Love and Hate with Internet Explorer
During the installation routine for IE 4.0 (Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0) I was given a choice of electing a FULL install, including Active Desktop and the STANDARD install. Because of reported problems with the full installation I elected to go with the standard install. After a few inexplicable crashes and system lock-ups requiring the rebooting of my system I decided to uninstall and then reinstall the program. For some unexplained reason this worked and IE 4.0 started to behave. However, the stan dard installation routine rather arbitrarily decided to install Outlook Express even though the full Outlook Express was already installed. I consider this a complete waste of precious resources.
During installation, IE asked if it could examine the system to determine which components might be needed. Once the system was examined, the status column advised if an applet was not yet installed, already installed, or had an upgrade available. Download and automatic installation of the chosen applets was flawless.
IE opens its Internet Start Page, which can be customized. I prefer starting with a blank page. Further customization includes the usual Favorites (Bookmarks in most other applications), toolbars, history, and various and sundry other tweaks and twitches.
The button Help provides more than the usual menu items, such as: Product Updates, a Web Tutorial, and Microsoft on the Web. Clicking on Product Updates will automatically download and install your choice (there are many) of browser components. Click on Favorites and you will find Software Updates, which links to an IE update.
Initially, IE ran across sites that had errors in their scripts, of which IE faithfully informed me. Once I discovered how to turn off “script debugging” I no longer had problems with this and the pages loaded fine. Methinks these pages may have been dre ssed up especially for viewing with Netscape Navigator.
IE includes quite a number of preinstalled Favorites. While checking these I found IE had raided my Netscape Bookmarks and placed them among its Favorites as “Imported Bookmarks”. Netscape may well do the same; I’ve not used it since starting this review .
IE 4.0 handles security through the use of Help files, Zones such as Intranet and Internet Zones (medium security), Trusted Site Zone (low), Restricted Site Zone (high). Additionally, IE 4.0 makes use of SSL (Secure Socket Layer) security enabling you to store and access payment and address information easily without having to retype it. This enables Internet Vendors to provide programming “hooks” that allow Secure Electronic Transaction (SET).
Outlook Express, a scaled down version of MS Outlook, is included. Outlook Express handles e-mail and can be opened from within IE. Business cards, address books and attachments, as well as mail folders, mailing lists access and Usenet newsgroups are sup ported by Outlook Express. The best description I can give of newsgroups is one gigantic set of message areas. The usual privacy and security issues such as PGP, digital ID, trust status, etc. are also supported. I found IE 4.0 easy to setup and use, onc e I got past the bumpy installation road. Outlook Express was also easy to setup and use for e-mail and newsgroups.
In spite of early reservations I’ll probably keep IE on my PC for awhile longer. It’s working fine now, and there are a few more areas I’d like to explore.
Nancy Ward, a HAL-PC member, can be contacted at nward@hal-pc.org.
“Just when I was getting used to Navigator”
“Communicator”? What happened to “Navigator”? Navigator is still the heart and soul of Netscape’s newest Internet package. A new name is deemed worthy as so many new tools have been added.
Communicator maintains former tools as - 1. Navigator, web browser; 2. Messenger, e-mail reader; and 3. Collabra, newsgroup reader. To those tools it adds - 4. Composer, web page authoring tool; 5. Conference, internet telephone calls; 6. Netcaster, rece iving internet broadcasts; 7. Calendar, enterprise scheduling and resource management; and 8. IBM Host on Demand, accessing remote servers via Telnet.
Two Communicator versions are available – Standard ($49) for home use and Pro ($79), for Collabra and Calendar networked intranet use.
Prior users of Navigator receive a culture shock when opening Communicator. The interface is significantly overhauled. Although annoying at first, when I took time to study the new features I discovered welcome improvements.
Toolbars have been redesigned in MS Office 97 style. They are easily hidden to allow more viewable screen space. Bookmarks are improved. To add one you simply drag and drop it directly into your folder of choice.
E-mail and newsgroup functions are combined in Messenger. This adds ease of use and makes sense to me. Filters route mail from certain users or subjects to a particular folder, or slice them out of newsgroups; a nice feature. E-mail added a spellchecker (finally). It has HTML so you can do most webpage things, i.e., color, images, links, etc. The recipient must have these capabilities also.
Netcaster lets you subscribe to channels to have specific content, such as sports, financial and world news, “pushed” to your PC for perusing as desired. Conference provides internet phone, whiteboarding and other conferencing functions. It is like an IR C chat room on steroids. Composer is an OK basic webpage tool.
Netscape joined Sun Microsystems to push JAVA; but Communicator may lockup when it encounters JAVA on the web. Go figure. Recent releases have addressed this with increasing success; but why did it occur in the first place? It is a radical departure from Navigator, bloated (20+ Mb), and has problems. Yet I use it; and you don’t really have to install all the features you won’t use. Keep your eye on MS Internet Explorer 4.x. The browser war is wonderful. Users win! For more info go to http://www.netscape.com.
Tom Lassiter is a HAL-PC member who can be contacted at jamesl@hal-pc.org.
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