Finding the classic Netscape/Mozilla hand cursor

License info

If there is anyone who remembers using Netscape (oh, the good times), they will also remeber the business-like hand cursor that appeared on hovering over links. This cursor is a classic.

Now, originally, the cursor was available at this address:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/widget/src/build/res/select.cur?raw=1

Alas, that resource is not available anymore.

And whilst
https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8/source/widget/src/build/res/select.cur
also exists, I'd found no way to download it.

So, as I was googling (yes, I still..sometimes do that) this classic hand cursor with the
/mozilla/source/widget/src/build/res/select.cur
search string —

I found this awesome resource on GitHub:
https://github.com/krad-radio/mozilla-krad/blob/master/widget/src/build/res/select.cur

Apparently and for reasons unknown, a software developer took the classic Mozilla source and wanted to improve it.

The download link was there all right, so I got my favourite cursor.

License information

As the original Mozilla Application Suite was licensed under the Mozilla MPL/NPL/LGPL tri-license, then this should apply to the subject image shown at the top of this post.

Tools to uninstall extensions in Mozilla 1.7.xx and SeaMonkey 1.x.

Mnenhy

In Mozilla Application Suite and SeaMonkey 1.x, removing extensions is not as easy as it is in SeaMonkey 2.0, given that the latter uses Firefox-based infrastructure.

First off, there is Mnenhy, which has many modules and which is more geared towards expert users. The important module is the Chrome Manager, which is accessible from the Tools menu.

* For SeaMonkey 1.1.xx, I use Mnenhy 0.7.6.666 (Can't remember where I got the version with the .666 patchlevel, but this should be the one for SeaMonkey 1.1.xx);
* For Mozilla 1.7.13, I use Mnenhy 0.7.6

Mnenhy 0.7.6 is compatible with Mozilla 1.7 and SeaMonkey 1, and it can be downloaded from mnenhy.mozdev.org

Extension Uninstaller 0.2

Unlike Mnenhy, this is one is more user friendly and even has easy-to-read error logs in case something doesn't work.

Extension Uninstaller 0.2 also requires the Extension Uninstaller API, which should be installed first.

Now, the problem with getting Extension Uninstaller is that its original website with
http://mozmonkey.com/extuninstaller/ and
http://mozmonkey.com/extuninstaller_api/
URLs is offline.

The only relatively good references I found to it are in
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=365228
— where only the addons.mozilla.org extension pages are references, but these are unfortunately closed, too.

The solution is to peruse the original official URLs in the Web Archive.:

Snapshot from 2010-03-04

There, scroll down to the Install section, see the "Install For:" Mozilla link. Right-click on the link, choose "Save Link Target As..." command to save the XPI.

It's a bit more difficult With the Extension Uninstaller API .xpi, which can be separately had from archive.org.

Windows Me, Netscape 4.x

This text was written as a series of replies I posted in the YouTube comments section of a promotional introduction video of Windows Me, which can be found in the said operating system.

Since the video was not uploaded from the official source, chances are that the video and the comments to it won't be available at some point of time. So I posted them here for future reference.

And since Blogspot does not have limits on the amount of text, then I have edited the replies a bit to add text.

Windows Me was really good on something like a 667 MHz CPU and 128Mb RAM at the time. If you want to run reasonably modern software without swapping much, then you need 256 Mb of RAM (factor in [modern] web browser, IM program, OpenOffice 2.4.3).

Windows Me can run on less, of course, as it was included in computers that only had 64Mb of RAM.

At one point, Windows xp ran fine with 128 Mb RAM, but nowadays it needs 512M RAM as a real-life minimum to keep the system secure & do something productive.

These specs were for a new PC from around 2000 that was first supplied with only 64 Mb RAM. I requested it have 128 Mb, since the lesser setup was slow with multimedia of the time (it had fast Internet, so I knew it was the amount of RAM). After the RAM upgrade, using the computer was a breeze.

I also took very good care of the hard drive and the OS, keeping it updated & secure, and since its users mostly used Netscape for business, then viruses and exploits never made it there.

