Internet Explorer 4.0 (Official Release)
For: Windows 95/NT. (Versions for Mac and Windows 3.x are also available, but lack some features listed in this review.)
Pros: Pages load faster than from within Communicator. Java performance is up to 30 times faster than Netscape's -- but Sun is complaining that Microsoft is not adhering to the official Java spec. Better interface, better integrated with Windows and more customizable settings. Fully supports Microsoft IntelliMouse (with wheel).
Cons: FTP functions inferior to those of Netscape. And, hey, who wants to see Microsoft win -- again?
If you have ever surfed the web, chances are good you've used a browser by Netscape or Microsoft. Now, both companies have updated and enhanced their products. But are the new features must-have additions... or just more code bloat for functions you'll never need? In this article, we'll look at the all-important usability factor of the new browsers and see how they compare... and how they fare when compared against older releases.
Internet Explorer 4.0 has evolved quite a bit since the first Preview edition, and the official release (now updated to version 4.01 to address security bugs) differs considerably from the second Platform Preview beta, too. Most notably, PR2 was what is termed a "feature complete" beta, but new features still managed to creep into the final version. Fortunately, they work well -- provided that you follow Microsoft's recommendation and uninstall any betas before installing the final release (This is important!). The official 4.0 release fixes almost all of the shortcomings of the preview editions, except IE's propensity to fail to access some FTP sites that Netscape's browser can handle. The much-ballyhooed "Active Desktop" is optional, and not recommended for slower machines, although we enjoy using it on our 90 MHz test machine with 24MB RAM. Also, the Channels features and full-screen "kiosk" mode will appeal to many people. IE 4 ships with a large number of predefined channels, ranging from news to movie previews. Also new is "Microsoft Connection Manager" -- basically, a reworked version of OSR2's dial-up status monitor.
The interface has been enhanced over previous versions, too. Now, web pages or applets on IE4's active desktop have a hidden menubar that shows up when the area is clicked. Buttons on IE4 are attractively shaded and overall performance is improved. Gone from PR2 were PR1's clumsy pie-chart views of the free space on your drives in the "My Computer" window, but they are back -- fixed! -- in the final version. Now, Web View is a View menu option that gives you additional info about your control panels, drives and other system documents. Web pages load without fanfare -- and they load very, very quickly.
Internet Explorer 4.0 dramatically improves the functionality of the Windows 95/NT toolbar. For starters, any folder or Internet address can be configured as a new toolbar (just click in a blank area of the toolbar, press the right mouse button and choose "Toolbars>New Toolbar..."). Also, you can drop virtually any file you want onto a toolbar, and IE4 automatically adds an icon. Then, you can drag and drop documents onto these toolbar icons to automatically open them.
New on the toolbar is a Channels button, which can automatically deliver "pushed" content. We may be in the minority, but we hate pushy behavior. Speaking of which....
Microsoft continues to aggressively push its vision of an integrated, "all Microsoft" environment. Clicking the Edit button on the IE4 toolbar loaded Microsoft Word 97, despite the fact that we had Allaire's HomeSite, Hot Dog Pro, Corel WordPerfect 8 and several other text editors registered with the OS, and had most recently been using HomeSite to edit HTML pages. To its credit, however, the company provides an automatic conversion of email messages and addresses from Outlook 97 or IE 3.0's Mail client. Netscape bookmarks are also automatically converted. Although we do not care for or recommend the use of FrontPage Express (it tends to drastically and destructively alter the HTML on web pages it edits), Microsoft's commercial title, FrontPage 98 works very well with IE's "Edit" button and is our recommended HTML authoring tool.
Mimicking the Windows "Explore" mode, IE4 allows you to view your favorite web pages in a similar framed fashion. This pays off in the Search function, which keeps your search subject on the left, while displaying results on the right. In IE4, this framed approach is also available when viewing History, Favorites and Channels, as well. Like almost everything else in the program, the framed Search window is an optional feature that may be controlled via an Options setting.
