FEATURE

Web Browsers

by Josh Linder

The Internet, now an integral part of corporate networking, has set the scene for a numbing amount of browser innovations. Over the past two years, improvements on the original HyperText Markup Language (HTML) specification led to more attractive, easy-to-access pages. Similar improvements in the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) have helped move the pages more quickly over the Internet. Today, Web browsers can display multiple graphic file formats, automatically play sound files and animation, and allow interactive use. We tested a variety of Web browsers for Windows95 and Windows NT 3.51. Althou gh we've tried to keep up with the latest versions until the last minute of testing, these products change rapidly, and there may be updates by the time you read this.

Web browsers meet varying degrees of standards compliance. Although there are no internationally sanctioned standards, users and developers have agreed on the HTML 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 standards. HTML 1.0 compliance is almost a nonentity anymore: If a browser doesn't meet these specifications, it's probably a Gopher browser in disguise. The 2.0 specification added support for improved text and graphics handling, and HTML 3.0, which is still being integrated into new browsers, is a combination of once-proprietary and new innovations.

Tables, server pushes and client pulls, background images, image scaling and alignment, and further honed text options are all part of the 3.0 specification. We used the sample test pages at http://cavern.uark.edu/~wrg and BrowserCaps ( http://www.objarts.com/bc ) to deduce whether each browser met the necessary requirements. Many browsers still include proprietary enhancements.

VRML, a popular addition to browsers, will be going through a major maturity stage shortly. Version 2.01 will be based on Sun's Java and the Moving Worlds Technology developed by Netscape and Silicon Graphics.

Netscape, which makes proprietary enhancements a regular feature in its Navigator releases, has added frames, plug-ins, Java support, JavaScript support, Progressive JPEG, client-side image mapping and text manipulation. Not to be outdone, Microsoft has added inline audio and animation, background watermarking, text and table colors, and VRML support (with a free plug-in).

Microsoft and Netscape's dominance is evident in the multitude of "Netscape-enhanced" and "Made for Internet Explorer" pages on the Web. However, neither of these products can compare with the integration found in Att achmate's Emissary Desktop Edition product, with which users can seamlessly access World Wide Web, FTP and Telnet sites, as well as other Internet resources, without having to know about the differences between them. Also, Emissary has a modular architecture that will allow future technologies to be easily integrated.

Netscape Navigator, v2.0, Netscape Communications Corp.

Netscape put its multifaceted Web browser on 75 percent of Internet users' desktops in 1995, according to statistics from popular commercial Web sites. Navigator, its bread-and-butter product, demonstrated the most maturity in our tests, with its multitude of features, good performance, modular architecture, support for MacOS, multiple Windows and Unix platforms, and industrywide acceptance. Indeed, Netscape still holds a comfortable lead, and Navigator's plug-in capabilities will most likely give this second vers ion a longer shelf life than the first.

Netscape 2.01, which was released in the middle of March, addresses Java and JavaScript security concerns. Rogue Java applets can't fool client machines into connecting to random sites, and users' e-mail addresses can no longer be automatically sent via a JavaScript.

Navigator 2.01 installation was much cleaner than earlier versions--it didn't require extracting the archive. Navigator uses the popular InstallShield Wizard, which includes separate Windows95 and Windows NT uninstall processes. It also creates a service for those who want to use Microsoft Exchange as their e-mail client from within Netscape. Netscape Mail is a completely new, fully functional POP3 and SMTP e-mail system. Netscape News is an upgrade of the earlier-integrated Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) standard news reader.

The browser contains a vast number of new features and updates. Java, licensed from Sun Microsystems, is now an integral part of the 32-bit Net scape products, and JavaScript can be found in every Navigator 2.01 release. We extensively used the LiveObject plug-in capabilities for navigating VRML worlds ( see related story ), exploring Adobe Acrobat files inline and viewing other third-party documents on the Web. Yet, Netscape's speed has improved, even with all of these additions.

Netscape configuration was easy to navigate. It is well organized and uses standard Windows95 tabs. You set up its proxy support via the internal setup program, and we found it similar to other products. Netscape has simplified the overall menu structure, added more online references and redesigned the context-sensitive right-click menus. Yet, oddly missing is the ability to drag and drop graphics to the desktop and other OLE 2.0-compliant applications.

Int ernet Explorer, Version 2.0, Microsoft Corp.

