Off topic - Which program IE 4.02 or Netscape 4.5?

Another off topic question.... Which program does every use ....MS IE 4.72 or Netscape 4.5? 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 ? On the Mail and News front is ....Outlook Express the *** program? If not then what is ? Eudora? Netscape? What on line news reader is best ? Thanks in advance for your comments ! -- Tim A. Deatherage "Admitted Sim ***"

Can't answer all your other questions... I myself use IE4.72 w/ Win98... and it crashes ALL the time.. especially at the APEX! But I prefer it to Netscape 4.5 anyhow. (I use both, actually). My WebTracker stats from my GPL page tell me that: - 6 % of users still use Netscape 3 - 6 % of users still use IE 3 - 54 % of users use IE4 - 32 % of users use Netscape 4 - 2% use other browsers .. and those #'s are based on close to 18000 visitors since then end of August. As for newsreaders, I have Outlook Express, Netscape Collabra, and Forte Agent 1.5. I use Express only! -- most people think I'm crazy - but it gets the job done - has mail AND newsgroups nicely interfaced together, and is quite customizable. I even use Express when downloading multi-part binaries - although I don't like the fact that you can't check your email when you're doing d/l'ing off a group, so I sometimes use Agent for BIG binary downloads. As far as I remember, Netscape's mail/newsreader wasn't too bad - I just never really gave it a chance. I hear version # 5 of IE will be coming out very soon. doktorB http://webhome.idirect.com/~drbryan/gpl >Another off topic question.... Which program does every use ....MS IE 4.72 >or Netscape 4.5?

First off let me say that Im not an anti-Microsoft person =) However... I personally cannot stand IE anymore. I switched from Netscape to IE when IE first came out and I liked IE better. However as more versions came out.... the more trouble I had. I believe Internet Exploder had earned its reputation and name <VBG> It crashed my computer ALL the time. So I switched back to Netscape with version 4. Ive been using Communicator ever since. The one thing I like about Netscape is the "all in one" package. Especially now with the mail/newsgroup 3 frame window. Netscape 4.5 seems to be working very well for me. As far as speed goes... it may be a tick slower than IE4 which I have loaded on my computer but only use when I need to do something at a MS IE specific website. IMHO.... Active Desktop was a terrorist act by the middle east to bring down the United States <VBG> Scott -- Scott B. Husted Marketing and Administrative Manager Riegel Federal Credit Union http://www.riegelfcu.org ICQ# 4395450

It's probably just my system but Netscape 4.7 goes much faster than IE4 for me! Although IE3 is the quickest. Cheers! -- Graeme Nash You know what to do with "don't_spam_me"... http://www.karisma1.demon.co.uk/ ICQ# 11257824 "My car appeared to disagree with my preference for living"

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

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> 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

I'm not going to take sides in the Netscape vs. Microsoft browser war (I use both), but if you do use a recent version of Netscape (4.06 or later) and value your privacy, be sure to read this article: http://www.interhack.net/pubs/whatsrelated/ Note: Netscape has a weird naming convention. The current version of Communicator is 4.5, but the most recent version of the browser itself (Navigator) is 4.07. When you run Navigator and look in the "About Box", it has the Communicator version 4.5. I don't see any way to tell what version of Navigator you are running short of looking in the registry - and even that is confusing.

Well, Folks, I must be bored .......so I'm going to try both for awhile because each has it's advantages and disadvantages....................duh.....that intelligent?! Thanks for your responses ! Tim A. Deatherage "Admitted Sim ***"