Beonex Communicator is a discontinued
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
Internet suite
An Internet suite is an Internet-related software suite. Internet suites usually include a web browser, e-mail client (often with a news client and address book), download manager, HTML editor, and an Internet Relay Chat, IRC client.
The diversit ...
based on the
Mozilla Application Suite
The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite) is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition b ...
(MAS) by Ben Bucksch, a German
Mozilla
Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...
developer.
It was intended to have a higher security and privacy level than other commercial products.
The Internet suite contains a
Web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
, an
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
and
news client
A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet distributed throughout newsgroups. Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), to download articles and post new ar ...
, an
HTML editor
An HTML editor is a program for editing HTML, the markup of a web page. Although the HTML markup in a web page can be controlled with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HT ...
(based on
Mozilla Composer
Mozilla Composer is the free and open-source HTML editor and web authoring module of the Mozilla Application Suite (the predecessor to SeaMonkey). It is used to create and to edit web pages, e-mail, and text documents easily. It is compatible w ...
) and an
IRC
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called ''channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and ...
client (based on
ChatZilla
ChatZilla is an IRC client that is part of SeaMonkey. It was previously an extension for Mozilla-based browsers such as Firefox, introduced in 2000. It is cross-platform open source software which has been noted for its consistent appearance acr ...
).
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.
The main goal was to implement
Kerberos,
OpenPGP
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole disk partitio ...
, and
LDAP
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...
in Beonex, but that was marked as failed in mid-2004. It was discontinued before reaching
production release stage.
History
Mozilla Organization
The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...
stated that the Mozilla Application Suite was only for developers and testing purposes and was not meant for end users.
[; shorten English version availabl]
here
On 5 January 2001 Beonex was included in the
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
kmLinux version S-0.4, but was removed in version S-0.5 released on 23 March 2001. Beonex 0.8 was released in June 2002 received positive reviews about its speed.
![BeOL](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/BeOL.png)
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.
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
The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...
decided its future policy. In 2005, the Mozilla Foundation officially changed its policies and created the
Mozilla Corporation
The Mozilla Corporation (stylized as moz://a) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, by a global community of open- ...
to provide end-user support.
''Beonex Communicator 0.8.2-stable'' has several known security issues. Beonex never received much market share.
In October 2020, the distributor of Beonex joined the
Coalition for App Fairness
The Coalition for App Fairness (CAF) is a coalition comprised by companies who aim to reach a fairer deal for the inclusion of their apps into the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. The organization's executive director is Meghan DiMuzio ...
, which defends the rights of app developers.
Comparison with Netscape and MAS
The browser does not transmit
referrers by default and has the possibility to create a fake referrers. The browser deletes all
cookies
A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts ...
upon exiting and disables several
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
functions which could have served as attack vectors.
Beonex also allows changing the
user agent
In computing, a user agent is any software, acting on behalf of a user, which "retrieves, renders and facilitates end-user interaction with Web content". A user agent is therefore a special kind of software agent.
Some prominent examples of us ...
.
In the following comparison table not all releases of Netscape and MAS are included. For a more complete table see
Gecko (layout engine)
Gecko is a browser engine developed by Mozilla. It is used in the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, and many other projects.
Gecko is designed to support open Internet standards, and is used by different applications to display web p ...
.
Differences from Netscape
In contrast with Netscape, Beonex has included nearly the same features except the proprietary parts like the integrated
Net2Phone
Net2phone provides VoIP and cloud computing-based telephony products and services. The company is a subsidiary of IDT Corporation.
History
Net2Phone was founded in 1990. On July 30, 1999, during the dot-com bubble, the company became a public com ...
,
and the
AOL Instant Messenger
AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time.
AIM w ...
.
For online chatting,
ChatZilla
ChatZilla is an IRC client that is part of SeaMonkey. It was previously an extension for Mozilla-based browsers such as Firefox, introduced in 2000. It is cross-platform open source software which has been noted for its consistent appearance acr ...
was integrated and the
sidebar and the
search engines
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
are also pre-configured.
Beonex is less resource-intensive than Netscape.
Beonex includes a migration tool to import old profiles from
Netscape Communicator
Netscape Communicator (or ''Netscape 4'') is a discontinued Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the fourth major release in the Netscape line of browsers. It was first in beta in 1996 and was released in June 1 ...
.
Differences from MAS
Beonex Communicator was not a
fork
In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...
of MAS; rather, it was a separate
branch
A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk (botany), trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' ...
, so no significant changes were made.
HTML email
HTML email is the use of a subset of HTML to provide formatting and semantic markup capabilities in email that are not available with plain text: Text can be linked without displaying a URL, or breaking long URLs into multiple pieces. Text is ...
and JavaScript are turned off by default and thus, it displays
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
only in
plain text
In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...
with bold and cursive additions
which were added later in MAS 1.1. The search engines is compatible with the Mycroft project and is located in the sidebar providing more features.
References
External links
Beonex*
Beonex Communicator Screenshots Flickr
Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...
{{web browsers, desktop
2000 software
Cross-platform software
Discontinued internet suites
Free Internet suites
Free software programmed in C++
Free web browsers
Gopher clients
Mozilla
Mozilla Application Suite
MacOS web browsers
Windows web browsers