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Catch up with Netscape
It is worth the wait. Remember the story management students are told when they talk about inspired advertising? There was (in fact is) this big American car hire firm, Hertz. And there was (and is) its competitor, Avis. But try as it would Avis couldn't overtake Hertz. So their advertising wizards came up with a great tag line that turned their underdog status into a virtue. Their advertisement read: When you're number 2, you try harder! That's more or less the position of Netscape in what is called the `Battle of the Browsers'.
It has an added poignancy, because not so many years ago, Netscape was the biggest of browsers and 90 per cent of the world's Net surfers used it. Then came Internet Explorer. Its makers, Microsoft, made customers an offer they couldn't refuse; it gave IE away, free. Between fee and free it was a `no-contest' and Netscape rapidly sunk to the number 2 status: indeed it lost almost 90 per cent of the browser share to IE.
But out there in cyberspace, market shares are more about clout than quality. And many regular surfers have retained a soft corner and a corner of the desktop -- for Netscape, even while using IE for day-to-day work. For nearly two years now, Netscape too has been free but that has not radically changed the numbers, possibly because its last update in November 2000 was such a lousy job. Netscape 6 was a bloated, sluggish giant that was better left to slumber.
But all that changed last week, when Netscape launched its new Version7.0 and the difference is palpable. It is like one of those before and after photos that come with ads for slimming pills. The new Netscape is slimmer (at 26 MB), noticeably faster on its feet and full of useful goodies. The entire look has been cleaned to a large new typeface. A quick launch feature makes the start up much faster. A feature called `Tabbed Browsing' allows you to open one new browsing window after another and as long as your connection speed can handle it -- you can jump from window to window, even as all of them are updating. A simple `Control T' operation opens a fresh window. There is more: Right click on any word on screen and you can launch a search operation with that as a key word. This is a great help to students who use the web to research their course material.
One feature where Netscape 7 catches up with IE-6 is in the new save mode: you can save a page as a complete HTML document -- text, pictures, music and all. The other handy device is a radio tuner where you can find links to a variety of Internet radio stations. With MP3 downloads in the old Napster style becoming difficult, book marking some music stations is a good way of accessing music that suits your mood any time you feel like it. One could go on but a better idea is to go to www.netscape.com, hit the Browser Central button and access lots of material on the new Netscape. You can also download it for free from the same site. Unlike some others, Netscape comes in flavours for all platforms Windows, Mac OS, Linux. Windows users will need a Pentium 233 or equivalent, 64 MB of RAM and about 30 MB of free disk space. The download can take nearly an hour at the speeds we get with telephone dial-ups in India. But if you are prepared to wait, one or the other of the monthly IT magazines is sure to include it in an early issue. Those at the number 2 position have really tried hard this time. Give them a try!
A. VISHNU
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