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Browsing and Beyond

Scott Spanbauer

Socks, toasters, Internet software. What do these things have in common? They're essential, yet we take them for granted.

But your Internet tools really deserve a little more of your attention. While the world's great minds aren't obsessed with eliminating itchy socks or scorched toast, some very smart people are working overtime to perfect Internet applications. The best tools can make a real difference in how efficiently and safely you travel the Web.

To help you find the best Internet applications, we evaluated the newest versions of leading products in four major areas: Web browsers, e-mail programs, instant messaging clients, and digital media players. In each category, we compared the products' features; their compatibility with Internet standards, services, and file types; their security and privacy functions; and their prices. Then we picked a winner in each category.

But getting the most out of the Net--and avoiding some of its annoyances--requires more than just these major applications. We also recommend specialized programs that will help you dodge Web ads and privacy intrusions, discover even more information in cyberspace, and stay safe while you're surfing.

Download these programs and you'll find you love the Internet so much, you'll want to give your next child the initials www.

Scott Spanbauer is a PC World contributing editor. He also writes the monthly Internet Tips column.

PC World Picks the Best Browsers

A federal judge and government antitrust attorneys (at least ones from the Clinton administration) say that Internet Explorer dominates the browser market because Microsoft used its industry muscle to shove worthy competitors like Netscape and the Norwegian browser Opera off desktops.

That may be true, but our tests showed that there's another reason IE rules: It's a really good browser.

The latest version, Internet Explorer 6 (free), is fast, smooth, and easy to customize. IE also allows you to permanently store a page, along with the pages it links to, on your hard drive for offline viewing--great for researchers. It seldom has trouble rendering a Web page correctly, and it offers extensive control over privacy and security concerns.

Netscape 6.2 (free) is nearly as graceful and powerful a browser. But its interface can't be so easily rearranged; it can save a page but not the pages it links to; and it occasionally stumbles over a complicated Web page, jumbling table elements or scrambling images. And though Opera 6 (free with ads, $39 without) is excellent in many respects, it too lacks several key features, including IE's ability to save a page along with the pages it links to for offline viewing. In our informal tests, Opera made the most errors rendering pages. In addition, in Opera's free version you lose a chunk of your browser window to advertising.

What separates a great browser from a good one is how well its controls, menus, and toolbars are arranged, and how easily you can tweak its user interface. IE's interface is uncluttered, and its buttons and menus are easy to understand.

The Chameleon Browser

Need one-click access to the Klingon Language Institute home page? Use IE's easily modified Links toolbar, with quick-access bookmarks for your favorite sites. To add a link, just drag the icon from the address field and drop it on the toolbar. If your intense study of Klingon syntax means you no longer have time to visit the International Paperweight Society site, just right-click the Society's link in the toolbar and choose Delete. The rest of IE's interface is almost as easy to configure: You can size toolbars horizontally, drag and drop them into new positions, and add or remove any menu button or command that you wish.

Netscape, however, isn't quite as configurable. You can drag links from its address field to its Personal Toolbar, but if you want to get rid of the preinstalled links to Netscape's shopping page or its corporate partner Net2Phone, you have to drill into the Preferences menu.

One part of Netscape 6.2's interface we liked was My Sidebar, which packs a search tool, an instant messaging client compatible with AOL's messenger, a stock ticker, a news ticker, a history list, and bookmarks into a vertical tabbed window. And you can find dozens of other My Sidebar tabs online. They range from the useful, like information on Windows 98 annoyances, to the obscure, like breaking news on television sitcom actress Amy Pietz (surely you remember her from the classic The Weber Show).

All three browsers offer tools for managing bookmarks and sorting through your surfing history. But IE's unique ability to save pages for offline viewing--as extensively as three links deep--is a boon to laptop users often disconnected from the Net. For example, to read today's PCWorld.com on the plane, you can have IE pull down the home page plus all the pages immediately linked to it.

No browser is guaranteed to display every Web page perfectly; we found pages with elements disordered or missing in all three contenders, though IE exhibited the fewest problems. IE consistently feels a little snappier than Opera or Netscape when loading pages (however, we didn't formally clock the browsers).

