November 1996

Windows 95

GrabNet

URL: http://www.windows95.com/apps/
Registered price: n/a
Rating: 8/10

The hardest thing about Web surfing isn't finding the information you want, it's organising and sifting the information when you collect it. You end up with lots of files, and you can spend hours cutting and pasting to get it organised.

GrabNet eliminates those hassles. You can collect data from the Webtext, graphics, or URLs, and can organise it into folders and sub-folders. You don't have to take entire pages, just take snippets of what you want, and drag them into GrabNet. The program saves the data, with the parent URL, so that you can return to the site whenever you need to.

When you go offline, you can view the data you collected in a list or as thumbnails, and you can place the information into other apps by simply dragging it. -- Angela Booth

URL Grabber 95

URL: http://www.pcworld.com/home/index.phtml
Registered price: $25
Rating: 8/10

Tired of cutting and pasting URLs? URL Grabber is a small toolbar which sits on your Windows 95 desktop. When you come across URLs -- in your e-mail, newsgroups or other material -- the program will grab and file it for you. Click on the Create button and your collection of URLs is converted into links on an HTML page. Alternatively, you can click on the URL and the Grabber will file it and then instantly bring up your browser so that you can view it.
-- Angela Booth

Globetrotter

URL: http://www.hyperware.com.au/download.htm
Registered price: $30
Rating: 8/10

Globetrotter works with any browser, and handles your Internet addresses and passwords. You can store an unlimited amount of sites in your databases, along with descriptions and other information. A click will load your browser and take you to the site you've selected. The program comes with a 60-site database to get you started.
-- Angela Booth

Teleport Pro

URL: http://wugnet.com/shareware/
Registered price: $60
Rating: 8/10

Teleport Pro is your own personal Internet Web spider. Download any site you like with as much data as you want, or only download files of a particular kind. The program is completely automated, working by way of 'projects', which tell the program what to retrieve. A wizard helps you set up each project, and everything is customisable, so you get only the files you choose from each site. A great way to save time and money: let Teleport Pro download the files you want while you sleep. -- Angela Booth

Tardis 95

URL: http://www.wugnet.com/shareware/ week15/week15.html
Registered price: $30
Rating: 8/10

You'll like Tardis if your PC's clock loses or gains time. The program will use your Internet connection to reset your clock automatically. Usually it will do this when you connect to your provider, however, you can use your LAN if you wish, and then the program will check your time once an hour. -- Angela Booth

Netscape Navigator 3.0

URL: ftp://ftp-au.netscape.com/pub/navigator/3.0/
Rating: 9/10

The marketing leading Web browser and for good reason. See our Guide to Choosing a Web browser for more details. Please note that you have to install the Netscape Chat add-on separately.

Internet Explorer 3.0

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie.htm
Rating: 9/10

Microsoft's attempt to catch up to Netscape in the browser market -- and, from a technical stand-point, it has succeeded. And it's free!See our Guide to Choosing a Web browser for more details.

Note that you'll have to install Internet Explorer's extra components separately:

• Microsoft Mail and News
• NetMeeting
• Bookmark to Favourite Places Converter (converts your Netscape bookmark file for use in IE).

Pegasus Mail

URL: http://www.pegasus.usa.com/

This Internet e-mail program is free, which is astounding when you look at its long list of features. See our guide to Choosing E-mail Software for more details.

CuteFTP

URL: http://www.cuteftp.com/

Currently the best of the shareware FTP utilities, CuteFTP displays the contents of distant servers in a File Manager-like screen with drag-and-drop file transfers across the Net. See our guide to Choosing FTP Software.

WS_FTP 32

URL: http://www.ipswitch.com/pd_wsftp.html

Probably the most popular of the FTP utilities.

mIRC

URL: http://www.ozemail.com.au/ozemail/oz1195s/help/soft/mirc.html

Internet Relay Chat is one of the best ways to meet people on the Net, and mIRC is currently the best way to do that. See Choosing IRC Software.

