Product Reviews

With Internet Explorer 4, Microsoft has changed the interface and use of Windows so much that it's almost like having a new OS on your desktop. Like Netscape's Communicator, Internet Explorer is no longer just a solitary browser; instead, when it's fully installed, it's a suite of applications - some old, some new.

Top of the heap is the retooled Internet Explorer itself, complete with the latest Web technology to enhance your browsing experience. These days, there's precious little to differentiate Netscape Navigator (reviewed, p204) and IE when browsing; most sites work equally well on both browsers and the situation looks unlikely to change in the near future. IE 4 does have a slight advantage in its greater overall support for the Dynamic HTML standard, which allows Webmasters more control over document layout, contents and structure.

Netscape is lagging behind there, but both companies are moving towards one agreed standard. Quite simply, if browsing is all you do on the Internet, IE 4 won't change the experience too much, but that's not where it will impress the most.

Instead, it's the underlying technology, Windows integration and bundled apps that differentiate IE 4 from the competition. There are five applications alongside the browser. Outlook Express handles mail and newsgroups; FrontPage Express is for HTML authoring; Chat for IRC; NetMeeting for conferencing, video and audio communications; and NetShow gives you live audio and video streaming across the Web. On top of this there are many other components included to smooth the Web waves, among them multimedia controls, VRML 2 for virtual worlds, Web-specific fonts and the Microsoft Wallet, which is designed to help you perform secure Web transactions, in case you were wondering.

We're becoming used to getting extra frills with our applications, especially from Microsoft, but IE's real surprise isn't these apps or components; instead, it's the extent to which IE 4 entwines Windows with the Web. This fully-fledged integration could well be the deciding factor in the next battle of the browser wars.

The desktop gets Active

Just about everything in IE 4 is active, and setup is no exception. As you grit your teeth in preparation for the enormous download - 11Mb for the minimum installation, 20Mb for the full - you'll discover that Active Setup needs to keep you on-line during setup. Microsoft estimates that over a 28.8Kbits/sec connection, downloading from its own sites, you could be connected for up to a staggering four hours to install the full package. Compare this with Internet Explorer 3.02's svelte 35 minutes.

However, despite the inherent limitations of downloading and setting up such a large program while connected to the Web, Microsoft has tried to make the process easier, with on-line help and a Smart Recovery facility that will restart a disconnected download from the point you left it. The final alternative is to install IE 4 from CD; Microsoft will provide one for a minimal fee, or you can find it on our own cover disc.

Once the drawn-out setup process has completed, you might get a shock when you see your new Desktop. The new Web style view is a signal a new-style Windows, with hyperlinked, underlined shortcuts, a Channel Bar and a revamped Taskbar. Even if the Web-style view isn't enabled by default on the final code of IE 4, as you begin to explore Windows you'll realise just how many changes there have been.

The first and possibly most significant change is the Active Desktop. Simply, IE 4 splits the desktop into two layers: the icon layer which holds all the usual shortcuts and system folders you've no doubt accumulated, and the HTML layer which contains any Web-based items. The emphasis there is on 'any Web item' - from ActiveX controls to Java applets, anything that can be put on a Web page can now be put on your desktop and run in the background.

This technology is tentatively explored in Active Channels, the most obvious innovation in the default Active Desktop. Channels are provided free to IE 4 users as Web-based content, similar in many ways to TV programming. You subscribe to those you're interested in and can have them delivered in four ways.

The most obvious is via the full-screen mode which launches you into a customised IE window, with those pesky icons and menus removed from view. Channel Mail has the updated Web pages delivered via email, to the HTML-enabled Outlook Express if nothing else is available. The Screen Saver mode cycles through the channels available while you're not doing other work, and finally individual items can also be placed directly into the Active Desktop, such as news tickers and weather maps. The file format that allows Channels to broadcast is known as CDF (channel definition format) and is an open standard based upon the XML (extensible markup language) standard.

The Channels themselves are only as good as the content providers, and so far they're not too impressive. Almost entirely US-biased, you get a wide selection of subjects from pure newsfeeds to entertainment channels. Watching them in action, I couldn't get away from the impression that I was watching glitz for glitz's sake. There was very little that I didn't think could be presented in a simpler way. There's a large number of Channels on offer: 438 in English at the time of writing, with more on the way. It's slightly behind the 700-odd Netcaster channels that Netscape has announced, but I don't think this is a case where quantity means quality.

Push technology within IE 4 isn't limited to Channels. You can subscribe to any Web page and then have IE 4 go out and check to see whether a page has been changed, either on demand or to a schedule. Pages can also be downloaded for off-line viewing, which might in the long run balance out the huge phone bill you may have run up downloading IE 4.

The potential for the Active Desktop is impressive. Company information could be delivered right to every user's Desktop over an intranet, via Java applets or ActiveX controls. Stock quotes, traffic reports, rolling news headlines and more could all be sitting on your Desktop for you at any time. The possibilities are very interesting for Webmasters; this

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alone makes IE 4 a more enticing prospect than before for IT managers.

