Introduction to Mozilla based web browsers

Posted on Apr 6, 2007

We are using the Firefox browser, which has been developed by Mozilla. As you may know, Firefox is based on the Mozilla application framework, which provides a good way of supporting cross-platform application development.

However, supporting cross-platform has some weak points. The first is performance, and the second is that it cannot use the native user interface.

Some web browsers are based on the Mozilla application framework but use a native user interface. They are tightly integrated into a specific platform such as Windows, Mac, or the GNOME desktop to provide their own look and feel. However, they are still based on the technology of the Mozilla application framework, such as the component model and the 2D layout engine.

Here are some good examples:

Camino is a web browser for Mac OS X based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine, using the Cocoa framework.
Galeon is a web browser for GNOME based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine.
K-Meleon uses the native Windows API to create the user interface (instead of using Mozilla's cross-platform XUL layer), and as a result is tightly integrated into the look and feel of the Windows desktop.

There is another kind of Mozilla-based web browser: Flock.

Flock is a special web browser that offers some famous web services such as a Flickr viewer, a blog uploader, and an RSS reader.

You can choose any web browser depending on your taste.