Hot Dog Pro

URL: http://www.sausage.com.au

Thirty-day trial version of this excellent Australian-made HTML editor. Hot Dog has an attractively garish interface and like any good HTML editor, it automates the process of placing HTML tags into your document. Make sure you install the Hot Dog for Win 95 support files before you install the main program. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

Internet Assistants from Microsoft

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/

If you want to create Web pages but don't want to get your hands dirty with HTML coding, then you'll save yourself a lot of time by getting Microsoft's Internet Assistants, which will automatically convert your files to HTML format. See our Guide to Web authoring tools. Microsoft provides these Assistants for most of its major applications:

• Access 95
• Excel 95
• PowerPoint 95
• Word 6.0
• Word 7.0

PaintShop Pro 4.0

URL: http://www.digitalworkshop.co.uk/

PaintShop Pro has always been our favourite graphic file viewer and converter, but in this latest version, PaintShop Pro is now a comprehensive graphics package and virtually a must for anyone getting into Web page authoring. It lets you view, create and save graphics in the GIF and JPG formats common on the Web, and provides image manipulation tools that'll let you grab a photo or other image and edit it to your heart's content. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

GIF Construction Set

URL: http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/alchemy.html

Web animations can be done with high-end tools such as Java and Director, but an easier way for most of us is to create animated GIFs with this shareware program. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

Cool Edit

URL: http://www.syntrillium.com/products.htm

Shareware program that does a great job in recording, editing and compressing sound files so they don't take up too much space and time downloading. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

RealAudio

URL: http://www.realaudio.com/products/player2.0.html

Web plug-in that gives you live AM-radio like sound over the Net with your browser. See our guide to Using RealAudio for more information.

ShockWave for Director, Authorware & Freehand

URL: http://www-1.macromedia.com/Tools/Shockwave/Plugin/plugin.cgi

Web plug-in that adds mind-blowing animation, sound and interactivity to Web pages. See our Guide to Plug-ins for more information.

Live3D

URL: http://home.netscape.com/comprod/products/navigator/live3d/download_
live3d.html

Web plug-in which opens the door to 3D virtual reality worlds written using the virtual reality mark-up (VRML) language, although it will give even a high-end Pentium a work-out. See our Guide to Plug-ins for more information.

WinZip

URL: http://www.winzip.com
Rating: 9/10

The award-winning shareware utility WinZip is our perennial favourite for unzipping files. It can also be used to compress files into ZIP archives and supports other compression routines if you load the relevant DOS utilities. WinZip boasts a nifty ZIP wizard for beginners, excellent online help and drag-and-drop operation.
-- David Flynn

Lview Pro

URL: http://www.lview.com
Rating: 8/10

Most images on the Internet are in GIF, TIF or JPEG/JPG format and can be displayed in your browser, but if you want to view these pictures outside of your browser or when you're offline, use Lview Pro. You can open, save and convert pictures from one format to another, and perform basic image manipulation. -- David Flynn

Decode Shell Extension for Windows 95

URL: http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/funduc

Got an e-mail message or newsgroup posting with a whole lot of goobledegook? That's because the file attachment with it hasn't been decoded. The Decode Shell Extension will fix the problem easily. See Using E-mail for more details.

Microsoft Viewers

URL: http://www.microsoft.com
Free

You may come across some Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents on the Net. If you don't have the programs, you can use these free viewers from Microsoft:

• Word 7 Viewer
• Excel 7 Viewer
• PowerPoint 95 Viewer

Dunce

URL: http://www.vecdev.com/

Not reviewed by us, but others have kind words for Dunce (or Dial-Up Networking Connection Enhancement) and it looks pretty useful. Dunce is aimed at providing much easier dial-up networking than Win 95 currently does. The program will automatically press `connect' for you on the `Connect To' dialog box, redial your Internet Provider indefinitely (even from within another application), and auto-reconnect if you get unexpectedly dropped, and more.

HTML Wizard

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/author/

Free from Microsoft, this is a small but useful utility for Web authors, allowing you to add an 'Edit' option to the context menus of your HTML files. It will also allow you to easily create new HTML files based on a custom template of your own design, and more.

Sound Blaster 32-bit drivers

URL: www.creaf.com/creative/drivers/sb16awe/sbw95up.exe

If you have a Sound Blaster SB16 or AWE-32 soundcard you can use any Windows 95 Internet phone software in full duplex mode by installing the latest 32-bit Sound Blaster drivers. See Using Net phones.