The s econd offering of Internet Explorer is an update to the component that was included with Microsoft's $49 Plus! Pack and on Microsoft's Web site. The new version is a no-cost extension to Windows95, and is available via Internet download and as part of the free Service Pack 1 (which includes updates and enhancements that were unavailable when Windows95 was released). Although Microsoft was slow to the Internet tools market, it offers, with Internet Explorer, a strong, feature-rich Web browser with extensive support for Windows95, HTML 3.0 and VRML.

Since many users will be upgrading from an earlier version, the installation process is tailored for an online upgrade and was the best of the browsers we tested. We installed it by downloading the file from Microsoft's Web site, and then opening the executable archive. Once installed, Internet Explorer 2.0 was very easy to use, as were the other products based on the SpyGlass Mosaic engine. It had all of the HTML 2.0 features, most of the proposed HTML 3 .0 characteristics and a couple of proprietary innovations. Proxy support is done via a Control Panel adjustment but only applies to Internet Explorer and not other IP applications.

The most notable of the "Designed for Internet Explorer" features include color table support, color highlighted text, inline sounds, inline animation, a centralized search page and a customizable starting page--all features not found on the majority of other browsers.

Although the product doesn't support full plug-ins, like Navigator 2.01 does, a VRML module is available as a free plug-in. Although it initially promised to give Microsoft an edge over Navigator, Netscape and two third-party vendors released plug-ins that were noticeably quicker in their manipulation of 3-D files. Future Microsoft modules promise Java support and inline viewing of documents c reated in Microsoft Office products.

In fact, version 3.0, which Microsoft says will be released early in the third quarter, should have Java, Object Linking and Embedding Custom controls (OCX) architecture (for running Visual Basic and Visual C++ applets in a similar fashion to Java), HTML 3.0 frames and style sheets, JavaScript and VBScript.

Internet Explorer performance was top-notch, demonstrating its family lineage to SpyGlass Mosaic. The product was originally designed to be the browser of Microsoft Network users, and indeed, it was the quickest product tested over dial-up links. Text loaded faster than any of the other products, but it doesn't display images while loading. It uses placeholders on the screen where graphics would be loaded. Sample pages loaded 10 percent to 15 percent faster than Netscape Navigator 2.01.

Chameleon 5.0 for Windows95, NetManage Corp.

NetManage's Chameleon, which has been a staple in many corporate networks, has recently been upgraded to support Windows95, and now includes a terrific Web browser. NetManage offers WebSurfer as a free component, but users will need to purchase either Chameleon or Chameleon/NFS suite to receive other components, such as FTP.

The browser was impressive, with full HTML 2.0 and 3.0 support, as well as table rendering features that were the closest to Netscape. WebSurfer 5.0 now includes support for RealAudio (inline audio over the Internet), Macromedia Shockwave (Macromedia Director animations), integrated FTP, Visual Script Language (compatible with Visual Basic for Applications) and long filenames.

The software can import Mosaic and Netscape bookmark files into its hotlist format (for display and use in a frame within the browser), but we would have expected a larger number of predefined hotlist sites. We did like the integrated Microsoft/Intel AVI video support, but Microsoft and Netscape include similar features. NetManage includes an HTML editor in Chameleon, so not only can users view source fil es, they can edit them by launching a helper applet from the browser.

The installation CD included both Windows95 and W indows 3.1 versions, and let us selectively install the components we wanted (in this case, only the Internet applets). We were disappointed by the lack of an uninstall procedure. Chameleon was one of the faster browsers, however, posting good times on dial-up and over Ethernet.

We found a couple of idiosyncrasies in the browser. The setup is fragmented between two options within the Settings menu. Furthermore, disabling inline GIFs and JPEGs requires the user to "Defer Images." The toolbar buttons cannot be resized, and there are no descriptive "tool tips," which a majority of the other browsers had. The lack of integration between the browser, news reading and e-mail was also a sore point.

Emissary Desktop Edition, Version 1.1, Attachmate Corp.

Recently, the need to integrate multiple software applications has found its way to Internet software. Users have begun to rely on suites to solve all of their needs. Attachmate's (formerly The Wollongong Group's) lates t software, Emissary Desktop Edition 1.1, is an excellent example of what such suites have to offer, with its seamless integration of Web, FTP, Gopher, Telnet and other resources.

Emissary Desktop Edition 1.1 is a very strong product, but its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: Too much energy has gone into developing its integrated core, and not enough has gone into making its browser the most advanced product. Although it supports many of the features Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer have, it lacks support for Java and LiveObjects.

