Web Browser Overview
The meteoric rise of the Web has led to the development of over seventy-five Web browsers. However, the vast majority of surfers use either Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. These two major Internet forces take the browser market very seriously. Many feel that the company which can dominate the browser market will dominate the Internet and eventually the desktop. Microsoft's competitors have seen how Microsoft's control of the PC's operating system has given them a dramatic, and some feel an unfair, advantage over companies trying to compete in the PC applications market. Similarly, if Microsoft can gain control over the Internet standards they will have a dramatic advantage over other companies trying to compete in the Internet market. This battle for market share is well summarized in the September 16th Time Magazine cover story "Whose Web Will It Be?" available below.

Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer:
The battle for market share has in the short run benefited end users, who have seen Web browsers improve at near dizzying speed. Both browsers support frames, tables, Netscape plug-ins and QuickTime movies, but they differ in some key areas:

Platforms Supported:
Microsoft Explorer 3.0 is available now only for Windows95, WindowsNT 4.0 and a Mac beta version, while Navigator 3.0 is available for these and an additional 14 other platforms.

Pricing:
Microsoft Explorer 3.0 is free, while Netscape Navigator is free only to educational and non-profit users. Commercial users of Netscape will need to pay $49.00 for Navigator 3.0 or $66.00 for Navigator 3.0 and a year's worth of upgrades.

Component Standard:
Another significant difference between the browsers is their support for component software which lets users download and run small applications called applets. Both Navigator and Explorer support Java, the cross-platform programming language developed by Sun Microsystems, while Explorer also supports ActiveX, currently a Microsoft Windows-only technology. ActiveX will eventually allow Web servers to communicate with Windows applications. This has many advantages, but it also allows Web pages with malicious ActiveX applets to wreak virus-like havoc on the user's machine. Theoretically, Java applets could do the same thing, but Sun has designed the language so it should only be able to access files or applications with the user's permission. Java applications run in their own virtual machine environment, which limits what they are allowed to do. Security experts have found some problems with the current version of Java, but on the whole it is much more secure than ActiveX.

Scripting Language:
A forth major difference between the browsers is in their scripting language. Scripts allow web designers to add some interactivity to Web pages. Many sites currently use scripts for scrolling "ticker-tape" and other interactive features. Netscape uses JavaScript, while Microsoft uses JScript, a JavaScript-compatible language, and VBScript, based on Visual Basic. VBscript will be an advantage for Web authors who are already familiar with Visual Basic.

CyberDog:
Many other companies have decided not to compete directly with Navigator and Explorer, but have instead created "Netscape compatible" browsers which have unique features. One of these is included in Apple's Internet product suite, called CyberDog.

CyberDog is an Internet product suite which demonstrates OpenDoc technology. OpenDoc was developed by a group of companies including both Apple and IBM. It is unique in that it is cross-platform and allows users to mix and match Internet and other applications from several vendors while allowing them to work with each other seamlessly. OpenDoc components are called "Live Objects." Right now CyberDog comes with the following Live Objects developed by Apple. These include a Web browser, email client and newsreader developed by Apple, but you will soon have the choice of substituting Live Object versions of Netscape, Spyglass's Mosaic, and several other applications.

The advantage of the OpenDoc architecture is that users will be able to use one company's browser with another company's email client and a third company's word processor, and they will all work together without requiring that each program be loaded into RAM. This technology is promising because it could spell the demise of slow, RAM-hungry, do-it-all applications which only seem to share data with applications from the same vendor.

The OpenDoc technology is available for the Mac, OS/2 and soon Windows. In addition, Apple and Sun are working together to allow OpenDoc applications and Java applets to communicate with each other.

If successful, OpenDoc could break the dominance of large application suites and allow small niche developers back into the Mac, OS/2 and Windows markets. This will increase competition and give end users more flexibility in creating their own "suite" of favorite applications. In summary, CyberDog is more than a collection of Macintosh Internet applications; it is an example of a whole new paradigm in computing, which, if successful, should benefit both small developers and end users.


Additional Information:

Articles on Web Browsers:
Time Magazine [9.16.96]: Who's Web Will it be?: WINNER TAKE ALL
PC Week [8.22.96]: PC makers allege Microsoft used pressure tactics
PC Magazine: HTML Browser's Editor's Choice
Web Week [9.23.96]: How Latest Browsers Really Differ


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Updated: Thursday, December 12, 1996, 5:31 pm
Peter DeVries (pdevries@cs.wisc.edu)
Copyright © 1996 InterNIC Internet Scout