Windows

WHAM

URL: ftp://ftp.download.com/pub/win3/multimedia (filename wham133.zip)
Rating: 7/10

The Internet isn't just about sites and sights -- it's about sounds too. Windows' own Media Player can play WAV and MIDI sound clips but doesn't support the Macintosh and Unix AU formats. WHAM plays (and records) all sound formats and can also manipulate files. It's a Windows 3.1-only program but runs fine under Windows 95.
-- David Flynn

Net Toob

URL: http://www.duplexx.com
Rating: 8/10

There are three main formats for video images on the Internet: AVI, MOV and MPEG/MPG. Net Toob is a great utility which can play all three with equal aplomb.

You can also use the Media Player supplied in Windows 95 and on most multimedia PCs running Windows 3.1 to watch AVI movies; and Apple's QuickTime player (http://www.apple.com) for MOV clips. -- David Flynn

WinZip

URL: http://www.winzip.com
Rating: 9/10

The majority of downloadable software is compressed into a single archive to save disk space and transfer time -- the ZIP format and extension is the most common.

The award-winning shareware utility WinZip is our perennial favourite for unzipping these files. It can also be used to compress files into ZIP archives and supports other compression routines if you load the relevant DOS utilities. WinZip boasts a nifty ZIP wizard for beginners, excellent online help and drag-and-drop operation.
-- David Flynn

See also our guide on How to Use WinZip.

Netscape Navigator 3.0

URL: ftp://ftp-au.netscape.com/pub/navigator/3.0/
Rating: 9/10

The marketing leading Web browser and for good reason. Quite simply the best browser on the Windows 3.1 platform. See our Guide to Choosing a Web browser for more details.

Hot Dog Pro

URL: http://www.sausage.com.au

Thirty-day trial version of this excellent Australian-made HTML editor. Hot Dog has an attractively garish interface and like any good HTML editor, it automates the process of placing HTML tags into your document. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

PaintShop Pro 3.11

URL: http://www.digitalworkshop.co.uk/
Not yet reviewed

PaintShop Pro has always been our favourite graphic file viewer and converter, but in this latest version, PaintShop Pro is now a comprehensive graphics package and virtually a must for anyone getting into Web page authoring. It lets you view, create and save graphics in the GIF and JPG formats common on the Web, and provides image manipulation tools that'll let you grab a photo or other image and edit it to your heart's content. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

GIF Construction Set

URL: http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/alchemy.html

Web animations can be done with high-end tools such as Java and Director, but an easier way for most of us is to create animated GIFs with this shareware program. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

Cool Edit

URL: http://www.syntrillium.com/products.htm

Shareware program that does a great job in recording, editing and compressing sound files so they don't take up too much space and time downloading. See our Guide to Web authoring tools.

Eudora Lite

URL: http://www.eudora.com/

Freeware Internet e-mail program which is easy to use and popular, chosen by many ISPs as part of their software package to users. Power e-mail users will want the commercial `Pro' version, however. See our guide to Choosing E-mail Software for more details.

Pegasus Mail

URL: http://www.pegasus.usa.com/

This Internet e-mail program is free, which is astounding when you look at its long list of features. See our guide to Choosing E-mail Software for more details.

Internet Explorer

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie.htm
Rating: 7/10

Just upgraded to version 3.0, but lagging the Win 95 version in some features.

FreeAgent

URL: http://www.forteinc.com/forte/

For those who take Internet newsgroups seriously and value offline operation, message screening, sorting and other highly evolved functions, the award-winning FreeAgent is hard to beat.

CuteFTP

URL: http://www.cuteftp.com/

Currently the best of the shareware FTP utilities, CuteFTP displays the contents of distant servers in a File Manager-like screen with drag-and-drop transfers across the Net. See our guide to Choosing FTP Software.

WS_FTP

URL: http://www.ipswitch.com/pd_wsftp.html

Probably the most popular of the FTP utilities.

mIRC

URL: http://www.ozemail.com.au/ozemail/oz1195s/help/soft/mirc.html

Internet Relay Chat is one of the best ways to meet people on the Net, and mIRC is currently the best way to do that. See Choosing IRC Software.

RealAudio

URL: http://www.realaudio.com/products/player2.0.html#download

Web plug-in that gives you live AM-radio like sound over the Net with your browser. See our guide to Using RealAudio for more information.

ShockWave for Director, Authorware & Freehand

URL: http://www-1.macromedia.com/Tools/Shockwave/Plugin/plugin.cgi

Web plug-in that adds mind-blowing animation, sound and interactivity to Web pages. See our Guide to Plug-ins for more information.

