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The following comparison compares version 3 of the two most popular
browsers. In general, I prefer the features in Navigator (like the download
speed indicator), but IE crashes less.
The various differences and shortcomings of the two browsers emphasise the
fact that a Web page designer must develop and test with both
browsers.
Feature | Navigator 3.01 | Internet Explorer 3.0 |
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Displays cps while loading pages | yes | no |
Displays cps during downloads | yes | no |
E-mail creation facilitates fonts | no | yes |
Add bookmarks/favorites | fast,simple | slow,cumbersome |
Storage of bookmarks | one file | many files (slow) |
Warns of duplicate bookmarks when adding | no | yes |
Shows local links as "visited" | yes | no |
Plays local .WAV/.MID files | no (URL bug) | yes |
Fast table handling | no | yes |
Displays full URL of links | yes | no |
Can display "document info" | yes | no |
Can show source of frames | on main menu | right mouse click |
Handles LOWSRC option of <IMG> tag | yes | no |
<TAB> key moves between links | no | yes |
<UL> tag has superfluous blank line | after list | before list |
Supports the ™ symbol (TM) | no | yes |
Supports internal links in local files | yes | no |
Bugs

Navigator
- When a table cell has a background color and there is a background page
image, selecting then unselecting text shows the page background color
rather than the cell background color.
- When a line ends at the right margin and is followed by a
<BR> , Navigator handles the "word wrap" and
the <BR> , which causes an extra blank line.
- When a link points to a
.wav or other embedded file (on
the local drive), the link does not work. I suspect that Navigator gets
the path wrong. (i.e. dir\sound.wav rather than
\dir\sound.wav ). The status bar shows the full path, but
the media player does not.
- The "Images" button only loads the images for the current frame. Although
this sounds like a good feature, it falls flat when no frame is selected
-- the containting frameset has no images.
- When the status bar reads "Connect: Host ... contacted. Waiting for
reply...", Navigator locks out any other actions, even in the mail
window or any other Netscape window. The multi-threading ability is
blocked while waiting for a reponse. This is extremely
irritating because of the many slowdowns and delays on the
Internet.
Internet Explorer
- When viewing the contents of a directory, double-clicking on an
.htm file brings up the default browser, instead of
opening the page with IE. On my system Netscape is the default
browser, so double-clicking a file in IE launches Navigator.
IE should be smart enough to open the file itself.
- When the page is reloaded, the browser is moved back to the top of the
page. This error occurs because IE does not support internal links in
local files (i.e.
<A HREF="file.htm#link"> goes to
the top of the file only). This behaviour is annoying when developing
and previewing pages because you have to constantly page down to get to
the area of the page you are working on.
- When a table is followed by the
<CENTER>..</CENTER>
tag, the last line of text in the last row of the table is also
centered, even though it comes before the <CENTER>
tag. To fix the problem, either add an image (such as a single-pixel
transparent GIF) to the end of the text in the last row of the
table, or add anything after the table but before the
<CENTER> tag.
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