All three browsers let you disable Java and JavaScript, which developers can use to create pop-up windows and other on-screen effects. IE provides the most detailed control over browser security (although it also incorporates the notoriously insecure ActiveX controls). If you know what you're doing, you can configure IE to run only the scripts and controls you approve, on a site-by-site basis.

Net Filters: Hands Off My Browser!

Want to experience the Internet free of pop-ups, banners, and unwanted cookies? These programs will help.

Ban the Banners

One of the irritations we all encounter when browsing the Web is the advertising embedded in nearly every page, not to mention the pop-up windows. If you want to clear out the sales pitches, get WebWasher 3. Free for home and educational use ($29 for other users), WebWasher filters out ads, pop-ups, embedded scripts, third-party cookies, Web bugs, and other bits of Web programming. It even offers no-configuration-necessary installation.

Control Your Cookies

Newer browsers offer you increasingly sophisticated controls over which cookies Web sites can write to your hard disk. But those settings are hardly automatic. The Limit Software's $15 Cookie Crusher gives you more assistance in categorizing and automating cookie options than your browser does, showing you a detailed description of each cookie and its purpose, and allowing you to permanently reject or accept it in future site visits. To see if the utility does what you want, download the free demo version.

PC World Picks the Best E-Mail Clients

You may spend more time in your in-box than in spreadsheets. So you'll want to be able to rearrange that environment to fit your working style--and to be able to lock the door at night knowing your data is safe. You can do both with Microsoft's Outlook 2002 and its Outlook Express 6. Each offers an interface smoother than other clients' and the ability to handle e-mail from multiple accounts and servers. Because both programs have been the punching bags for notorious viruses like last year's Nimda and SirCam, Microsoft has added strict new security measures to these versions.

Outlook 2002 ($109), with its calendar and to-do list, is great for getting organized. But for a good, basic e-mail client that doesn't cost a cent, we recommend Outlook Express, which comes with Windows and Internet Explorer.

Both Qualcomm's Eudora 5.1 (free with ads, $50 without) and Netscape's Mail (included with Netscape 6.2) are more-than-adequate programs. But their security isn't as ironclad and they aren't quite as versatile or flexible.

Pegasus Mail 4 is likewise competent, and it's free. It's also highly secure against e-mail viruses and hackers, but the safety comes at the expense of compatibility with HTML-format messages.

E-Mail Elegance

Like Internet Explorer, the Microsoft e-mail programs are the easiest to rearrange to fit your needs. They allow you to drag and drop toolbars and add or remove just about any button or field.

All the programs let you check more than one e-mail account, and they all offer access to standard POP3 and IMAP Internet mail servers, but Outlook and Outlook Express add the capability to check Hotmail or another Web-based mail service. If you have America Online, Netscape (owned by AOL Time Warner) can grab your mail, whether you are connected through AOL or not. (See Internet Tips for more on mail software and service compatibility.) Outlook Express has the easiest system for setting up multiple user identities, each with multiple e-mail accounts, making it the top choice for office mates or family members who share a single computer.

Pegasus was the only program that had difficulty displaying richly formatted HTML mail. Among the problems: improperly aligned page elements and an inability to download linked images.

Keeping Your Guard Up

E-Mail programs are the doorways viruses use to enter your system, so you need all the security you can get. Pegasus is fairly safe simply because it offers little support for the technologies viruses use as their unwitting henchmen: Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX. Because Microsoft's mail programs are highly programmable, they have been vulnerable in the past to sneaky mail viruses that can send themselves automatically to others in your address book and delete files from your hard disk. In the latest versions, though, Microsoft has responded to the threat by building in multiple layers of safeguards that block almost every type of scripted attack.

Neither program will let you open an extensive list of vulnerable file types--unless you turn off the safeguards. Eudora handles the problem by preventing you from launching any executable attachments, though you can override the control. Outlook and Outlook Express treat all e-mail as hostile, preventing scripts from running by default. Neither Eudora nor Netscape provides a similar quarantine feature. The Microsoft and Netscape programs are also the only ones that support digital certificates for authenticating and encrypting mail.

File Finders: Kindness of Strangers

Using the Web is a great way to get advice and data from people you've never met. These apps make it easier.