Windows browsing

IE 4's intrinsic linking with the Windows OS means you can now browse your hard disk or intranet as easily as you browse the Web. Microsoft's vision is to train users to utilise a single Explorer, which will deal with both local and Internet locations. This means that within Windows Explorer you see The Internet as just another part of the My Computer hierarchy, and within Internet Explorer, you can type 'c:' in the Address bar and see your hard disk folders. It's not entirely seamless, with the familiar icons of one Explorer or the other being abruptly replaced when you switch locations, but it does work when you're used to it.

More importantly, the Web integration throughout Windows is very thorough. The Favorites folder now cascades off your Start Menu, giving you access to your frequently-used Web sites. The Taskbar becomes a container for toolbars; a Quick Launch toolbar is supplied as standard, pre-configured to launch IE 4, Outlook Express, your Channel selections or let you see your Desktop with one click. Also, there are Desktop, Links and Address toolbars to give you instant access to your folders or Web sites. The Internet is now just about one click away from any location within Windows.

But it was the Web-style view that surprised me so much on first using IE 4. This changes the way you look at Windows, with files and folders now acting like hyperlinks on a Web page; you move your cursor over them to select them, then single click to launch. Individual folders are viewed as Web pages, including My Computer and Control Panel, and any folder you wish can be customised with your choice of background.

Most of these changes are simply cosmetic, and won't affect your browsing experience, which is the main reason you use a Web browser. However, they're important pointers to the future and to the look and feel of Windows 98. If you want an early look at the interface of next year, IE 4 is it.

Freebies, freebies everywhere

As mentioned earlier, IE has expanded significantly with this release to become more of a fully-fledged Internet suite. The extra components cover the key elements in today's Internet experience: mail, newsgroups, IRC chat and conferencing.

The all-in-one Outlook Express replaces the innocuously-named Internet Mail and Internet News. While in look and feel Outlook Express is similar to its big brother, the Office 97 component Outlook, in practice it's a tighter, slimmer program that really only shares the name. In use, Outlook Express looks similar to a Web page, complete with a Start page that lets you read mail, check your newsgroups and so on.

All the features you'd expect from a modern mail and newsgroup reader are here: SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 and LDAP support, digital signing and encryption, attachments in MIME and UUENCODE, spelling checker and hyperlink support. Also, Outlook Express supports the use of HTML in email, which lets you use stationery templates for messages, send Web pages by email and format messages using HTML tags. Outlook Express is a powerful program, although it's a little limited by being unable to receive any mail other than from POP3 or IMAP servers.

IRC chat and conferencing within IE 4 are handled by the tried and trusted components of Chat and NetMeeting. Chat 2 is little changed from the original Comic Chat, apart from improved IRC compatibility and some interface tweaks. Perhaps the most important change is improved integration with NetMeeting, which is also now on a version 2 release. It now has support for face-to-face videoconferencing, as well as traditional Internet phone functions, whiteboards and chat.

HTML authoring is now well supported throughout Microsoft's product range; from Publisher to Office, you can output HTML just about everywhere. IE gets an HTML author in the form of FrontPage Express, a cut-down version of FrontPage 97. It includes a Personal Home Page Wizard to get you started with a basic page, support for Java applets, JavaScript, Plug-Ins and ActiveX controls. FrontPage Express lags behind FrontPage 98 (reviewed, p208) in terms of power, but it's a decent enough wysiwyg editor for simple pages.

The final component of IE is so small it's almost unnoticeable: NetShow allows you to view live video and audio over the Web, streaming over any reasonable speed connection. It uses another new file format, in this case ASF (active streaming format), which Microsoft hopes will one day replace AVI and WAV files as the delivery format of choice. Additional software available from Microsoft lets you set up NetShow servers to broadcast content. In use, NetShow is quick with reasonable quality, audio and video, although it's not going to replace the TV or radio just yet.

Free and easy

Any evaluation of IE is dominated by one fact: it's free. With version 4, Microsoft hasn't become mean and slapped on a price tag, so the undeniable fact remains that this is a very powerful Internet suite that won't cost you anything beyond the download cost. Arguably, it means that choosing IE 4 is a no-brainer, even if you do have a high IT buying budget; after all, no-one minds saving money.

But there are other reasons to choose IE 4. First and foremost, if you're sticking with Windows and intend to move forward when the next iteration is finally released, it makes some sense to upgrade to IE 4 now. It introduces a way of working that's different enough from Windows, at least in conceptual terms, that you'll need some time to adjust before the next version of Windows hits. The problem with IE 4's Windows integration is that there's a very real chance it will make things more unstable, and reports of crashes and system level problems are already rife. However, during my month long testing I had very few crashes that could be directly attributed to IE 4. You may also, like me, find the changes to Windows very helpful in your daily work, especially if you're sitting on a permanent Internet connection.

That preference for a constant Internet connection is probably IE 4's main problem. With it, you're totally Web-enabled. Without it, you'll be dialling your ISP more often. Certainly, there are plenty of off-line options, and commendable work has been done in Web site subscriptions and Channel delivery by alternate means, but it doesn't change the fact that IE 4 works better on a permanent connection. Until ISDN or leased lines become cheaper and more prevalent, this could frustrate a lot of users.

This is only a slight dent in IE 4's armoury, and doesn't obscure the fact that it is a very powerful Internet suite. With this release, Microsoft has taken another step towards the very real possibility of having Internet Explorer on every Desktop.