Having a great Web experience starts with a powerful browser. The innovative improvements described in this section both remove frustrations people have experienced in using the Web and enable users to make the most of Internet Explorer 4.0’s integration with the operating system, personalized information delivery options, and communication and collaboration features.

Through performance improvements, drag-and-drop customization, easy navigation of URLs, and enhanced searching, Internet Explorer 4.0 provides an easy, fast, and fun way to use the Web. Making the Web more fun also involves leading the way in supporting Internet protocols and standards that result in exciting and rewarding content. Internet Explorer 4.0 supports more Internet standards than any other product including HTML, Java™, ActiveX™, JScript™, and Visual Basic Scripting Edition® (VB Script).

The following sections explain these features of Internet Explorer 4.0 that make it the best browser available:

• Ease-of-use innovations and personalization improvements
• "Take the Web with You" offline capabilities
• Best implementation of Internet standards
• Performance enhancements
• Security features

Ease-of-use Innovation and Personalization Improvements

While many people are excited about the Internet’s potential, they also find it frustrating to find what they want. Internet Explorer 4.0 introduces major improvements that make using the Web and managing its information much easier and rewarding.

Key Features of Making Browsing Easy and Personalized

• Search bar. Users now have a search bar, which lists search results in view while the user explores the sites listed. This answers one of the main difficulties Web users report: returning to their search results after visiting a site can be cumbersome.
  
  
• AutoComplete. The Address bar in Internet Explorer 4.0 automatically completes addresses for users based on sites they’ve already visited and also corrects syntax errors. Users can easily override the suggestions by typing over them.
  
  
• Improved Favorites. Favorites are considerably improved in three areas:
  
  
  • Drag-and-drop ordering. Users can now drag and drop their favorite sites and links into the Favorite menu and order them however they want.
    
    
  • Thumbnail view. Users can preview multiple Web sites simultaneously without visiting the sites by selecting Thumbnail View. Thumbnail View is so extensible that users can apply it to any folder to quickly see its contents.
    
    
  • Smart Favorites. Smart Favorites automatically checks a user’s favorite Web pages for updates since the last time the user visited. It notifies the user by adding a red "gleam" next to the site on the Favorites menu, as well as displaying a tooltip with the updated information, as shown in Figure 3.
  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

• Navigation history on Back and Forward buttons. Users do not need to repeatedly click the Back or Forward button to return to a page, they can view a list of the sites they’ve visited most recently by right-clicking the Back and Forward buttons.
  
  
• Full-screen mode. Users can select Full-screen mode (Beta 2), which removes all toolbars and scrollbars from the screen to make more room for Web pages, thereby reducing the need to scroll to view content.
  
  
• Drag and drop anywhere. From any Web site or folder, users can click the icon in the upper-left corner, and drag the shortcut anywhere. With local or LAN content, right-clicking and then dragging the icon enables the user to move, copy, or create a shortcut to that location.
  
  
• Improved printing. Internet Explorer 4.0 has substantially richer printing functionality including background printing of documents, recursive printing of all links on a document, and intelligent frame printing options, such as printing one frame only, or all the frames on a page.
  
  
• User feedback (Beta 2). With most Web browsers, users spend a long time waiting for pages to download, never knowing if the site is down or if it is just going slowly. Internet Explorer 4.0 has improved user feedback, so users always know what the browser is doing. Sound effects help cue the user to when the page has been requested, transmitted, and received. An improved status bar details how long the process will take.
  
  
• History bar (Beta 2). Navigating the Internet is enhanced with the Internet Explorer 4.0 history bar. The history bar lists the pages the user has visited, making it easy to jump back to a site that was visited days or even weeks ago. The pages are grouped by time, site, and individual page.

What are the Benefits of Making Browsing Easy and Personalized?

• Increased productivity. Internet Explorer 4.0 makes it fast and easy to view commonly visited sites. By removing the frustration in exploring the Web, users spend less time remembering where something is located and more time working.
  
  
• Personalized content. Internet Explorer tracks changes in a user’s favorite sites, and informs them of changes before the user even sees the site. This way, users decide whether it’s worth their time to visit the site.

How does Making Browsing Easy and Personalized Work?

Search Bar

When the user selects a site from the results list, the site appears in the main browser area, keeping the Search bar available for future searches. The results remain in the search bar, so the user can easily move from result to result without repeatedly using the Back button to return to the search results page. Internet Explorer 4.0 also preserves the state of the search, so if a user clicks the Search button again during the same session, the results of the previous search are displayed.

The Search bar takes advantage of the component architecture of Internet Explorer 4.0 and is not simply a frame, but a separate browser control.