Live3D

URL: http://home.netscape.com/comprod/products/navigator/live3d/download_
live3d.html

Web plug-in which opens the door to 3D virtual reality worlds written using the virtual reality mark-up (VRML) language, although it will give even a high-end Pentium a work-out. See our Guide to Plug-ins for more information.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

URL: http://www.adobe.com

While most written information on the Internet appears as plain text in Web pages or TXT files there's sometimes the need for documents containing rich formatting, tables and images. Some software manuals and online publications are posted online as PDF (Portable Document Format) files created with Adobe Acrobat and viewed on the Acrobat reader. -- David Flynn

Wincode

URL: http://www.global2000.net/users/snappy/snappy

Got an e-mail message or newsgroup posting with a whole lot of goobledegook? That's because the file attachment with it hasn't been decoded. Wincode will fix the problem. See Using E-mail for more details.

Word 6.0 Viewer

URL: http://www.microsoft.com

You may come across some Word for Windows documents, for which you'll either need a copy of WinWord or Microsoft's free Word Viewer. -- David Flynn

Trumpet Winsock 3.0

URL: http://www.trumpet.com.au

To start surfing with Windows 3.1 you'll need to install a special piece of software called a `Winsock' to your system. This allows Windows and Windows-based Internet programs to speak the same language as the Internet -- a language called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).

Your ISP probably has already given you this Winsock software as part of its start-up kit. If not, the most popular Winsock for Windows 3.1 is the shareware Trumpet Winsock from Australian company Trumpet Software International. See our tutorial on how to set up Trumpet Winsock in Connecting to the Net with Windows 3.1.

Windows communications drivers

Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11 both have some troubles handling communications at higher speeds. You'll need communications driver software to update your system and gain the benefit of the high speeds. For Windows 3.1, you'll need a program such as cybercom.drv (available to download from ftp://ftp.tiac.net/windows -- look for cybercom.zip). For Windows 3.11, you may find you need an updated version of the serial.386 file (from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES -- look for wg1001.exe). See our guide to Setting up a modem for more details.

CyberPatrol and Net Filter

See Educational software for the trial versions of these two Internet access control programs. 

OS/2 Warp

Netscape Navigator 2.02 (beta-1a)

URL: ftp://ftp-au.netscape.com/pub/navigator/3.0/

Warp users are in for a treat with the marketing leading Web browser now being native on their platform. Free to use, but just in beta. There are some good reasons for not putting beta software on your computer. It's probably not yet compiled for maximum performance; they're still probably ironing out the bugs; and betas are usually timebombed. Keep an eye on Netscape's Web site for the final version.

Web Explorer

URL: http://www.raleigh.ibm.com/WebExplorer

Not keen on using the Netscape beta? Web Explorer is still a good Web browser and it's free! See our Guide to OS/2 Internet software for more.

Post Road Mailer

URL: http://www.aescon.com/innoval/

Thirty-day demo version of this feature-packed e-mail program. See our Guide to OS/2 Internet software for more.

Post Road Newsreader

URL: http://www.aescon.com/innoval/

This demo version of our favourite OS/2 newsreader is limited to five pre-determined news groups. See our Guide to OS/2 Internet software for more.

GammaTech IRC

URL: http://www.aquila.com/menu2/area03/dr3-1.htm

The best OS/2 IRC client around. This demo limits online time to 30 minutes per session. See our Guide to OS/2 Internet software for more.

NeoLogic Suite

URL: http://www.wilmington.net/bmtmicro/catalog/neologic.html

File transfers fly with the shareware NeoLogic Suite's FTP client. Also includes an FTP server, Gopher client and newsreader. See our Guide to OS/2 Internet software for more.

Macintosh

Netscape Navigator

URL: http://netscape.com

Macintosh version of the market leading Web browser. This is one area where Netscape is way ahead of Microsoft -- it's truly multi-platform, with MS offering Macintosh users only an old version of Internet Explorer.

Eudora Lite

URL: http://www.eudora.com

Freeware Internet e-mail program which is easy to use and popular, chosen by many ISPs as part of their software package to users. Power e-mail users will want the commercial `Pro' version, however. See our guide to Choosing E-mail Software for more details.