It's not possible for one browser to be pecertably slower than any other on the same
Internet connection because they are both getting the same data from the same source
at the same compression rate etc. and it is the internet date rate that is the
bottleneck. Some browsers wait for certain tasks to be completed before displaying
but download speed must be identical, so the elapse times for completed pages and
downloaded files must be nearly identical. I say nearly because there is obviously a
small difference between the time each bowser takes to paint or save or whatever,
but on anything greater than a 386 this is negligible.
IE4 interacts much more closely with the kernel of the operating system and is thus
more likely to crash your box. IE4 is more feature rich but IMO active desktops and
other such gimmicks are of maginal importance. NN offers a more standard
interpretation of Java since Netscape have 'got into bed' with Sun (the inventors of
Java) in an futile attempt to stall the steady advance of Microsoft. One of
Microsoft's interpretation of Java allowed Java programs to diectly access operating
system commands although I'm not sure whether that is still the case - one hopes
not. In addition to Java, Microsoft offers ActiveX, that well known entry point for
hackers, virus writers, US goverment spies etc to have they wicked way with your
machine. Because ActiveX modules are programs that get installed on your machine
rather than Java programs running inside another program (the Java virtual machine),
they have a greater chance of taking your machine out. They can be written by almost
anyone with a copy of Visual Basic (the computer program writer). These programs can
be poorly written as well as malicious and we all know how vulnerable Windows 95 is
to crashing. In fairness, you can always refuse to have such executables sent from a
host. IE4 also tampers with almost everything in your box when you install it and
when it first came out took out a considerable number of boxes to the extent that
the users were forced to format their harddisks. I believe the Microsoft have fixed
many of these bugs now, but only a couple of months ago, my brother in law had his
box shafted by IE4. The best advice is not to install the Explorer desktop if you
have 95 - it comes as standard with 98 and has the added bonus of working properly.
Paul
> On Sat, 31 Oct 1998 06:19:24 -0800, "Tim Deatherage"
> Hi again,
> >Another off topic question.... Which program does every use ....MS IE 4.72
> >or Netscape 4.5?
> Still using Communicator 4.07 here
> >I have been using MS IE for about two years and I just downloaded Netscape
> >4.50 since it gotten a lot of hype and it seems to have the same features as
> >IE but is slower ! Can anyone comment on this ? Does if have any features
> >that IE 4.72 doesn't ?
> Netscape is slower... one good feature Netscape has its configurability for
> multiple users. When you use more than 1 ISP and have to use a proxy, its easy
> to setup two users. Its a pain to do this in IE. I also prefer Netscapes
> bookmarks over IE favourites.. when I start Netscape it has my bookmarks in a
> HTML file that I use as my startup page.
> IE is better in other areas like page refreshing, speed of showing a page,
> java?, newer style sheets and its other propriety addon stuff.
> >On the Mail and News front is ....Outlook Express the *** program? If
> >not then what is ?
> Outlook is probably the *** these days, many of us use Forte Agent which is
> a good offline mail reader, you can configure it to download all the messages,
> or set filters to get only the ones you want. Its email support is functional
> ie. not the best but not bad either.
> >Eudora? Netscape? What on line news reader is best ?
> I think Eudora just does email otherwise sorry can't help you here.
> >Thanks in advance for your comments !
> You're welcome.
> Cya,
> David