While Emissary Desktop Edition 1.1 is a 16-bit application, we found that it worked very well with Windows95 and NT 3.51. The code also lets the suite run on older Windows 3.1 clients, letting organizations use a single product across all platforms. Although Netscape, Microsoft, NCSA and other vendors have Wind ows 3.x-compatible versions of their software, nobody else includes support for all three Windows platforms in one exe cutable.

Attachmate has gone to great lengths to integrate the Web browser, FTP, Telnet, UseNet news reading, electronic mail and File Manager components. Emissary uses its Client Object Linking Technology (COLT) engine, which let us navigate different segments of the Internet with a single interface.

Since the software fully supports OLE 2.0, we could drag and drop text and graphics from the browser to other OLE 2.0-compliant applications. We also used its multiple user configuration to transfer settings between computers during testing.

We were also impressed by Emissary's integrated HTML editor and its one-click upgrade, which allows for updates whenever new components or objects are available. Only Symantec/Delrina's Cyberjack has a similar feature. The security is top-notch, matching Netscape's 128-bit SSL support for the North American version we tested. However, the proxy setup didn't support FTP, and we were unable to venture outside our domain for FTP services.

Emissary's performance blew the doors off the competition. When directly connected, our sample page consistently loaded and was rendered to the screen in less than two seconds. When dialed-in at 28.8 Kbps, it completed the page in 30.5 seconds. We were also impressed with its integrated HTML editor (unique in our testing).

Version 2.0, which should be out by the late spring, will have a 32-bit architecture, native Java, VRML and Macromedia ShockWave support (for viewing Macromedia Director animations and slide shows), as well as support for Netscape LiveObjects.

Delrina Cyberjack, Version 7.0, Symantec/Delrina Corp.

Delrina, recently taken over by Symantec, has produced a very competitive browser, and included it in a suite with its WinComm and WinFax products. But while Delrina put a lot of time and effort into its first Internet product (ignore the high version number), i t comes up a bit short. With the online upgrade capability, however, this product has a great deal of pr omise.

Cyberjack's integration with Windows95 was the best of all the products we tested: It acted as if it were just another component of Microsoft Office. We especially liked the full OLE 2.0 compliance for moving documents from the browser into popular office applications. The Cyberjack Guidebook was well integrated with Windows95, and let us launch and configure the application from an icon on the desktop. We were also given a choice to use Exchange as the e-mail client, similar to Microsoft Internet Explorer, but Delrina's setup let us automatically create a customized profile during installation.

Cyberjack's components are impressive--Archie, Cyberwizard, FTP, Finger, Gopher, Guidebook, Image Manager, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), News Reader, World Wide Web browser and Zip archive Manager. The fault with Cyberjack is similar to Emissary--too little went into the browser.

The 7.02 maintenance release fixed a number of HTML compliance issues, such as tables and high-color gr aphics viewing, but there is still no TAB navigation within forms or text alignment within tables (some tables without borders failed to load).

The product was quick in accessing sites, but only average in loading and displaying the material, and extremely slow in displaying high-color images on our Pentium. It waited for no apparent reason to connect to Web sites initially (although it did have a "ping site" option, something that other browser makers have overlooked). The browser lacked any knowledge of other components of the Internet suite (even FTP and Gopher). Images also seem to appear only after they have been completely loaded, which can add to dead browsing time.

PowerBrowser, Developer's Release 1, Oracle Corp.

Oracle's PowerBrowser maintains a close look-and-feel to Netscape Navigator, while performing solidly. In fact, PowerBrowser has improved on the Navigator browse r theme by combining its clean, feature-rich interface with drag-and-drop bookmarks and a li ve history file. A major bonus is that it includes a workgroup-level Web server that we could easily configure and maintain.

Oracle merged a drag-and-drop bookmark and history list that appears in another pane on the screen. Furthermore, we could use PowerBrowser's multiple user setups so that each of our users sat down at the same machine, yet got their own preferences and bookmarks.

The most intriguing feature of PowerBrowser is its Network Loadable Objects (NLOs), which allow applications to run on the client machine, and can be dynamic and active. NLOs are similar to Visual Basic controls in that they are third-party pieces of programming you can plug into PowerBrowser to implement new functionality and are compatible with Netscape's plug-ins via the NSPLUGIN NLO.

