Sharing my latest thoughts...

I took the last few weeks to evaluate three open source replacements for major applications:

- Firefox browser
- Thunderbird email reader
- Nvu web editor

The major advantages of using these softwares are:

- Free (Open source)
- Security
- Flexibility (through extensions and plugins)

but for me, the biggest advantage is PORTABILITY.

Personally, I'm not paranoid enough to really fear about IE security and I have my own way of dealing with spyware, virus and other threats. Free/Open Source is also ideologically and economically fine but isn't a big criterion for personal use, especially if I already own the commercial alternative. And flexibility is attractive, but having browsed the whole library of available extension for both Firefox and Thunderbird, I found few one really essential.

But portability (and related small size) are a major plus to these software. All three of them are registry free and with appropriate tweaking can support portable profiles. Using extensively a USB flashdrive these days while on the road, this is my main criterion.

Another reason why I tested these software is my long-term “hobby project” to find a workable use of Linux... These software being cross-platform, I thought they were worth trying.

Unfortunately, after extensive testing, I came to the conclusion that these three applications are not mature enough for *what I need*. This is not to say that they aren't ready for other users, but for me, the test was inconclusive.

1. Firefox. It is by far the most mature product of all three. Browsing is fast and the interface is sleek and elegant. You have to understand however that I didn't compare it to IE, but to Maxthon which is my main browser these days. In comparison to Maxthon, Firefox brings relatively little. As a matter of fact, Maxthon is also portable and much smaller, because it uses the IE engine already installed on all Windows computers. Despite the “Maxthon advantage”, Firefox was however attractive enough to be my main browser for a week or so.

Something I like from Firefox is the unique bookmark file (same thing found with Netscape/Opera), compared to the multitude of IE/Maxthon url Favorites files. This makes sync between desktop and portable installation easier and faster. On the other hand, IE favourites can be managed with Ztree which as a Ztree-hardcore user found to be a plus. :-)

Unfortunately, a significant number of web sites I visited have issues with Firefox. Blame the web designers for using non standard HTML, blame MS monopoly, complain and shout, argue things will change if more people start using Firefox, you're always right, but the problem stay the same: for the time being, these websites can’t be viewed properly. While many of these issues are just annoying display glitches that I could live with, some of the websites actually rely deeply on IE engine to work as expected, like my bank online account, the School intranet (based on Peoplsoft technology) and the student web zone established by our school (the later one based on Teximus technology). These websites didn’t work with Firefox and I had to launch IE. As a matter of fact, there is even an extension available for Firefox to launch IE from the current web page... It tells a lot.

After a week of testing, I came to the conclusion that Firefox is a wonderful product, but that *I* would be more productive sticking with Maxthon and IE engine.

2. Thunderbird. For years, Outlook has been my main email reader. Say what you want about this product, I always been pretty much satisfied with it, except for the import/export limitations. I have to say that I configured Outlook to work in text-only mode and therefore never had issues with spyware and HTML/RTF security breaches. What I don't like from Outlook, apart the fact it is commercial, is its inability to be portable. Thunderbird is very attractive to me on this point of view. Again, I used it for a whole week to see what it was worth to me.

Well, it is a good and fast email reader. Interface is simple and effective. I especially appreciated the multiple SMTP setup for each account, which is very useful for a portable email reader. The structure of email boxes is also interesting from my geek point of view, especially with Ztree in mind. While Outlook uses a single proprietary *.pst file by default, Thunderbird uses plain text mbox file for each folder. This allows the Ztree user not only to search easily into mailbox but to reorganize them at will, archive them or reestablish them as needed. Very geek. :-) Using Ztree, I could also easily reinstate old archives, like mid ’90 Pine Unix mbox and Xnews mbx and read them under Thunderbird without any problem.

But this organization comes to the cost of multiple files and folder if you have a very large and structured email archive with lots of folders and subfolders. Each folder is one file, one index file and one subdirectory. If you have hundred of folders, you have hundreds of email boxes and directories. One glitch in this structure and there you go: you have a problem. Actually, I encountered many issues with Thunderbird trying to organize or delete some of these folders. The program doesn't seem designed to handle too many folders at a time (Precision: I’m talking about stress testing with 150Mb worth of emails). In some instances, I had to fix the problems using Ztree. Thunderbird also crashed quite a few times. And I experienced an issue with a folder that was created with an illegal foreign character (I had to use Ztree in /O mode to fix it).