The IE4 Active Desktop crashes that plagued us in the PR2 version are gone from the final version. An Active Setup option allows additional components to be easily added. Overall, reliability was better than that of Netscape's browser. The Windows integration mode offers options to hide or show icons, open files with a single or double-click (once you've become used to single-clicking, it's hard to go back!), turn desktop applets on or off, and so on. The integration mode environment is entirely optional and can be turned off temporarily or uninstalled completely using the Add/Remove Control Panel, if desired. If you like Windows the way it was, you can configure it as such.
Alternatively, the browser offers a full-screen kiosk mode, in which the menu bar appears only when the mouse is in its vicinity. Elsewhere, a single scroll bar down the right side of the page is the only adornment.
Internet Explorer 4.0 is present in current betas of Windows 98 and NT 5.0, too -- although it remains to be seen how the US Dept. of Justice's recent injuction against Microsoft (forbidding the company from forcing manufacturers to license the browser as a condition of obtaining Windows 95 or its successors) will affect the final releases. Until then, IE4 is a must-have for those who want the best browsing experience available today.
In Kiosk mode, your Windows 95/NT desktop is replaced by a full-screen view of any web page you choose. (a simple mouse-click in the upper-right corner of the screen brings it back). This is a great way to view web pages. You can also set this toolbar to auto-hide, much as the standard Windows 95/NT toolbar can be configured. Other new IE4 features, such as the "Desktop" icon on the toolbar and the ability to hide any window with a single click on the corresponding application or document window's toolbar icon, also help manage the clutter of multiple windows and icons on the typical Windows user's desktop.
Taking a page from Windows CE, Internet Explorer 4.0 allows any window to be minimized or maximized with a single mouse-click. However, what is perhaps IE4's most compelling feature is its sheer speed. In Web integration mode, web pages load almost instantly and, indeed, Internet Explorer itself appears in less than a second. This is because it is, in effect, already loaded, but who cares?
IE 4 makes excellent use of the wheel on the Microsoft IntelliMouse. One of the best features appears when you click the "wheel button" on the mouse. An icon appears where you clicked on the web page, and you can then smoothly scroll through the contents at any speed. Alternatively, you can scroll line by line by rotating the wheel on the IntelliMouse.
The Email and News services included with IE4 closely resemble Microsoft's Outlook. Dubbed Outlook Express, the IE4 components have one big advantage over their Office 97 cousin: They are much faster. Best of all, you can easily migrate your email messages (from more than one account, if necessary!) from an existing program like Eudora or Netscape Mail.
IE4's news reader displays Quick Tips in a frame on the screen, much as Startup tips are displayed in recent versions of MS Office or many other programs. Both the Mail and News functions offer filtering and anti-spam functions. Overall, we prefer Netscape's News reader, but Microsoft's email client. (It's worth mentioning that MSN users cannot use this email client, as Microsoft's own ISP service inexplicably still does not support POP3 mail services.)
IE4 contains the fix to the bug that made headlines worldwide when it was shown that Internet Explorer 3.01 was susceptible to a bug that allowed links to remote applications -- including those on your own hard drive -- to be accessed by users anywhere on the web. Instead of blindly opening the file, as IE3.01 did, IE3.02 and IE4 present the dialog box shown here.
We've not yet fully explored Microsoft's Dynamic HTML. Unfortunately, it is not the same as Netscape's dialect (a situation we sincerely hope is resolved ASAP), but in superfical tests of both, it seems safe to say that Microsoft's is both easier to program and more capable. Will anybody use it? Time will tell....
At press time, Microsoft announced its intention to release beta 2 of Internet Explorer 4.0 for Macintosh with Dynamic HTML support comparable to that in IE4 for Win95 and NT. The current Mac version supports Active Channels (and can use the ones created for the Windows release -- developers do not need to create a separate Mac version), but ships without the preconfigured channels accompanying the Windows version. Also, the Mac version lacks the Desktop integration feature of the Windows release. A full review of the Mac client is at http://tcp.ca/gsb/Mac/ie4-for-mac.html.
Netscape Communicator 4.01
Netcaster, Netscape's implementation of a "Webtop" interface for "pushed" content, may appeal to those who don't like to mix up their OS and their web browser as much as Microsoft's offering does. Here, we see Netcaster's tool window.
