The Next generation of Web browser has arrived  

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Netscape promise to deliver the final commercial version of Communicator in the second quarter of this year around June end - while Microsoft is aiming Explorer 4.0 at a July final release. Will Netscape's one-month head start give it the competitive advantage? 

Let's take a look. First, read all about it at the Netscape Communicator home page, and then download the whole 12 Megabyte file from there. Takes about an hour and a half via VSNL's 33.6 KBPS line (if it does not disconnect). Assuming, of course, you really feel the need. According to Netscape, "Communicator is an open email, GroupWare, and browser suite that provides the complete set of tools you need every day to easily communicate, share, and access information on your intranet or the Internet. Netscape Communicator is cross-platform, extranet-ready, and engineered for dynamic HTML." 

Does that sound exciting and new? Nope, it sounds just like what a browser is supposed to do, except that they added the current buzzword, "Intranet", into the equation. Funny that, seeing as how Netscape pioneered Intranet applications way back via Navigator 2.0 already. 

Is the browsing experience different? Yes, but it brings it closer to Internet Explorer 3.0 than to a new paradigm of browsing. They've streamlined the browser interface, with cool 3D control buttons the way Microsoft changed their interface in Explorer 3.0, and they've added a floating toolbar that gives you one-click access to new mail, chat and web editing tools. It looks way cool but really just gets in the way. I've stuck it in the far corner of my bottom status bar where I don't notice it unless I need it. 

The built-in editor, Netscape Composer, which allows you to create, adapt or edit pages on the fly and upload them directly to your web server, is an overdue improvement on the clunky Navigator Gold, making it more a handy tool than a major new application but, at least in the pre-release version, it is still a disgrace to the world of Web authoring. It is unable to create even the frames that Netscape themselves invented ages ago. To be fair, we should wait for the commercial version before we dismiss this element out of hand. 

Navigator 4.0 supports Stylesheets, a standard HTML element that enables text to be displayed in dazzling graphic formats without increasing the download time of ordinary text. Explorer had incorporated that in version 3.0, but few sites have implemented it due to Netscape's non-compliance. 

Netscape introduces something called Canvas Mode in Navigator 4.0, which allows web page developers to not only control what the user sees and interacts with, but how their browser behaves while they do it: you may suddenly find they have removes browser menus, toolbars, scrollbars and even your browser window to customize your experience. That's the nice way of putting it. The ugly way of putting it is that some developers may attempt to trap you in their sites, with no way to get out aside from shutting down the entire program. This one won't win the user awards. 

The mail element of Communicator, Netscape Messenger, is a quantum leap over the previous version, Particularly in regard to its Message Composition window: you can write a plain old message, or you can create a formatted document with fonts, graphics, links and anything else you could do in a basic web page editor. You can also drop any image from a web page into an e-mail message. In effect, it is a word processor with Web capability built in, allowing you to send truly dynamic e-mail - but only to recipients who also have next-generation e-mail software. 

Business users will find ready access through Communicator to valuable tools like Collabra group discussion software and Netscape Conference real-time collaboration software, along with the Netscape Calendar scheduler, Netscape AutoAdmin for system administrators to customize the user interface and Netscape IBM 3270 Host On-Demand - allowing browser access to non-Web data residing on IBM Hosts. 

 These tools combine to create a powerful and effective Internet access system for the business world, and signals the beginning of Netscape's move away from the mass-market browser world and a more dedicated embrace of potentially more lucrative corporate needs. For the ordinary user, however, Netscape has effectively abdicated its crown. 

Netscape may well add additional layers to Navigator 4 before the final release of Communicator, and it may well be a far cooler and more powerful browser suite than version 3 could deliver, but it's when one considers what it could have been that you understand the extent to which it has fallen behind. 

What it could have been was Internet Explorer 4.0. Visit the Internet Explorer 4.0 page to get an advance preview. By the time you read this, you may already be able to download the pre-release version, but a word of warning: this is pre-pre-release stuff, and will crash at the drop of a modem. Don't put it on a system you haven't backed up. 

But enough idle chatter: what does it do? 

