Off-topic: Much Faster
New Microsoft Browser
Adds Some Nice Details
MICROSOFT CORP. seems like a stumbling giant. In its federal antitrust case, the company's courtroom strategy appears a disaster. Completion of the next version of its Windows operating system is running way behind schedule. And Wednesday, its two most vigorous rivals, America Online and Netscape, merged to become a unified, potentially fierce foe.
But Thursday, the Redmond, Wash., software king is doing something right. It's releasing a new version of its Internet Explorer Web browser, a subtly improved edition that puts it once again ahead of Netscape in the continuing browser wars. While Internet Explorer 5.0 features no dramatic breakthroughs, it's filled with thoughtful little advances that make using the Web simpler for average, nontechnical folks.
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In addition, Microsoft has upgraded Internet Explorer's free companion e-mail program, Outlook Express, adding features and sophistication while preserving its speed and ease of use. The changes strengthen my view that Outlook Express is the best Internet e-mail program, better even than Microsoft's much-touted but ponderous Outlook 98.
The first thing you notice about IE5 is its speed. On my undistinguished Windows 98 test computer, a 266 MHz Pentium II with 64 megabytes of memory, IE5 starts up in only about 10 seconds. The latest version of Netscape Navigator, version 4.51, takes about 18 seconds to launch. Web pages also load quite speedily, though in my tests the rival browsers were about equally quick at downloading common sites.
Internet Explorer also now matches the two key features Netscape introduced last year: the listing of related Web sites and the ability to guess which Web site you want when you don't know the full address. If you type in a common company name or phrase, like "Merrill Lynch" or "White House," the new Internet Explorer, like Navigator, takes you to the Web site you probably want.
INTERNET EXPLORER did a better job of this than Navigator, in my tests. For one thing, Internet Explorer lists its main guess, and the next-best hunches, in a rectangular window to the left of the main Web-page screen, with a description of each site. It also lets you customize how this keyword search behaves.
Also, in my tests, Internet Explorer was more accurate than Navigator. For instance, typing in "Brandeis University" in IE5 took me right to my alma mater's main site, while Navigator generated a list of 10 links, none of which was the university's main page. Typing in "Boston Red Sox" in IE5 sent me right to the team's main site. In Navigator, the same phrase generated a message saying "no matches found in this category."
IE5 also uses the optional left-hand Explorer bar in other creative ways. It can become a handy always-present search form, for finding not only Web sites but the addresses of people and businesses, map directions and even encyclopedia articles. And you can freely customize this bar so it uses whichever search engines you like for each type of search.
The same Explorer bar also offers a much-improved view of the history of Web sites you've visited, sorting them by date or topic and allowing you to run searches of your history list. Microsoft is also allowing Web publishers to create their own Explorer bars that users can optionally download. The New York Times, for example, has built one that constantly displays headlines and stock quotes in a window that's separate from whatever Web page you're visiting.
IE5 also has a new feature that can optionally remember things you commonly type into Web sites, like your name and address, user I.D.s and passwords. As you start to type one of these common terms, the browser drops down a list of completed terms and lets you just click to automatically enter them. The new browser will also automatically correct typos in the standard portions of Web addresses, such as "http://" or "www."
THERE ARE other cool features. The new Internet Explorer can save complete Web sites to your hard disk, with graphics and all, so you can view them offline. It has a built-in radio toolbar for playing back the exploding number of radio broadcasts on the Web. It now easily imports and exports lists of favorite sites to and from Netscape Navigator. And Microsoft has killed in this version the annoying channel bar and most other features that turned your Windows desktop into an advertising medium.
The Outlook Express 5 e-mail package, which comes free with Internet Explorer, now can manage your Hotmail e-mail account, which formerly had to be used via a clumsy Web-based interface. And you can now set up multiple "identities" in Outlook Express, with different settings for different users. It's also easier to create sophisticated "rules" for sorting your e-mail, including a list of junk-mail purveyors or other senders whose mail you want blocked. And Outlook Express now permits multiple canned "signatures" you can use when composing e-mail messages. These signatures can be brief sign-offs or much longer blocks of text. That means you can use them to create entire boilerplate messages for various occasions, such as a standard response to meeting requests.
Netscape will be back this summer with its new browser, and its PR people were reminding reporters this week that it plans to beat IE5. But, for now, Microsoft has regained the lead in the browser competition with a version that makes using the Web a little bit easier. |