PowerBrowser's proxy support heavily mimics Netscape, although it is a bit less complete. Another downside was that it failed to load images on certain occasions, even after multiple reloads, and the configurati on routine was poor compared with Netscape, Microsoft and Symantec/Delrina.

Future developer and commercial releases promise Visual Basic for Applications support, full integrated e-mail and news reading, Java, an HTML editor with "wizards," VRML and database support.

NCSA Mosaic 2.0, National Center for Supercomputing Applications

The University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has made some significant enhancements over the past year. NCSA Mosaic comes at no cost, but Microsoft's free Internet Explorer has more features and better online support. Also, the lack of many advanced multimedia features, including frames, plug-ins, Java, advanced news reading and e-mail reception show Mosaic's limitations. NCSA is playing catch-up and has been slow to release new versions. Mosaic 2.1 began shipping as we went to press.

NCSA has given Mosaic a wide varie ty of setup options, including 13 tabs and a large number of customization opt ions. Although we were impressed by the sheer number of ways that HTML pages can be changed (font colors for every type of HTML tag, table customization, audio configuration and so on), it can be very confusing to Internet novices and irritating to advanced users who just want to start a browser and start surfing. The proxy support is also a little different from that of other products: We had to enter the "http://" before our proxy server's address to get it to work.

When we tested Mosaic against our HTML compliance site, it met a majority of the IETF HTML 2.0 and Netscape-extensions, but failed the majority of the W3C HTML 3.0 features. While it properly performed a client pull (automatic reloading of the current or another HTML document), it didn't support tables. It promised to display images while loading, but we only saw images after they had been completely downloaded.

The speed in prerelease version 2.1, however, is so far not on par with version 2.0, and the size has g rown by nearly 50 percent.

Enhanced Mosaic, Version 2.1, SpyGlass Corp.

SpyGlass Enhanced Mosaic distributes its browser to organizations that want to include it in their products. Despite sharing a family lineage with Microsoft Internet Explorer and SPRY Mosaic In A Box, Enhanced Mosaic has a unique look and feel.

Since the product is primarily a Web browser and its helper applications are weak, it was not part of the upper echelon of products. OEMs usually make changes and additions to the core code, and therefore, it has limited setup, FTP support and mail features. News reading is also a bit odd--we had to type "news:newsgroup" on the URL input line to read UseNet messages.

Although the product's main features only appeared to be on par with Netscape 1.1, its HTML 3.0 compliance was on par with Internet Explorer. SpyGlass has been an innovator of many Web technologies, as shown in its suppor t for Progressive JPEGs (similar to interlaced GIF), client-side i mage mapping, color-highlighted text and HTML 3.0 table support, and inline audio. SpyGlass has also thoroughly utilized context-sensitive right-click menus, which look nearly identical to Internet Explorer's. Enhanced Mosaic's cross-platform support only lags behind Netscape and NCSA. There was no support for plug-ins or Java.

Enhanced Mosaic also includes multiple levels of authentication: CERN- and HTTP-compatible Basic Authentication, RSA MD5-compatible Digest Authentication and the First Virtual secure payment scheme. This lets users make secure transactions over the Internet. Enhanced Mosaic's performance was nearly identical to Microsoft Internet Explorer 1.0, but a bit slower than Internet Explorer 2.0.

Mosaic In A Box for Windows95, SPRY, CompuServe Internet Division

Mosaic In A Box, another product that uses the SpyGlass engine, is a very formidable product with a low price. However, it lacked advanced multimedia features and direct network connection using WinSock.DLL.

We found product setup to be geared primarily toward users who want to use CompuServe as their dial-up Internet provider. Since we didn't want to use its Interserv access, we had to take a roundabout way through the installation process, and we couldn't use our direct T1 connection. Once we started up Mosaic, it bared a strong resemblance to Delrina Cyberjack: simple and easy to use. The quick reference card pointed out all of the features and was tailored specifically to the Windows95 version of the software (the CD also included a 16-bit Windows 3.1 version). The proprietary setup program lacked support for long file names or Windows95-style open/save file management boxes.

The Mosaic In A Box browser includes CompuServe Wallet, which is a similar version of the electronic payment system included with SpyGlass Enhanced Mosaic 2.1. It also has support for secure Web transmissions. We also liked the fact that its bookmarks, called "hotlists," can be customized, organized and ev en added to a custom menu on the menu bar. However, the product lacked importing of the popular Netscape bookmarks and can only use NCSA-compatible bookmark menus. SPRY/CompuServe Mosaic comes with a number of predefined links, but not nearly the number and variety included with Frontier SuperTCP Suite 96.