For starters, installing Explorer 4.0 upgrades Windows 95 to something close to Windows 97. When the new version for Windows does arrive, around August, it will have Explorer 4.0 built in, and Navigator will finally slink off into the sunset. Meanwhile, Explorer 4.0 already delivers Web View, the long-promised tool that allows you to set up your entire desktop as a Web browser, with all menu items accessible via the single-click of the browser world rather than Windows' traditional double-click. "My Computer" in effect becomes an HTML file - even down to its own background watermark that you can change to suit your interior design ideals. You still get the choice between large and small icons to represent folders and files, but each menu also comes with a browser-style menu bar, even down to the address box, into which you can type in either a Web address - your system will dial in and connect to that address - or a local file, in a Windows equivalent to the old DOS command line. 

In effect, Explorer 4.0 installs a Desktop Settings tab into the Desktop Properties menu, so that when you set up the background image and the screensaver in Properties (after right-clicking on any empty space on your desktop), for instance, you can also choose set up a Web View, from where you can set up which browser will reside on your desktop (yes, you can still specify Navigator) and any other HTML files you may want accessible directly from the desktop. 

Microsoft uses that integration of the shell (Windows) and browser (Explorer) as the springboard for redefining web browsing, and the WebView becomes the first component of a browser suite to match Communicator and then surpass it. 

 But first, the browser component. Your "Favorites" become live bookmarks. The browser alerts you when any of the pages linked from these bookmarks have changed, and the Favorites can be further organized (oh, when will Netscape learn how to organize bookmarks?), to the level of downloading "subscribed" sites for offline reading. 

 Here is the only major flaw I could detect in a cursory introduction to Explorer 4.0: the offline browsing model is distinctly first -generation, in that it copies the precise technique used by the first big players in the field, such as Foresight's Webwhacker and Travelling Software's WebEx. Both of those allow you to select aspects like total file size, domain limits and site levels for downloading. Anyone who has used such tools extensively will tell you they don't work, since selecting "levels" is about the bluntest way to specify how far you want to drill down into a site for downloading and offline reading. 

 Unfortunately, Explorer 4.0 seems to follow that precise route. The way it works is that you click on Favorites, right-click on the bookmark for the site you want to download, and in the resultant Properties box click on Subscription. Click on Edit, and set your requirements for the site download, including how often you want it updated, and what time of day or week you want the download to happen. I guarantee that, if they don't fix it, this set-up is going to deliver hordes of outraged howls to Microsoft's door once enough people are persuaded to use it. Inevitably, they will find that the pages they really want to access have not arrived with the download, and the pages they can access tend to be completely irrelevant to their needs. Microsoft needs to borrow from their own Front Page, a web authoring tool that displays a site tree that allows you to click on the precise point you want to activate. Effective offline browsing demands at least that kind of option when settings are being specified. Certainly, a next generation product should take that need into account. 

The most dazzling new feature of Explorer, however, is something called Active Channels. Having more or less given up on delivering TV-like channels via the Microsoft Network to people who don't see why they have to pay for contrived product, Microsoft have moved the concept onto the desktop, without the pay-your-way element, and without trying to stamp "Microsoft" on your very entertainment. The Desktop Channels are organized within a browser-type window, with a menu which lists available channels, under categories like Sport, Kids, News and Business. A content provider could, for instance, have their channel incorporated into all versions of Explorer downloaded from Microsoft's site. 

Microsoft will also deliver a Channel Guide to your desktop, and welcomes third parties supplying their own versions of such guides. So don't be too shocked, in the near future, when a man in a raincoat offers you a Channel Guide for your computer. 

There is more. A lot more. And this is just the prototype. 

I would even go so far as to say that, by the end of this year, Netscape will be just another bit player on the browser stage, reduced to the same ignominy that has befallen Mosaic, the first point-and-click Web browser, but now holding on to less than 2% of the market. Of course, Netscape's legacy - at one stage 87% of all Web users were its converts - will mean that it will retain a large share of the market for some time to come. But there is one more factor that will be a likely Achilles heel: the price tag. Communicator will cost money whereas Explorer is free. Personally, I was big fan of Netscape till I encountered Explorer 4.0. Explorer is definitely here to stay.