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Netscape 2.0

By Joseph R. Harris Jr.

Netscape 2.0, the latest revision of the world's "favorite" Web browser, continues to set the standard for Web browsers with new features, extensions, and creative methods of interacting with the rich and rapidly expanding Internet world.

With this wealth of new and enhanced features, Netscape promises to maintain its edge in the World Wide Web browser market. However, Netscape 2.0 is currently not supported by the University. Given the known problems with the e-mail client in Penn's environment and the great complexity of other new features described below, only the brows ing functions are likely to be supported initially.

Performance

Another performance enhancement is client-side image mapping, which means that those cool pictures you click on to navigate the Web can be interpreted by your machine - instead of it having to wait for the server to do the work.

Netscape 2.0 can also download multiple types of data simultaneously, including sounds, video, text, and graphics. It also supports Progressive JPEG images. Progressive JPEGs load images in layers so that you can see images faster, without having to wait for perfect quality before something appears on your screen.

E-mail, news, and frames

What sets it apart from other mail clients, however, is the capability to easily send, receive, and natively render multimedia HTML code embedded in messages.

A caveat lector is in order for Penn users: The e-mail client is currently not fully compatible with the POP mail server used on some campus mail hosts. Specifically, the Leave Mail on Server feature is not supported and - if selected - will cause one's e-mail to seem to disappear from the server. It is not really gone and can be made visible, but it can be horrifying when it happens, to say the least! Eudora, with its stronger feature set and cleaner appearance, continues to be the POP mail client recommended and supported by the University.

Netscape's news reader has been upgraded to a full-featured news client. A separate Address Book module serves both the e-mail and news clients. Again, the feature setting it apart from other new readers is the capability to natively render any embedded HTML code, image, or other data format recognized by the browser (e.g., GIF, JPEG, e-mail addresses, references to other newsgroups, and hyperlinks).

Binary file transfer via e-mail or news is completely transparent and, in many cases, such files can be automatically interpreted by the browser and presented to the user. This means the user can see images, hear sounds, and view movies without having to worry about how to decode the information. However, users should be careful to retain control over what programs execute on their desktop. In general, it is a good idea to not accept unsolicited binary files in e-mail, and to exercise caution before accepting binaries or automatically allowing mail viewers or Web browsers to launch uncom mon applications. While there have been no reports to date of any harm in such commonly launched applications as Telnet sessions; JPEG, GIF, or QuickTime viewers; or audio players, there is increasing concern about "macro" viruses, which are spread through sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and PostScript or MIME attachments that contain harmful or self-replicating macro-language commands.

Netscape 2.0's e-mail client and news reader make use of another new capability of the browser - frames. Frames are panels within the main browser window. They can function independently of each other and may be fixed or scroll ing. It is also possible to link the content of one frame to hypertext contained in another. Although frames allow many powerful and creative new applications - such as the improved news reader and e-mail clients - they can be difficult for HTML developers to design and for users to navigate. In fact, many Web pages using frames appear messy, ugly, and confusing. Although the frames Netscape uses in its e-mail and news clients are fairly well designed, they demonstrate how cluttered frames can become unless one has a very large monitor.

Security

However, security measures are never foolproof, and users should be cautious about relying on the new security technologies before they have gone through a thorough shakedown. Netscape was embarassed twice last fall when weaknesses were found in their encryption technology.

Plug-ins

Java and JavaScript

A closer look at frames