Mosaic's HTML compliance was on par with SpyGlass Mosaic, but we found a number of odd occurrences. We couldn't highlight blocks of text for saving and moving, and when we tried to move an image into Microsoft Word, it failed the OLE 2.0 drag-and-drop test and prompted us to save the image. The stop button, which should only be active when a URL is loading, was always colored in and occasionally didn't function properly. The right-click menus are context sensitive, but all of the right-click menus bare a striking resemblance to each other, sometimes making it difficult to determine what we wanted to do.

SuperTCP Suite 96, Frontier Technologies Corp.

Frontier Technologies, like Ne tManage, has come up with a full 32-bit TCP/IP, Unix and mainframe network access solution. Although the overall suite was impressive, it had a number of major quirks in performance and industry compliance that keep it from being in the upper echelon of browsers.

Although designed to work with Windows95 and NT, the product never gave us the impression that it conformed entirely to Windows95 standards. In the browser, the right mouse button should have given us context-sensitive menus but never did. The open and save dialog boxes, though, are Windows95-compliant and give the full Explorer-compatible file management screens. It also lacks drag-and-drop shortcuts and OLE 2.0 file copying.

Navigation is simplified through Frontier's Internet Organizer. The tab-based mechanism has a couple hundred Web site locations in its databases, can be easily modified, and can import Mosaic and Netscape bookmarks.

Unlike the other products, SuperTCP Browser doesn't have an input bar for the U RL. To open an Internet resource, we had to take two or three additional steps. Also, the product's navigation buttons were unpredictable, and we didn't like how the navigation toolbar adaptively changed when new URLs were accessed. The whole system was confusing.

Mariner 32-bit for Windows95, FTP Software

FTP Software provides a fairly new product that lacks robustness and performance. Mariner, now 32-bit for Windows95, is a fully integrated Internet solution and is similar to Oracle's PowerBrowser in look and feel. Mariner is fully Windows95-compatible, from its InstallShield setup program to its Windows95-compliant open/close boxes and context-sensitive "tool tips." Oddly missing, though, is OLE 2.0 support for drag-and-drop browsing and support for an automated uninstall routine.

Once running, Mariner is friendly to use. On the left half of the screen, we found the "Auto-pilot," which guided us through where we had been and where we could subsequently go (mu ch like a bookmark scenario). Web pages, FTP sites, Telnet locations, IRC channels, UseNet newsgroups and e-mail access can be mixed and matched in an Autopilot, strengthening the product's integration. The Autopilots can also be highly customized for each user's specific tastes.

Although the entire package looked good, it was fairly difficult to use. Configuration wasn't as strong as some of the other products, although it did support proxy servers. We were very happy to see access control, although this really isn't something that's necessarily useful in corporate America, where proxy servers lock out access.

Mariner's HTML compliance was also questionable. It didn't support tables or advanced inline features. Color support within the product also seemed to be odd--pages that had true-color JPEG's had to share the entire page's allotment of 256 colors. Mariner was also one of the slower browsers. It took nearly 48 seconds to load the sample page over a 28.8-Kbps link, and 12.3 seconds when directly connected. It does have a nice feature in resizing the browser window: It temporarily turns off the Web page while the page is resized, and then turns it back on once the new window position is set.

Josh Linder is a senior Information Management &Technology student at Syracuse University. He can be reached at jslinder@syr.edu.

How We Tested Web Browser Performance

When directly connected to the Internet, we used Microsoft's TCP/IP stack, and the outside link to the Internet was a T1 line. For dial-up testing, we used the Microsoft Network as our Internet provider and connected at 28,800 bps. We took an average of three readings with the disk and memory cache flushed for each connection.

Our sample page was a page that passed HTML 3.0-compliance and had a 4x6 table, a 1,532-byte background JPEG, a 25-KB foreground JPEG, a 53-KB foreground JPEG with an image-map, a 4-KB interlaced GIF and a 1,189-byte HTML file. The page resides on a Pentium-75 with 20-MB RAM running Windows NT 3.51 Service Pack 3 and has a 3Com Etherlink III 3C509b-TPO adapter. The machine is serviced by a 10BASE-T network in a lightly trafficked subnet behind a T3 connection to the Internet.

May 1, 1996