WEB BROWSERS

Interfaces to the World Wide Web that simplify locating web pages, downloading files, playing of audio, playing of video, etc. Gopher was the first to become a great hit, but it was limited mainly to text. Mosaic followed, but it was Netscape that hit the market with enormous success. Netscape Navigator can be downloaded from <http://www.netscape.com/. This success jolted Microsoft into expanding its network browser development from six employees to more than 600 developers. The Microsoft browser is known as Explorer (see <http://www.microsoft.com/>). Various other competitors are emerging, but it is a market share browser race between Netscape Navigator and Explorer. Features to both are added almost monthly, so it is very difficult to stay up to date on the latest happenings without going directly to the vendor web pages. An earlier comparison is given in PC Computing, April 1996, pp. 79-80, but this comparison was obsolete amost as soon as it hit the presses. Most browser vendors also sell software for creating and maintaining web (home) pages. Students can set up free homepages at <http://www.tripod.com/>. Virtual Servers Inc., for a monthly fee, will provide web server space to business firms and other parties wanting to set up network application servers. The Virtual Server home page is http://vservers.com/ . In the past, browsing was free of virus risks. With the advent of Windows Scripting Host utilities, this is no longer the case. Precautionary advice is given under ActiveX . (See also Cookies , Image map , GINA , Gopher , Mosaic , Internet , SLIP and Web streaming .)