Personal Server Wars -- The battle for putting a low-end Web server on your desktop is heating up. In addition to ResNova's Web for One (see TidBITS-337) and rumors of Apple's plans to build a Web server based on Maxum's RushHour into the Mac OS, Quarterdeck has released a beta of Personal WebSTAR, a personal Web server based on its popular WebSTAR server software. Personal WebSTAR has reduced administrative and logging features, but offers easy configuration via the System 7 Users & Groups control panel and support for WebSTAR server-side plug-ins. Personal WebSTAR does not support CGI applications, and is limited to about two simultaneous users. If you're interested, Quarterdeck requests that beta testers of Personal WebSTAR subscribe to a beta discussion list.

If you're looking for a free alternative to commercial Mac Web servers, it might be worth investigating Chris Hawk's program, called WebCenter. Although currently in an alpha release, WebCenter has received some good comments from Macintosh webmasters, despite recently having to (at least temporarily) remove support for WebSTAR plug-ins (which Quarterdeck contends is a proprietary technology). [GD]

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