One thing that I didn't like at all is the bad emails and contacts importation process. The operation went smoothly, but a close comparison of original Outlook and experimental Thunderbird setups revealed many errors made by Thunderbird. Many email were delete or corrupted. Same with contacts which many were deleted or modified without warning. For instance, I had 52 emails in one folder under Outlook, but only 46 once imported into Thunderbird. I had 1253 contacts under Outlook, but 1178 under Thunderbird, while many imported contacts were corrupted (missing secondary address for instance). Multiply this by the number of folders and contacts and you have an extent of the problem of switching from one system to another. This kind of behavior made me lose some confidence in the reliability of the product.

Another issue for me is Palm sync which worked minimalistically for me with the appropriate extension, but again with some transfer bugs and content loss.

Thunderbird doesn't have a calendar as such. There is an extension for that (and an upcoming standalone Sunbird project). I installed the Calendar extension but couldn't import any of my Outlook calendar items. Therefore I didn't go any further in testing this feature.

One last issue is handling of attachments. Typically, when I receive an attachment under Outlook, I save it on my hard disk and delete it from the email, keeping only the text body for archive purpose. Well, in Thunderbird, you need an add-in to do that. I installed it and it worked roughly as expected, but encountered also some bugs and issues with deeply nested or large folders. The add-in was telling me that attachment was deleted but restarting Thunderbird, it was back again. The author of the add-in acknowledge his product is far from being perfect, and while I can understand that, I can't work with a product that works half the time.

The most common problem with extensions is version-bounding. Some extensions were developed with 0.7 to 1.0 versions in mind, but it seems that some even slight changes in the latest 1.0.2 version made these extensions not working as expected. Same applies with Firefox. Will each new version of Thunderbird carry changes that will break current extensions? Worrying.

I also read there are some issues with the absolute path some extensions require. The Portable Thunderbird project tries to overcome this issue, but it isn’t available in French and IMHO it’s “tweaking of existing tweaks” to describe things nicely…

Overall, too many small issues with Thunderbird to effectively compete with my *own* use of Outlook. The product is however fine enough for user who don't value or carry email archives as I do, and do not trim incoming email from their attachments.

3. Nvu. This is the free alternative to Dreamweaver. Much smaller, faster and portable than Dreamweaver. It produces 100% compliant HTML. The product is however not totally mature. The most significant obstacle for me is the bogus template feature. The author of NVU added that option in the menu but he's the first one to state that it isn't working yet, and won't be in the upcoming 1.0 version. The feature was merely added in the menu for "reserved future use"... Because of that, Nvu can't be used as the main web editor if someone is used to Dreamweaver template feature. What about a portable web editor then, complimentary to Dreamweaver? Well, this can be done but because it produces 100% compliant HTML, NVU also delete all non-standard tags... like the ones used by Dreamweaver to handle templates and snippets! In other words, if you use Nvu to edit Dreamweaver web pages, you're messing up the whole thing. Finally, Nvu has still many issues related to handling of relative path. As a matter of fact, it prefers absolute path by default for many options/links, which makes it less portable then it could be. Actually, go to the Nvu’s developer forum and many users/beta testers will recommend you to stick with Dreamweaver for the time being, or even use the free edition of Dreamweaver 2.0 that can still be find on the Internet.

Nvu is nevertheless a good web editor for somebody who has both a strong knowledge of web site design and simple needs with static pages. This combination is however rarely seen IMHO. More than often, you know about HTML and have sophisticated needs, or you don't know about HTML and have simple needs. The product promises a lot and its development must be closely watched, but it isn't ready to replace more mature commercial product if you have some intermediate or advanced needs.

OVERALL, the three open-source alternatives are very interesting. They are ready to be used by the casual user and could be even deployed throughout an organization since their cost is none and they work as expected most of the time. But I'm not a casual user and I have very specific needs and expectations (browsing specialized web sites, extensive use of Outlook features, advanced web site editing) and concluded that these fee alternatives aren't enough mature for me, although very near to be as such.

In conclusion:

For web browsing, I stick with Maxthon, which is portable, features-packed and free.
For email reading, I stick with Outlook for the time being. For portability, I prefer using the incredibly small npopq or the webmail interface that comes with my email account.
For email editing, I stick with Dreamweaver, which is costly and big but can be made portable with some appropriate tweaking.

For all three uses, I'll however check regularly the development of the Open source counterparts and revaluate my needs in a close future.