I'm a fan of good software. To be honest, I don't care at all who writes it, as long as it does what it claims to do, and does it elegantly and efficiently. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 is good software. Really good. Way better than Netscape. But different, too.
I suspect a lot of reviewers will be apologizing for their good reviews. Many vocal computer users, and especially hard-core netsurfers, have a disdain for Microsoft that stems from years of buggy and bloated code, changing APIs, and ... well ... the company's just an easy target. So to see Microsoft pull off such a tight piece of software with such smooth integration will create a dilemma: How can we like a browser so much from a company we feel we can't trust? Microsoft isn't supposed to win on the Web, too. It just doesn't seem fair.
Fair or not, you should get this release as soon as it's publicly available, which should be in the next week or so. Naturally, the standard cautionary notes apply: This is early, unsupported code. You may crash on occasion, and, at least with the prerelease we played with, installing can be a bit tricky.
Let's take a look at what's going on in IE 4:
Interface: Browsing from the desktop
For months now, we've been talking about how Microsoft was going to get rid of the browser and integrate the Web right into the desktop. It's true. They did it. The Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are one and the same now: You can browse your hard drive in Web View. Icons act like hyperlinks to pages that replace directories, adding instructions and context where there once were simply file listings. You can, of course, still view your hard drive like you used to. Watch for CD-ROMs to come with index.html files that automatically open in Web View instead of the standard ReadMe files that illustrate instructions for installing software.
Remember that cool feature in IE 3 that allows the different toolbars to be dragged around the interface? Now you can drag them to your Win95 TaskBar. Imagine being able to type a URL right from the desktop and having the Web page pop up in a new window. And your Favorites are in your Start menu. And you can drag ActiveX controls or Web pages or graphics onto your desktop and they stay live and constantly updated. Cool.
Ever use key-expansion in Unix? IE 4 does this with URLs now. Type the first few characters, and the closest match fills in automatically. Using the Web really speeds up.
Push: Content coming at you
Yeah, yeah, push media. Whatever. If Java was the great hype of '96, then push is heir to the throne this year. Of course, to actually use all the different competing push technologies, you'd need to have dozens of applications installed, configured, and sucking down content in the background simultaneously.
Microsoft's solution was to make deals with the big players like BackWeb and PointCast, and integrate them into the browser. They are doing this through what they call Channels. Think of Channels as simple subscriptions to content - a number of Premium Channels like those listed above will be installed by default. Other Web sites will be able to add a button to their homepages that allow users to install them as a channel. Then, at predefined intervals, content providers send out new pages to users' desktops, and it appears in a Channel View, which is basically a browser window that takes the whole screen. These channels will also play as a screensaver if you set your preferences accordingly.
Say what you will about push technologies turning the Web into a passive wasteland, but I'm actually optimistic about this particular turn of events. Anyone - yes, anyone - can now be a push-media content provider. Set up your homepage as a channel, have your parents and friends subscribe, and push out new pictures of your camping trip. Mom's screensaver pops up next time with a picture of you in the wilderness. Neat.
Dynamic HTML: This ain't layers
I won't get into the intricacies of this new technology. We'll save that for a future column. It's important to note the difference between what Netscape and Microsoft are calling dynamic HTML.
Both technologies demo very well. Images swoop onto the screen, mouse clicks reveal dense layers of content: The Web, in short, starts to behave like an interactive CD-ROM. Yes, the power is great, and the abuses will be profound. (Remember when every lame homepage zoomed through a series of background colors using repeating body tags? Just wait....) But only when you get past the mind-blowing demos does the issue really get interesting.
Netscape started with the layer tag, saying their customers would prefer it to the messy, confusing syntax of positioning through cascading stylesheets. That condescending and misguided attitude aside, the power of being able to accurately place stuff on the screen was immediately obvious, especially when you added the ability to script the visibility and position of screen elements. Bingo, dynamic content.
But Microsoft took the idea a step further. Why make just visibility and positioning dynamic? Why not expose any attribute to the scripting language? Now the color of a headline can change over time. A word can get bigger and change fonts when you pass your mouse over it. In fact, anything you can set via CSS can be changed at any time. Netscape, on the other hand, won't let you change anything about an element's position after you render the page.
Under construction: Nobody's perfect
Like I said before, this is a major upgrade, and a very early release on top of that. You can expect the power and efficiency of this new browser to come with a few catches at first.
With such far-reaching goals, IE 4 goes much deeper into the fiber of your system than any browser before it. For that reason, upgrading can be a little bumpy, especially if you decide to go with the full-blown installation. (You can, by the way, just install it as a browser upgrade, forgoing the OS integration.) We had trouble with some of our Win95 systems here in the HotWired offices when we tried to install the complete version of the browser, but those issues should be smoothed out soon - we were using a very early preview release, after all.
Microsoft has some valid concerns about security, too. In fact, the first release of IE 4 should have been available to the public a couple weeks ago, but the development team held off to make absolutely sure that the browser this integrated into your desktop is as secure as possible.
Still, I have worries. I'm sure the occasional bug will pop up now and then, like they always do, and require a series of patches to fix. But we're talking about a whole new level of sharing information. With the browser bolted right into the file system, I start having nightmares equivalent to setting a first-time user at the console of a Unix box and letting them play around while logged in as root. Yikes. Has Microsoft given their users, especially the inexperienced ones, too much power and access? Will it always be perfectly clear what information is local and what is streaming in from around the world? We're treading a fine line here. No matter what, it will be an interesting experiment.
Bottom line, though, is that you should go get this browser. Take your time installing and configuring it. Then watch how your Web surfing and information-consuming habits change. Good luck.