Pros: Built-in FTP client can access sites that IE cannot reach. Better JavaScript implementation than that in Microsoft's browser results in fewer error message dialogs. TrueDoc support allows precise font control. Improved plug-in and automatic update support. Optional Netcaster feature adds "push" and "webtop" features.
Cons: Crashes at least as much as recent Netscape releases, lacks several features found in IE4. CSS implementation, while improved over 4.0 beta releases, is inferior to IE's. Lacks support for HTML 4.0 draft specs.
Netscape Communicator continues to offer an number of conveniences not available in Internet Explorer, such as the ability to easily determine the size of a graphic in pixels, open a frame or a graphic in a new window, and view images from within its newsgroup client. Netscape and IE4 both provide an "auto complete" function that automatically finishes typing the name of a URL you've visited before.
While we prefer Communicator's built-in web authoring functionality (previously available as part of the Navigator "Gold" package), we find it disconcerting that long-standing bugs, such as the program's propensity to crash when items are cut-and-pasted into tables, remain unresolved. However, while few HTML mavens would choose Communicator over a standalone web-page editor, its functions are, for the most part more elegantly implemented than those in IE4's FrontPad -- essentially the editor section of the FrontPage 97 package.
Email in Communicator is considerably improved over previous releases and poses a formidable threat to dedicated packages such as Eudora and Claris Emailer. Frankly, we prefer Netscape's offering over both of these; Microsoft's Outlook Express is arguably superior in interface and approximately at par in features --- but for one important benefit. Outlook Express, unlike Netscape's mail, supports multiple accounts. This makes Outlook Express a better choice for users with more than one email address. Spam filtering, automatic re-routing and other advanced features are available in both the Netscape and Microsoft packages, but what set's Netscape's Mail apart is its elegant handling of attachments. A paperclip icon signals one or more attachments; a click on this icon reveals the files. Tiny arrows in the window's border allows the viewing area (essentially, a frame) to be shown or hidden, and other functions are both sensibly implemented and easy to find. Like IE4, Communicator provides an "accept no cookies" option.
Cookies, those sneaky mechanisms by which websites can tell if -- and when -- you've visited before, are elegantly handled by both IE4 and Communicator. Here, we see Netscape's dialog that allows you to effectively deal with them or disable them entirely.
Security continues to be a major concern for web surfers, and a source of grief for both Netscape and Microsoft, as hackers and researchers the world over continue to find loopholes in browser security. The good news is, both companies have moved quickly to plug security breaches and fix bugs. Here, we see a warning from Netcaster's installer, cautioning the user that a Java applet is "requesting unusual access" to their computer or network.
The VRML viewer bundled with the full version of Communicator (and easily installable into the base installation via Netscape's JAR automatic update system) is superior to the one in IE4 in a few ways: It supports embedded MIDI files in VRML worlds and offers better support of Java and audio extensions, not to mention the proprietary WebFX/Live3D extensions that Netscape acquired when it bought Paper Software in 1995. However, IE's is not bad either. All in all, we prefer Cosmo Player 3.0 (beta 1), running inside either browser.
Conclusion
Version 4.x of Communicator is a worthwhile download for users of Netscape 3.0. However, few users are likely to prefer Netscape's browser interface or performance in an unbiased evaluation of both browsers. Even with its web/desktop integration features disabled (as easy as a couple of clicks and a restart), IE4 quickly became our favorite web browser. Those looking for a superior web browsing experience should check out IE4, although many people will probably turn off the "Active Desktop" features after a few days, as these features slow down Win95 screen redrawing slightly and may confuse some users with the changes in the desktop and mouse functionality. Nevertheless, at this stage of the game, a few issues notwithstanding, Microsoft holds the upper hand in functionality, elegance and, most significantly, in raw speed. With these attributes, we expect IE4 to seriously erode Netscape's leading marketshare. Although some would argue that this is because of Microsoft's unfair advantage when its browser is built into the dominant operating system, others suggest that it is simply because IE4 is a better product -- and unlike Netscape's offerings, it is free. In either case, Netscape's long-held dominant market position may at last be usurped.
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