Beonex Communicator

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 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 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. "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. "Beonex". Kefk Network. 4 June 2002. Archived from the original on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  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. 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. 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. 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. 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. "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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