Microsoft Catches Up with Netscape

Internet Explorer 3.0 makes a strong play for Web dominance.

Rex Baldazo

Web browsers have become the primary battlefield in the war for the heart and soul of Internet citizens. Microsoft's two previous Web browsers were OK, but they didn't demonstrate any interesting new technologies. However, the third attempt, Internet Explorer 3.0 (IE 3.0), changes all that, matching the market-dominating Netscape Navigator feature-for-feature while adding lots of strategic Microsoft technology.

Support for Java was not in the beta version we tested, but it is slated for beta 2, which should be available when you read this. The beta we tested offers some support fo r JavaScript, although it's not yet totally compatible wit h Netscape's implementation.

Also in IE 3.0 is VBScript, Microsoft's own scripting engine. A slimmed-down version of the Visual Basic language, VBScript is Microsoft's challenge to Sun's JavaScript. It should appeal to the legion of Web developers who already know Visual Basic, but currently only IE 3.0 supports it. To encourage widespread adoption, Microsoft is making the VBScript engine available to all takers.

One of IE 3.0's more intriguing new technologies is support for in-place activation, part of Microsoft's OLE/ActiveX Document technology. For example, it lets you click on a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) link that points to a Word document, which opens up inside the browser window while Word is activated in place, adding its menus and toolbars to the browser window (assuming you have Word or the free Word Viewer installed on your computer).

The key is that this in-place stuff works with any application that supports the ActiveX Document technology, whether the fi le is on your local hard drive or coming across the Internet. This is a step toward a universal browser, where all content -- from that on the Web to what's on your local hard drive -- is viewed from the same browser.

More than anything else, it's ActiveX Controls that have the potential to make the greatest impact on the Web. They allow for powerful, interactive content similar to that of Java applets, but with the advantage of having mature development tools, such as Visual C++ 4.1.

The technology is still in its infancy, however, and some unanswered questions may delay widespread adoption. First among these is the fact that ActiveX Controls are intimately tied to OLE, which in turn is part of the Windows platform and does not yet work on Macintosh or Unix machines.

The IE 3.0 user interface is also inconsistent, especially its drag-and-drop aspects. If you grab a text hyperlink in IE 3.0 and drag it to the Windows 95 desktop, it creates an Internet shortcut. If, on the other hand, you gra b a hyperlink that's associated with a GIF or JPEG file, it drags the image rather than the shortcut. And, unlike the Win 95 desktop, the IE 3.0 interface has no right-mouse-button option for selecting whether to drag a shortcut or the image itself.

Overall, we were impressed with IE 3.0. There are still some rough edges, but the browser brings innovative new technology to the Internet. Whether this technology has any impact -- and whether IE 3.0 can dent Navigator's huge market lead -- remains to be seen.

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Where to Find

Internet Explorer 3.0..................free (for Windows 95 and NT)

Microsoft Corp.
Redmond, WA
Phone:    (800) 426-9400 or (206) 882-8080
Fax:      (206) 635-6100
Internet: 
http://www.microsoft.c
om/ie/

Circle 995 on Inquiry Card.

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Ratings

Technology      *****
Implementation    ***


KEY

***** Outstanding
 **** Very Good
  *** Good
   ** Fair
    * Poor

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Internet Explorer 3.0

screen_link (79 Kbytes)

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 sports a new interface and many important features, including borderless frames (shown).

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Rex Baldazo is BYTE's technical editor in charge of software review. You can contact him at rbaldazo@bix.com .