Chapter 9: Tools for Using the Internet and the Web

With your Fedora Core system connected to the Internet, you can take advantage of dozens of tools for browsing the Web, downloading files, getting e-mail, and participating in newsgroups. In most cases, you have several choices of GUI and command-line applications for using Internet services from your Linux desktop or shell.

This chapter describes some of the most popular tools available with Fedora Core for working with the Internet. These descriptions include Web browsers, e-mail readers, newsreaders, instant messaging clients, and commands for login and remote execution.

Overview of Internet Tools

The most important client Internet program these days is the Web browser. Fedora Core includes the Mozilla software suite, which includes a Web browser along with other Web client software for downloading files, reading e-mail, participating in newsgroups, and creating Web pages (to name a few). Other Web browsers, some of which incorporate Mozilla features, also come with Fedora Core. These include:

• Firefox — Touted as the next generation Web browser from the Mozilla project, Firefox aims squarely at Microsoft Internet Explorer's dominance of the browser space. Firefox offers easy-to-use features for dealing cleaverly with issues that have laid seige to other Internet browsers, such as viruses, spyware, and pop-ups.

• Epiphany — This Web browser is integrated with the GNOME desktop, allowing you to take advantage of GNOME themes, drag-and-drop, and translation features. On the inside, Epiphany relies on Mozilla’s rendering engine. Like recent versions of Mozilla, Epiphany supports multiple tabs, each containing a different Web page, as well as multiple windows.

• Konqueror — Although Konqueror is the file manager for the KDE desktop, it can also display Web content. Using Konqueror, you can easily go back and forth between Web sites and local files and folders.

Running a close second to Web browsers is the e-mail reader (referred to in network standards terms as a Mail User Agent, or MUA). Ximian Evolution is the recommended e-mail client for Fedora Core. However, Mozilla Thunderbird is the new kid on the block of e-mail clients.

Other e-mail options include the Mozilla integrated e-mail client, the Sylpheed mail client, and the KDE KMail program. There's also a groupware application that comes with KDE called Kontact that includes an e-mail client. Mail programs that have been around in Linux and other UNIX systems since the time when most mail was plain text include mutt, pine, and mail.

You can choose from thousands of newsgroups to participate in discussions on the Internet. Fedora Core has several newsreaders available. Again, Mozilla includes an application for participating in newsgroups. Also, the Pan and slrn newsreaders are available.

Besides browsing, e-mail, and news, there are many ways of communicating with other computers and users on the Internet. Older UNIX commands such as rlogin, rsh, and rcp are supported in Linux to do remote login, run remote commands, and copy files remotely. In recent years, OpenSSH commands (ssh, scp, and sftp) have become preferable to the "r" commands because they offer greater security.