One of the more significant open source projects of the last year or two, and another born out of the beast that was once Netscape, the thinking behind SeaMonkey is to bring together a collection of Web tools in one virtual basket. Thus, in one download, you have a Web browser, an e-mail client, an HTML editor and a chat application.

A 13MB download, SeaMonkey - previously known as the Mozilla Application Suite - is a lean piece of work, arguably too lean in some cases, but nonetheless sprightly and efficient.

Starting with the mail application, it has - as much of the SeaMonkey suite does - a bit of an old-school feel to it, but deserves credit for its able management of multiple accounts through a single inbox. It works reasonably well at importing from the likes of Outlook Express, although we did find it not quite as rounded as something like Thunderbird or Outlook Express when it comes to offline work. Gmail gave us trouble as well. Chances are you might also thirst for an extra feature or too, although credit should be given for the implementation of phishing protection.

The Web browser will be familiar to those used to the Firefox way of working, and can be expanded beyond its fairly basic feature-set through the welcome use of extensions. By default, though, tabbed browsing is supported and there's also pop-up blocking from the off, and much of what you need to get up and running online is present and correct. There are a few compatibility issues we noted on our Internet travels, but nothing serious and nothing to deter the average open source user.

The HTML Editor isn't anywhere near as friendly, though, and while it does a competent job and ticks the boxes you'd expect, it doesn't exactly welcome less experienced users at the door with cakes.

Likewise, the chat application - ChatZilla - suffers similar problems. It's an IRC tool but one that's crying out for some rough edges to be knocked off in terms of presentation and the user experience. It's fine if you know exact addresses for where you want to natter, but less helpful otherwise.

The theory behind a single, open source suite of Web tools is a sound one, and across the SeaMonkey package there's much of what you'd need for dealing with the Internet on a day-to-day basis. But there's little getting away from the fact that it's not as friendly a piece of work for the casual user as it is for the expert, with a look and feel that often neglects the fact that the last five years have even happened.

That said, as with most open source projects, SeaMonkey is an evolutionary beast and worth keeping an eye on. For us, while the e-mail client is arguing hard to remain on our test machine, our open source radar for the time being is likely to be pointed elsewhere.

A useful selection of tools with some very rough edges and not much to endear themselves to those unfamiliar with the foibles of computing. Worth a look, but there's a learning curve here.