All the News Fit to Serve

The public Usenet system, along with private NNTP news servers run by companies like Microsoft and Netscape, are the Net's unsung information sources. The posts on these servers can give you, for example, up-to-the-minute user-to-user support and the scuttlebutt on just about any product you can imagine. All three leading browsers include a competent newsreader. But if you really want to winnow the onslaught of newsgroup postings down to something manageable, you need a dedicated tool like Free Agent 1.21 by Forté. It doesn't do everything--for instance, you can't read news on both your ISP's server and Microsoft's (just one or the other)--but it excels in offline news reading and in downloading and decoding batches of file attachments, such as images and MP3 files. And it's free.

Share With the Bear

When Napster closed down its file-sharing system last year (in search of a legitimate business model), various other products and technologies rushed in. These peer-to-peer operations help you to swap not only music files, but almost any kind of data file. The free BearShare 2.3 utility is the most anonymous and Napster-like service around. And since, unlike Napster, its sharing system does not store files in a central server, it may be less vulnerable to legal attacks. Be sure to deselect the optional "spyware" component, named SaveNow, during installation.

Web Security: Fend Off Attacks With a Firewall

Being connected to the Internet is a risk. Aspiring cybercriminals would love to break into your computer to find passwords and personal information, or plant a Trojan horse program that gives them remote control over your PC. Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm 2.6 is a top-notch free (for personal use) firewall that makes your computer invisible to outsiders. It also blocks unauthorized access to the Internet by programs running on your system, a lifesaver if a hacker has previously slipped a Trojan horse into your PC or if you've downloaded a program that's spying on your computing activity.

PC World Picks the Best Instant Messaging Clients

When you want to have a running conversation with a friend or a colleague, communicating via instant messages can be more convenient than trading e-mails. But instant messaging has yet to match e-mail's popularity. Why? Because, to date, the major instant messaging clients can't talk to each other.

Attempts to create a universal instant messaging protocol are in progress, but it seems unlikely that one will win acceptance soon. That's why a program like Odigo holds such promise. The free chat system connects you not only to other Odigo users but to people on the AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo systems as well. Unfortunately, we found that Odigo's interaction with the other clients was so rudimentary and its native capabilities so limited that we couldn't award it the instant messaging crown. The same is true of other universal clients like Imichi, Jabber, and Trillian.

Instead, we recommend AOL Instant Messenger (free). AIM, ICQ, and MSN Messenger are all capable programs, and they have similar features. However, AIM has a simple interface that offers powerful capabilities like multiuser chat and voice chat. And if you're hoping to make contact with friends, odds are good that they are on AIM. (Note: PC World provides computer-related content for AOL and other AOL-owned properties.)

AOL's other instant messaging program, ICQ (free), offers even more features, but its chaotic interface will drive you nuts. MSN Messenger (free) could overtake AIM someday, but it faces some obstacles; for one thing, Microsoft was still working out security issues in its Passport log-in system at press time.

Chatting With a Crowd

Instant messaging can be either a one-on-one or a group affair. All of the reviewed programs offer both options. But group chats are where Odigo misses the mark: Though you can invite lots of Odigo users to your holistic poodle-grooming chat room, you can't invite users from other IM systems, even though you may be logged in to them. And Odigo users can't participate in AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo chat rooms.

All but one of the clients we reviewed corral the dozens of chat settings and options into just a few easy-to-understand preference menus. The exception is ICQ: Learning about all the program's esoteric bells and whistles can take days. You can use ICQ's simple mode, but that disables multiuser chat--an unacceptable trade-off.

Odigo is the only IM tool we looked at that doesn't let you do PC-to-PC voice chat. The version of Messenger that comes with Windows XP is unique in that it lets you videoconference, but only with other Windows XP Messenger users.

PC World Picks the Best Media Players

Just what an audio and video player should do is still evolving. The latest player to emerge from the digital evolutionary muck, RealNetworks' RealOne Player improves on the example set by Microsoft's slick, multitalented Windows Media Player. In addition to a visually stunning interface, RealOne's controls--in particular its media library--work the way you want them to. We evaluated the free basic player. RealOne's premium service provides more content and more-versatile software at a monthly cost of $10 or $20, depending on what content you want.

Microsoft's Windows Media Player 7.1, the latest overhaul of its free player, does many of the same things, but 7.1's interface makes organizing and playing files harder.

Apple's QuickTime (also free) offers only bare-bones playback features.

