Internet Explorer
and Netscape Navigator

get a great web browser and more

go to Win 3.x browsers at Tucows

So much debate has gone on as to which is the best browser that I scarce want to write this review. Let me say this right now: both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are good pieces of freeware. Their interfaces are well organized, they are well documented, and they offer the main features that people need, like:

bookmarks
a newsgroup client
email client
extensive help(in html format)
support for frames
support for animated gifs
support for java and javascript
support for style sheets

and plenty of free plug-ins and toolkits are available to extend their capabilities.

The problem with both IE and Navigator is that they are not the most stable applications in the world. Both have more bugs than they should. The bugs are are various and are somewhat different in each verson of the browser, but they all have the same ultimate cause: both products were rushed to market before they were ready in an attempt to beat the other guy to the punch. The latest versions (Navigator 4.5 and IE 5) seem to have finally taken care of many of the bugs, but they are too cumbersome for most Win 3 computers.

Without saying which is best browser, here are some tips for picking one. Both IE 3 and Navigator 3 are workable on a 386 with 8 megs of memory. They don't take up lots of space and are only 3 Mb downloads. Version 4 of IE and Navigator should be used on a 486 or higher with 16 Mb of memory. They do take up lots of space on your hard disk (30-100 MB) and are monster size downloads (6-15 MB). The later versions have more goodies, are generally better organized, but are overburdened with buttons, knobs, and toolbars. Remember that Navigator 4.5 and IE 5 are meant for pentium class computers with lots of memory-- not your Win 3.x machine in all likelyhood.

For those of you with only 4 megs of memory, you could use version 3 of either browser, but the lack of memory is going to slow you down. I recommend getting more memory (which is not very expensive these days and can be installed by you [yes you]) or using Opera, a shareware browser that is quite happy using only 4 megs of memory. It runs from DOS, so all the memory that Windows hogs is free for the browser to use.

Whatever browser you choose, make sure you have the fastest modem you can afford. A faster modem is money well spent because most of the time you spend waiting for a web page to load is the modem downloading the page.

Good luck in choosing your browser: go to Win 3.x browsers at Tucows.

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