THE CUTTING EDGE / INTERNET ACCESS : Refinements Take Netscape to New Frontier
The big news for World Wide Web surfers lately is the appearance of a beta, or test, version of a major new release of Netscape, the software so many of us use to browse the Web. There are still some kinks, but it’s clear that the new release represents an important leap forward in terms of what you’ll soon be able to do on the Internet.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, Netscape is more than just another browser. Thanks to its technical excellence and free distribution via the Internet, Netscape has become the browser of choice for an overwhelming number of Web surfers.
Many Web pages are already optimized for Netscape, and Netscape’s preeminence is such that it is now exercising a major influence on World Wide Web standards. The new version goes even further, and will force many Web authors to decide whether to take advantage of what the new Netscape has to offer at the expense of users who arrive via other browsers.
For the average user, the most immediately noticeable improvements contained in Netscape 2.0 include a full-blown electronic mail module and a more feature-rich newsreader for keeping up with Internet newsgroups.
But the latest version of Netscape contains many more important changes, ones that won’t be evident right away except perhaps to the most sophisticated users. For instance, Netscape 2.0 offers enhanced security features, including support for the VeriSign Inc. “digital ID” system, which permits what are being described as secure e-mail, digital signatures, safe digital commerce and more.
The new Netscape also allows the browsing screen to be divided into “frames,” each with a different World Wide Web address, so that different pages can be scrolled at the same time. The company also says it has made a number of performance improvements in Netscape, including faster handling of certain kinds of images.
On top of all this, and perhaps most important of all, Netscape 2.0 lays the groundwork for a vastly enhanced multimedia World Wide Web. For example, the new Netscape supports what are being called “plug-ins,” meaning that a Web page can contain data in, say, Apple’s QuickTime video format and Netscape can handle it without users having to launch QuickTime software.
Similarly, the new Netscape will support mini-programs written in Sun Microsystems’ new Java language, allowing onscreen data to be updated automatically, and enabling users to see and interact with animation, sound and video, right from within Netscape. In a further step toward transforming the Web, Netscape is offering software that enables applications developers to create Web pages that take advantage of all these new features in the Netscape browser.
The bottom line is, the new Netscape will help transform the Internet into the information highway we’re forever hearing so much about, even as regulators, legislators and corporations wrestle over how we ought to pave the road. For better or worse, Netscape is stretching the WWW’s information-carrying capabilities far beyond mere text.
So much for the big picture. Netscape users, meanwhile, can enjoy a browser that also functions as an e-mail program and newsreader. If you take the trouble to download Netscape’s separate add-on programs (one of them improves on Netscape bookmarks and the other permits Netscape to be used for live chat), you’ll have a whole suite of Netscape-based Internet applications.
But in this department, the new Netscape is far from being a panacea. I’ve tested the Netscape beta, and my preliminary judgment is that it works fairly well for e-mail. It’s especially nice that Universal Resource Locaters (URLs are just World Wide Web addresses) contained in a piece of e-mail are automatically linked, so that clicking them takes you right to the Web page they represent.
On the other hand, the Netscape e-mail module seemed perplexed when I tried to get it to use my own Internet domain (akst.com) rather than that of my Internet access provider. Eudora, another e-mail program I have tried, has no problem with this. As for Usenet, Netscape isn’t going to make me give up a dedicated newsreading program any time soon. In all honesty, I even preferred the old Netscape’s way of handling news.
So the hunt for the ideal package of Internet programs goes on. Sure, there are already some integrated suites of Internet applications on the market (or available on the Internet), but Internet aficionados have been waiting for one that incorporates Netscape, the browser par excellence.
In the interim, savvy users have been able to pick and choose from a cornucopia of separate freeware and shareware applications for mail, ftp, newsreading, etc. Thus, a user might employ Netscape for Web browsing, Free Agent for reading newsgroups, Pegasus for electronic mail and so forth. The system isn’t always convenient, but it is cheap, and each application excels at what it does.
By the way, those who access the Internet via CompuServe or America Online can use Netscape if they wish. CompuServe users can use Netscape instead of the CompuServe browser. America Online users who run Windows and want to try Netscape need only download a little program called Winsock. If you don’t know what this is, you probably shouldn’t fool with it; AOL has done a nice job of integrating its own Web browser with its interface, and it works well enough.
Daniel Akst welcomes messages at Dan.Akst@latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is at https://www.caprica.com/~akst/
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Where to Get the Goods
You can get the latest version of Netscape by pointing your World Wide Web browser at https://home.netscape.com/
If you want to check out a variety of Internet applications, check out Forrest Stroud’s Consummate Winsock Apps List at https://cwsapps.texas.net/