Of course, while we recommend RealOne for storing most of your media, you may want a copy of all the players on your hard drive. That's because no single program plays all formats. You need Apple's player for QuickTime media and RealOne for Real-format files.

Like Windows Media Player and RealOne, QuickTime offers access to a nice selection of streaming video and audio sites. QuickTime TV includes ABC News, the BBC, CNN, Disney, and MTV. Unfortunately, it lacks its competitors' ability to browse through the zillions of independent streaming Internet radio stations. QuickTime also lacks a media library feature for organizing clips on your computer, and it doesn't interface with CD burners or play audio CDs.

Windows Media Player and RealOne offer similar features, with standard playback controls and media libraries. Both will allow you to rip (digitally copy) tracks from audio CDs to digital files and transfer the digital files onto audio CDs or portable digital audio players. Both also play a healthy portion of the audio or video clips you'll find on the Net, though RealOne has a slight edge--it plays Windows Media Player audio files (but not video files), while Microsoft's program turns up its nose at all Real clips.

Windows Media Player rips CD audio only to its own format--fine as long as you don't intend to play the files on a portable device that plays only MP3s. (Windows XP's version of Media Player supports third-party MP3-ripping plug-ins that cost about $10.) RealOne will rip both to its own format and to MP3. Real's MP3 ripping is limited to a sample rate of 96 kbps, which is noticeably lower than CD quality; RealOne's premium service gets you higher-quality ripping. (For a comparison of audio formats, read our November 2001 article " Compressed Audio: Can You Tell the Difference?").

We found RealOne's light, clean interface easier to navigate and learn than Windows Media Player's interface. In the media library area, for example, a player organizes all your video or audio clips by artist, album, genre, and media type.

Browsing a voluminous library of audio clips in Windows Media Player is frustrating. You get either long lists of albums (not identified by artist), or else long lists of artists, then a single folder listing all of an artist's songs. A column in the song display may identify which album a track belongs to, and at least you can sort by album to group tracks together, but usually the tracks will still be listed in the wrong track order. This is a real problem if you listen to classical music: Media Player has a tendency to play the finale before the overture.

RealOne offers a welcome Artist/Album view that organizes an artist's tracks into albums in the proper order, a small but key feature.

Search and Save: Information Everywhere

These applications will help you track down information and display it wherever you go.

Don't Search--Metasearch

Some search engines are better than others, but there's no need to limit yourself to just one. Copernic 2001 Basic is a free, ad-supported application that sends your search requests to up to 80 different search sites in seven categories, including the Web in general; newsgroups; and shopping engines for books, hardware, and software.

The Web Where You Want

The problem with bookmarks and favorites is that they're often not around when you need them--say, at 36,000 feet. While Internet Explorer will save pages, AskSam's free, ad-supported SurfSaver 2.2 gives you more control over what gets saved and where, creates searchable Web page archives, and works with Netscape Navigator 4. x and Internet Explorer 4 or higher. For $30, SurfSaver Pro runs ad-free.

Web Authoring: Staking Your Claim

With these tools, you can make your presence felt on the Internet.

Create Your Internet Home

If you want to get a basic Web page up and running without having to learn Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), you need look no further than the Netscape Composer utility. To advance beyond Composer's basic tools, though, check out Evrsoft's free 1st Page 2000. With it you can enhance your pages with JavaScript and VBScript (over 450 included samples create mouse rollover effects, counters, menus, and other visual tricks), automate the process of writing correct HTML syntax, and preview your changes in real time using Internet Explorer. The program grows along with your Web-design skills, operating in Easy, Expert, or Hardcore mode.

Handle Industrial-Strength File Transfers

If you download lots of shareware and MP3s, or if you have a Web site, you're likely to spend a lot of time transferring files to and from remote FTP (file transfer protocol) servers. Several worthy shareware tools provide help for the task. But RhinoSoft.com's FTP Voyager 8 ($40, 30-day free trial) offers the most well-developed interface, with separate tree and directory windows for both the local and remote computers. It also has a precision batch-file-transfer scheduler that lets you download NASA's latest high-definition Mars photos automatically while you sleep. Local/remote folder synchronization makes changing your Web site a one-click process.

Top Picks: The Scoop on Our Favorite Net Tools (chart)