Microsoft delivers a solid browser, but fails to land knockout punch

Is Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 4 a better browser than Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator 4? No, it is about as good. But since it's free and integrates with Windows 95, does it leave any compelling reason to pay for Navigator? Probably not. Nor does it provide those who already use Navigator with a compelling reason to switch.

The most notable new feature of Internet Explorer 4, due to ship later this month, is Active Desktop, which gives your Windows 95 icons a hypertext look and hyperlink behavior. They are underlined and can be activated with a single, instead of a double, click.

Active Desktop is interesting, but it's flawed in the Preview 2 release we tested. One of its most promising features is the ability to make a Web page your desktop background. But in this release, it's too slow. With the feature enabled, it takes far longer to refresh the screen and maneuver the cursor around the desktop.

The browser also does not behave as expected when you click on links on the desktop background. Rather than changing the desktop display to the page associated with the link, Internet Explorer 4 invokes a new browser window in which it displays the linked page. The first page remains in the background, leading us to ask, what's the point? We expect fuller integration and better performance by the time Windows 98 rolls out.

Like Navigator, Internet Explorer 4 lets you browse offline if you've previously downloaded the sites you want to visit. But it goes a step further than Navigator by letting you subscribe to a site. Internet Explorer 4 periodically will check subscribed sites and let you know whether content has changed.

You also can ship the page or URL you are currently browsing to someone else, using the e-mail program of your choice. Navigator has a similar function.

You can customize settings in Internet Explorer 4 by using the toolbar or a menu item, but changing preferences isn't as simple as with Navigator. And Internet Explorer 4 gives you only five choices for font size; Navigator lets you specify your fonts' point sizes exactly.

But Internet Explorer 4's toolbars are highly customizable, as is the display. Four new buttons on the main toolbar let you bring up a pane along the left side of the display for one of four purposes: search, favorites, history and channels.

Displaying your list of favorite sites or a history of sites you've recently visited is a good browsing aid, at the cost of a bit of screen real estate. The search view is the strongest of the new features. It brings up a pane displaying your choice of one of seven Internet search engines. Search results are displayed in the left pane, while the page associated with any link you click appears at the right (see graphic). You can quickly traverse multiple links this way.

As for channels, they are the latest integration of push technology with a browser, analogous to Netscape's Netcaster. You can download changed content automatically, be notified of the change or set a channel to act like a screen saver, in the manner of PointCast. Unfortunately, every time we tried to use the Channel Subscription Wizard to test this feature, our beta copy of Internet Explorer 4 crashed.

One other thing rubbed us the wrong way. If you choose to be notified when a Web server wants to send you a cookie, Internet Explorer's message alerting you to the fact doesn't mention the word ``cookie" (perhaps to avoid jargon) and doesn't give you information on the contents of the cookie unless you click on the More Info button.

In contrast to the integrated approach that Netscape took _ and later abandoned _ with Navigator, Microsoft ships just the Internet Explorer 4 browser but lets you download several complementary applications. They include:

• l Outlook Express, a tool for reading e-mail and Usenet messages
• l NetMeeting, a T.120 video and document conferencing application
• l FrontPad, a stripped-down version of Microsoft's FrontPage Web page composition tool
• l NetShow, a player for streaming audio and video
• l Web Publishing Wizard, a tool for posting your Web page

As a browser, Internet Explorer 4 is a capable tool. The choice of Internet Explorer 4 vs. Navigator comes down to individual preference. In terms of usability, we prefer Navigator. Still, if you want to roll out Internet Explorer 4 companywide, it's unlikely anyone will resign in a huff. And the addition of all the free, optional components makes Internet Explorer 4 hard to beat for value.