies upon exiting and disables several JavaScript functions which could have served as attack vectors.[5][24][25] Beonex also allows changing the user agent.[26]

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 Release date
0.6 6.0 0.6[27] 14 November 2000
0.9.2 6.1
0.9.4 6.2
0.9.4.1 6.2.2 0.7[27] 8 November 2001
1.0 0.8[28] 5 June 2002
1.0.1 7.0 0.8.1[29] 19 September 2002
1.0.2 7.01 and 7.02 0.8.2[30] 10 March 2003
1.1 0.9pre 27 August 2002[27]

Differences from Netscape

In contrast with Netscape, Beonex has included nearly the same features except the proprietary parts like the integrated Net2Phone,[31] and the AOL Instant Messenger.[31] For online chatting, ChatZilla was integrated[32] and the sidebar and the search engines are also pre-configured.[2][18] Beonex is less resource-intensive than Netscape.[33]

Beonex includes a migration tool to import old profiles from Netscape Communicator.[5][18]

Differences from MAS

Beonex Communicator was not a fork of MAS; rather, it was a separate branch, so no significant changes were made.[34] HTML email and JavaScript are turned off by default and thus, it displays email only in plain text with bold and cursive additions[5][35] which were added later in MAS 1.1.[36] The search engines is compatible with the Mycroft project and is located in the sidebar providing more features.[37]

References

  1. ↑ Bucksch, Ben. "Legal notices". Beonex Communicator. Archived from the original on 3 February 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Mozilla-Entwickler mit eigener Browser-Distribution" (in German). Heinz Heise. 14 November 2000. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  3. ↑ Huchler, Andreas (February 2001). "Frische Ware" (in German). LinuxUser. Retrieved 1 February 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. 1 2 "Beonex". Kefk Network. 4 June 2002. Archived from the original on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 D'Hollander, Peter (February 2004). "Alternative Browsers". Personal Computer Magazine (in Dutch): 96, 97. ISSN 0772-8077.
  6. ↑ "Beonex User Agent Strings". UserAgentString.Com. Archived from the original on 26 January 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  7. ↑ "Vielversprechender Netscape 6 Konkurrent" (in German). Blindschleiche.de. 26 November 2000. Archived from the original on 16 October 2004. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  8. ↑ Foster-Johnson, Eric (30 November 2003). "Just browsing, thanks". ComputerUser. IDG. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  9. ↑ "Announcing Beonex". Mozillazine. Mozilla. 29 November 2000. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  10. ↑ "Bug 124026 – Roaming – funding via Beonex". Mozilla. 24 May 2004. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
  11. ↑ "Beonex Communicator 0.6 Pre". Tucows. 30 November 2000. Archived from the original on 14 November 2002.
  12. ↑ "технологии – Mozilla празднует 10-летие" (in Russian). CyberSecurity.ru. 23 January 2008. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
  13. 1 2 Metzger, Holger. "Über Mozilla" (in German). Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 30 January 2011.; shorten English version available here Archived 19 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ Violka, Karsten (2002). "Zahmes Monster". C't (in German). Heinz Heise. 13: 218.
  15. ↑ Bager, Jo (2002). "Surfen ohne e – Mit Opera und Mozilla sicherer ins Netz". C't (in German). Heinz Heise. 25: 106.
  16. ↑ "Entwicklungsgeschichte". Schleswig-Holstein. 6 December 2004. Archived from the original on 19 August 2010. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  17. ↑ Kluge, Oliver (2002). "Jagdgesellschaft" (in German) (12). Linux-Magazin: 2. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  18. 1 2 3 Behrens, Fionn (2 December 2000). "Slimfast für Mozilla" (in German). Linux-Community.de. Archived from the original on 12 June 2002. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  19. ↑ Bucksch, Ben. "BeOL". Beonex Communicator. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
  20. ↑ Kluge, Oliver (September 2005). "Soll der Fuchs ihn holen" (in German). 9. LinuxUser. Retrieved 7 February 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  21. ↑ "Mozilla Browser Cross Domain Violation Vulnerability". Security Focus. 16 April 2003. Archived from the original on 6 October 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  22. ↑ "Coalition for App Fairness, a group fighting for app store reforms, adds 20 new partners". TechCrunch. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  23. ↑ Schulzki-Haddouti, Christiane (31 January 2003). "Digitale Spuren – Surfer hinterlassen im Netz Spuren". Telepolis (in German). Heinz Heise. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  24. ↑ "Beonex-Browser: Mozilla 1.0 mit mehr Sicherheitsfunktionen". Golem.de. 7 June 2002. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
  25. ↑ Huchler, Andreas (March 2001). "Tore zur WWWelt – Sieben aktuelle Web-Browser im Vergleich" (in German). 3. LinuxUser. Retrieved 8 February 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  26. ↑ Лепихов, Константин (17 March 2004). Прыткая ящерица (in Russian). Computerra.ru. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011.
  27. 1 2 3 Bucksch, Ben (12 March 2003). "News". Beonex Communicator. Archived from the original on 9 July 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2011.
  28. ↑ "Open-Source-Browser Beonex Communicator in Version 0.8" (in German). Heinz Heise. 7 June 2002. Retrieved 5 April 2011.
  29. ↑ Bucksch, Ben. "0.8.1". Beonex Communicator. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  30. ↑ Bucksch, Ben. "Release-notes". Beonex Communicator. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  31. 1 2 "Zweiter Ableger vom Mozilla" (in German). GIGA Television. Archived from the original on 3 December 2002. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  32. ↑ Behme, Henning (2001). "World Wide Web". iX (in German). Heinz Heise. 1: 26.
  33. ↑ "Netscape 6: Fett, aber schnell (Update)" (in German). Heinz Heise. 14 November 2000. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  34. ↑ Bucksch, Ben. "We are accepting patches". Beonex Communicator. Retrieved 30 January 2011.
  35. ↑ Violka, Karsten (2002). "Nur-Text-Mails im Mozilla". C't (in German). Heinz Heise. 17: 188. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
  36. ↑ "Mozilla 1.1 Alpha ist da" (in German). Golem.de. 12 June 2002. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
  37. ↑ Krause, Ralph (1 March 2002). "Browser Comparison". Linux Journal. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
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