Network

Epiphany is a lean, but powerful Web browser for the GNOME desktop. Many of its features and extensions resemble Firefox. Find more information about Epiphany at http://www.gnome.org/projects/epiphany/.

Evolution is personal information management software for the GNOME desktop combining mail, calendar, and address book functionality. It offers advanced e-mail filter and search options, provides sync functionality for Palm devices, and allows you to run Evolution as an Exchange or GroupWise® client to integrate better into heterogeneous environments. Find more information about Evolution at http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/.

Firefox is the youngest member of the Mozilla browser family. It runs on various platforms, including Linux, MacOS, and Windows. Its main features include built-in customizable searches, pop-up blocking, RSS news feeds, password management, tabbed browsing, and some advanced security and privacy options. Firefox is very flexible, allowing you to customize almost anything you want (searches, toolbars, skins, buttons, etc.). Neat add-ons and extensions can be downloaded from the Firefox Web site (https://addons.update.mozilla.org/?application=firefox). Find more information about Firefox at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/. You can also read Chapter 20, Browsing with Firefox.

Gaim is a smart instant messenger program supporting multiple protocols, such as AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!*, IRC, Jabber, SILC, and GroupWise Messenger®. It is possible to log in to different accounts on different IM networks and chat on different channels simultaneously. Gaim also exists in a Windows version. Recently, Gaim has been renamed to Pidgin. Find more information about Pidgin at http://www.pidgin.im/.

gftp is an FTP client using the GTK toolkit. Its features include simultaneous downloads, resume of interrupted file transfers, file transfer queues, download of entire directories, FTP proxy support, remote directory caching, passive and nonpassive file transfers, and drag and drop support. Find more information at http://gftp.seul.org.

Ekiga is a VoIP, IP telephony, and video conferencing application that allows you to make audio and video calls to remote users with SIP or H.323 hardware and software. Find more information at http://www.ekiga.org/. You can also read Chapter 18, Using Voice over IP with Ekiga.

KBear is a KDE FTP client with the ability to have concurrent connections to multiple hosts, three separate view modes, support for multiple protocols (like FTP and SFTP), a site manager plug-in, firewall support, logging capabilities, and much more. Find more information at http://sourceforge.net/projects/kbear.

Konqueror is a multitalented application created by the KDE developers. It acts as file manager and document viewer, but is also a very powerful and highly customizable Web browser. It supports the current Web standards, such as CSS(2), Java applets, JavaScript and Netscape plug-ins (Flash and RealVideo), DOM, and SSL. It offers neat helpers like an integrated search bar and supports tabbed browsing. Bookmarks can be imported from various other Web browsers, like Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera. Find more information about Konqueror at http://www.konqueror.org/. You can also read our chapter about Konqueror as a Web browser in Chapter 19, Browsing with Konqueror.

Kontact is the KDE personal information management suite. It includes e-mail, calendar, address book, and Palm sync functions. Like Evolution, it can act as an Exchange or GroupWise client. Kontact combines several stand-alone KDE applications (KMail, KAddressbook, KOrganizer, and KPilot) to form an entity providing all the PIM functionality you need. Find more information about Kontact at http://www.kontact.org/. You can also read our introduction to Kontact in Chapter 11, Kontact: E-Mailing and Calendaring.

Konversation is an easy-to-use IRC client for KDE. Its features include support for SSL connections, strikeout, multichannel joins, away and unaway messages, ignore list functionality, Unicode, autoconnect to a server, optional time stamps in chat windows, and configurable background colors. Find more information about Konversation at http://konversation.kde.org.

Kopete is a very intuitive and easy-to-use instant messenger tool supporting protocols including IRC, ICQ, AIM, GroupWise Messenger, Yahoo, MSN, Gadu-Gadu, Lotus Sametime, SMS messages, and Jabber. Find more information about Kopete at http://kopete.kde.org/. You can also read an introduction to Kopete in Chapter 15, Instant Messaging with Kopete.

Thunderbird is an e-mail client application that comes as part of the Mozilla suite. It is also available for Microsoft Windows and MacOS, which facilitates the transition from one of these operating systems to Linux. Find more information about Mozilla Thunderbird at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/.

Opera is a powerful Web browser with neat add-ons like an optional e-mail client and a chat module. Opera offers pop-up blocking, RSS feeds, built-in and customizable searches, a password manager, and tabbed browsing. The main functions are easily reached through their respective panels. Because this tool is also available for Windows, it allows a much easier transition to Linux for those who have been using it under Windows. Find more information about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.

Skype is an application for several platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac Os X) that can be used for phone calls over the Internet with a good sound quality and with end-to-end encryption. When using Skype, configuring the firewall or router is not necessary. For more information, refer to http://www.skype.com/.

XChat is an IRC client that runs on most Linux and UNIX platforms as well as under Windows and MacOS X. Find more information about XChat at http://www.xchat.org/.