AutoComplete

AutoComplete makes it easier for a user to type in URLs and reduces the opportunity for typographical mistakes. It does so by providing heuristics for completing URL addresses based on sites the user has visited previously. It also adds prefixes and suffixes to Internet addresses and corrects syntax errors. AutoComplete is similar to the AutoFill feature in Microsoft Excel.

AutoComplete uses the user’s history to predict what will be entered in the Address bar. The predicted text is displayed as a selected region of characters that the user can delete instantly to override the AutoComplete.

AutoComplete includes the following features and shortcuts:

• Users can skip to break or separation characters in URLs (i.e., \\ \ . , ? + ) by pressing and holding Ctrl and then clicking the left or right arrow keys.
  
  
• Users can search their history file by typing the beginning of an address and then pressing the Up or Down arrow keys to complete it.
  
  
• Pressing Ctrl and Enter causes a quick complete to "http://www.<what you typed>.com". This can be customized through a registry key.
  
  
• Right clicking the Address bar displays a context menu, including available completions for the current text.
  
  
• The AutoComplete features in the Windows Run command (on the Start menu) are provided not only for Internet addresses but file paths also.

Smart Favorites

The Smart Favorites feature is a major time-saver for users; they never have to open a Web site to see if there’s something new. When a favorite site has changed since the user last viewed it, a red gleam appears over the icon next to the site name in the Favorites menu. By moving the mouse over the listing, a tooltip appears listing both when the user last viewed the site and the last time it was updated.

With Smart Favorites, Internet Explorer 4.0 monitors favorite sites in the background to see if anything has changed. Internet Explorer 4.0 displays two levels of information for the user:

• By grabbing the HTTP header in the page background, it can determine the date that the site was last updated, and present that to the user. Internet Explorer 4.0 also displays the date that the user last accessed the site.
  
  
• A Web site author can include their own text in meta tags, and their customized content will appear in a tooltip when the user rests the pointer over the site name in the Favorites menu.

If site authors include the following meta tags in their page headers, Internet Explorer will even display the header contents in a tooltip on the Favorites menu.

• <meta http-equiv="Bulletin-Text" content="Just Released: Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. Download it Today!">
• <meta http-equiv ="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
• <meta name="Author" content="Microsoft Corporation">
• <meta name="Description" content="Microsoft Corporate Information, Product Support, and More!">

Web site authors will want to include these tags in the headers of their Web pages for several reasons. When a company is releasing a new product, for example, users can get that information directly from their Favorites menu. If a site has new articles that will appeal to readers, authors can insert the information in the header tags, and Internet Explorer will display it prominently. Smart Favorites makes it easy for site authors to put information directly in front of people to motivate them to browse their site.

Users can also direct Internet Explorer 4.0 to download a site to their computer, automatically dialing the connection and downloading the content to view offline. Users can specify how often each site is checked and download only what has changed. Users can also specify how many levels are downloaded from a site, and how they’re notified when a favorite site has been updated—either by a an icon on the Windows taskbar or by an e-mail message.

Users can also reorder their Favorites menu, so the sites they visit most frequently appear at the top for quicker access. The default order for the menu is alphabetical. To change the order, the user clicks and holds the item to be moved and then drags it up or down the list.

Navigation History on Back/Forward Buttons

Repeatedly clicking the Back or Forward button to return to a page they recently viewed is a waste of time. Internet Explorer 4.0 lets users avoid repetitive clicks by introducing drop-down menus that contain all the recently viewed pages at a site.

Users access the drop-down menus by clicking the new arrow keys on the right-hand side of the Back and Forward buttons. Users can then click the listing they want, and return to that page immediately.

Full-screen mode

Internet Explorer 4.0 provides Full-screen mode (Beta 2), which removes all toolbars, desk icons, and scrollbars. This view reduces the need to scroll down to see the full contents of a page. Content providers can also employ Kiosk mode, where the computer serves as a one-purpose tool such as a terminal emulator.

To clear the screen for Web content, users select Full Screen from the View menu. The only element remaining on the screen in addition to the Web page is a floating palette with which to turn off Full-screen mode at any time.

Improved Printing

Previous to Internet Explorer 4.0, it was frustrating to display every page you wanted to print. Also, the formatting of a Web page was very different than the formatting of a printed document. Internet Explorer 4.0 is the first browser to begin implementing the new CSS extensions for printing, which are currently in a W3C proposal. Internet Explorer uses the standard CSS specification to define numerous page-formatting features, including page breaks, to make printed content look as great as online content. Also, Internet Explorer caches the hyperlinks on a page for printing, making it easy to print an entire Web site with one visit.