There's a variety of web browsers available for your use on the Sun machines in CIS. Some are graphic, like the Netscape browsers; these are common and probably what you expect when you think "web browser". However, there are also text-only browsers which have certain advantages that might be important to you. And, finally, there are a few tools which aren't really "web browsers" but may help you access certain sites or collections of files.

Web Browsers

Firefox

Firefox is an offshoot of the popular Mozilla project. Whereas Mozilla is an integrated web browser, mail application, news reader, and calendar client, Firefox is just the web browser engine repackaged with less overhead and a slicker interface. Generally speaking, Firefox or Mozilla are the browsers you should be using for your day-to-day web surfing.

Firefox 1.0.7 is installed on most CIS unix systems; it's located in /usr/local/bin and you should only have to type firefox to start it up.

Mozilla

Mozilla is an integrated web browser, email application, IRC chat client, calendar client, and HTML editor, all rolled into a single application.

Mozilla 1.7.12 is install on most CIS unix systems; it's located in /usr/local/bin so you should only have to type mozilla to start it up.

Netscape 7

Netscape is the company and the web surfing client from which the Mozilla project was born. Netscape 7 is still available on most CIS unix systems. If you encounter a web site that has features specific to this particular browser, you can start it up by typing netscape7 in your terminal window.

Netscape 6.2.3

This is the previous version of the Netscape browser, as distributed by Sun for their Solaris systems. This version of netscape is very stable, which is why some people prefer it to other browsers. If you need to run this web browser instead of the others, type netscape6 at your command prompt. Additionally, many CIS unix systems were patched at one point to run this browser from the control panel at the bottom of your CDE workspace.

Netscape 4

The last release of the old Netscape 4 series, version 4.79, is still available for your use. Occasionally, there are web pages whose authors "tried too hard" and cause problems for modern browsers; when you run across such a page, you can always try running Netscape 4.79 to view it. To access this version of the browser, run netscape4 at your shell prompt.

Hot Java

HotJava is a web browser written entirely in the Java programming language; originally it was just a "proof of concept", but it became popular with enough users that Sun starting developing it as a full featured web browser. It's small, cute, and deceptively useful.

In all honesty, you aren't that likely to find something that requires the use of HotJava instead of browsers like Netscape and friends. But, to run a "lighter" browser than the feature-laden Netscape, to access a portal on the web that's expressly written for HotJava's functionality, or just for a change of pace... it's installed here for you to play with.

Bear in mind, though, that HotJava 3.0 is the last release of this browser. Sun has end-of-lifed the product and no future versions are forthcoming.

You can run this browser by typing hotjava in your terminal window. HotJava takes a minute to start running, due to its Java installation residing on NFS. If this is a problem, we can easily install it locally to your workstation; just let us know.

lynx

lynx is a "text only" browser; it doesn't open your screen with tons of GUI windows. It runs in a terminal window (such as dtterm or xterm), or over remote telnet and ssh connections. It doesn't render graphics, and instead focuses on the textual content of web pages; it's easily the fastest way to navigate the World Wide Web (as well as FTP and other service sites) . People with slow net connections and dialups can really appreciate this.

lynx has a number of other features you may find useful. It can directly download a URL from the net to a local filesystem for later perusal and use. Certainly, you can do this with other tools like wget that are written expressly for downloading URLs, but if you aren't entirely certain what the URL you need may be and therefore need to surf a little bit first to find it, lynx is probably just what you need.

lynx can also assist in the authoring of HTML pages with a quick edit/view cycle. It can be an alternate viewer of web pages where the author "tried too hard" and created something unviewable under your graphic browser of choice. It can also summarize every available link on a given page, giving you direct access to the navigation of a site without having to read all the text in between. In short, a text-only browser like lynx could well be the fastest way to get from anywhere on the web to the information you're looking for...

Other Web Tools

wget

wget is a handy tool for downloading HTTP and FTP based resources to your account. It takes a URL, or a file containing multiple URL, and puts their contents into a directory somewhere in your account. It is especially useful when downloading very large files from the 'net; if the remote server should timeout or otherwise drop the connection, wget can automatically restart the download and pick up where it left off.

In addition to download single files and resources of any size and type off the 'net, wget can also make copies of entire web hierarchies for you. It's very useful if you need to "mirror" a website, or want to perform some "offline" browsing on your own.

curl

curl is an alternative to the wget utility. It has many of the same features, and can in general be used for many of the same tasks. It does, however, have some important differences.

curl is somewhat better at dealing with network proxies and other more bizarre interactions you might run into on the net. For example, writing your own tool to query Google is probably easier with curl than with wget. On the other hand, wget is much better at supporting recursive downloads, copying entire hierarchies and domains, and so on.

lwp-request

This is a Perl based downloading tool. It is actually four commands, not just one:

• lwp-request is the generic interface to the tool
• GET is used for making HTTP GET requests to download pages from the 'net.
• POST can be used for uploading completed forms and other large (even multipart) data to a web server.
• PUT is used for uploading files to a properly configured web server.

Obsolete Tools

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer is no longer available on Solaris systems. Microsoft dropped support for Solaris IE back in version 4.

Tips and Tricks

Local Files and Documentation

Did you know you can use a web browser to browse local files as well as those on the net? For example, this is a very useful way to browse the CIS documentation tree under /cis/doc where we keep information on many different software packages used in the Center. The trick is to open a URL that looks like file:///cis/doc/ Various browsers also have a command for browsing local file trees.

• Safari Type Command-O, or look for Open File under the File menu.
• Netscape Type Control-O, or look for Open File under the File menu.
• HotJava Type Control-O, or look for Open under the File menu. Then, hit the File... button in the resulting dialog box.
• Lynx Hit the g key, and then just type the name of the file or directory you want to browse.