Explorer 2.1b1 for
Macintosh
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Download it!Like so many Microsoft products, Internet Explorer's first release was rather underwhelming. But the company took everyone by surprise when it created a decent browser the second time around. Internet Explorer 2.0 supported nearly everything the Netsca pe Navigator did at the time, and 3.0 added some new features that Netscape would later adopt. But the improvements haven't translated into substantial market share yet; most server logs show less than 10 percent of users surfing with Internet Explorer. Explorer's failure to take the browser world by storm can be attributed to both the strength of Netscape's market share, and the quirks in Microsoft's product. Of course, anything that diverged from Netscape's path was seen as a "quirk," but some of th e browser's conventions were worse than others. In 1.0, for example, blockquotes were displayed in italics (even though the tag is primarily used for margins - not for indenting actual quotes). And both 1.0 and 2.0 supported tables, but neither allowed fo r vertical alignment within table cells (this can really make a mess of pages designed for Netscape). Also, Explorer didn't support frames until the 3.0 beta release, more than six months after Netscape introduced the extension. And then there's the plug-in mess. As Netscape fans know, plug-ins can enhance the functionality of browsers (when they're not too busy crashing them), and a few - such as Shockwave and RealAudio - have become standards. Microsoft claims to support Netscape plug-ins, but the "support" is spotty at best. Instead, Explorer 3.0 offers its own flavor of plug-ins - creatively called "add-ins" - which use Microsoft's ActiveX architecture to extend a browser's capability. Third-party developer s haven't jumped at the chance to produce add-ins, however, so the pickings are pretty slim. But all this isn't to say that Microsoft isn't gaining ground. In beta versions of Explorer 3.0 for Windows, Microsoft remedied the frames and table problems, and added some new features, beating Netscape to the punch on both borderless frames - which allow framesets to look like tables - and cascading style sheets, which allow publishers to streamline design by applying font, color, and formatting choices to multiple pages at once. If all goes according to Bill Gates's plan, style sheets may turn the tide for the software giant, since Netscape won't support them until the release of its 4.0 version later this year.
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