At that time it [the popular version of Netscape] was Netscape Communciator 4.x. I think on that PC we stuck with 4.79 for a long time (the last of 4.x was 4.8, released in 2002 :-). The 4.x branch was the first to support CSS, but that was the only feature which caused crashes when turned on (especially in 4.0x), so I kept it off on all our Netscapes, which were fairly solid after that. Despite the clunky Navigator, the best part was the e-mail client, which introduced mail filters to fight spam (then seen as controversial).

We skipped Netscape 6, never considered 7.x, and in newer PC's moved instead to Mozilla, the open-source descendant of Netscape and which Netscape 6 and 7 were based on anyway.

As Mozilla Foundation started Firefox, it ceased Mozilla development, which was taken over by others, and Mozilla Application Suite became SeaMonkey.

The last version of SeaMonkey for Windows 98/Me is 1.1.19 ([from] 2010); its Gecko rendering engine is a wee bit newer than that of Firefox 2.0 (Gecko 1.8.1.20 vs 1.8.1.24).

What's left of sidebars for Netscape

Ed Mullen has a great page on Netscape and Mozilla tips and even a page that includes installable links to sidebars that can still be added to SeaMonkey 1.1.xx, a successor to Netscape 7/8 and Mozilla Application Suite.

Unfortunately, some of the sidebars are now outdated, half-work, redirect, cannot be found anymore or are completely offline.

Below is a selection of sidebars I found to be interesting to check them out.

Sidebars that still work:

• The Google sidebar works! Yay!
• The Real.com Guide sidebar only offers search for audio, video, and radio stations (no actual Guide to speak of).

...That are outdated:

The CNN Expanded Sidebar is still live, but stopped having updates since two years ago on March 2, 2009: The Dow Jones index dropped below 7000 on that day, because AIG had a record loss, tech gadgets had become a luxury, and "Twilight" stars were huge.

The links to news sites don't work, because they use a redirect via info.netscape.com (which now redirects to netscape.aol.com ).

In terms of context, the "Last updated" text in the sidebar is inaccurate, because it's most likely a script. That sidebar page is now a virtual time capsule of World news.

Netscape Sidebars

...that redirect:

• Netscape WebCenter Travel (webcenter.travel.netscape.com) — Ah, well, this at least redirects to travel.aol.com, but that's it. At least it's topical.
• Netscape Celebrities (celebrities.netscape.com) — redirects within the sidebar to netscape.aol.com.
• Netscape TV Listings (tv.netscape.com) — redirects in-sidebar to netscape.aol.com.

...that don't work anymore:

(in descending order of importance)

• Netscape Time Zone Converter (cgi.netscape.com) — "Not found" — Ed Mullen's screenshot of it is now a historical artifact;
• Netscape Netbusiness — because netbusiness.netscape.com is completely offline (no 404 page, even);
• Netscape Netbusiness Industry Headlines (netbusiness.netscape.com) — domain is offline;
• Netscape Netbusiness Search (netbusiness.netscape.com) — offline;
• Netscape DevEdge (developer.netscape.com): "This tab is not available right now." — Taken offline since about 11.10.2004 and then moved to devedge-temp.mozilla.org/index_en.html
   
• Netscape Home Improvement (homeimprovement.netscape.com) — "Not Found";
• Netscape Home Improvement House and Home (homeimprovement.netscape.com) — "Not Found";
• Netscape Lifestyles Pet tools (lifestyles.netscape.com) — "Not Found".
   
• American Greetings (lifestyles.netscape.com) — "Not Found"

• The OS/2 sidebar does not work either, because os2.org cannot be reached.

Speaking of which — OS/2 has officially outlived Windows 9x, because according to screenshots, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.4 works in it. OS/2 can also run OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 and OS/2 now lives on as eComStation, where Firefox 3.6 and 4.0 (beta) can also be run.

eComStation is capable of running OpenOffice.org 3.2, VLC Media Player 1.1.4, and CUPS, a free software printer framework (modern printer support).

While Windows 9x only supports Mozilla Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.4, and has ageing support for printers (I admit as much that some printers useless with CUPS are supported in Windows 9x)...