Microsoft's Macintosh development team has come a long way from where it was just a couple years ago. Next to Office 98, Microsoft's monumental developmental strides can most be seen in Internet Explorer, and version 4.5 clearly highlights this.
The first steps
Microsoft has carried over the "drag and drop" installation procedure of Office 98 to Internet Explorer 4.5. All it takes is to start using IE 4.5 is a copy on your hard drive. The first time you launch either component of Microsoft Internet 4.5 (either IE or Outlook Express), the Internet First Run application loads, similar to Office First Run, which will place a handful of shared libraries and preferences panels inside of your System Folder. Also like Office 98, IE 4.5 requires no extensions to function properly, eliminating any possible System Folder extension conflicts. Finally, Microsoft has implemented its "Self Repair" feature into IE 4.5, so if a user accidentally deletes or damages an essential component of IE 4.5 it will automatically be reinstalled or repaired the next time IE 4.5 is launched.
The only somewhat disappointing aspect of the Internet Explorer 4.5 installer is that it only contains the Default and QuickTime plug-ins. It would be nice to see popular Plug-Ins such as RealPlayer and Shockwave installed by default, as Netscape Communicator does. Also, despite being just released, IE 4.5 installs the the dated version 1.1.1 of the QuickTime plug-in, rather than 2.0.1 which offers more features that take advantage of QuickTime 3.0.
When it comes to traditional and basic web browsing, Internet Explorer 4.5 is a solid product. It connects and loads pages quickly and features an even more improved caching method that trounces Netscape's, allowing you to quickly go back to a page that was recently loaded. As in previous versions, IE 4.5 is also smart enough to properly render pages even if some closing tags are missing. In contrast, Netscape Communicator 4.5 will produce a blank page if a table's syntax in the HTML code isn't perfect.
New and expanded features
Internet Explorer 4.5 contains an array of new and innovative features that adds to its already rather lengthy list of more advanced features. The Explorer Bar, a group of four tabbed windows on the left side of the browser window, has been much improved. You can quickly pop out your list of Favorites and organize them from within the window or bring up the History (the list of recently visited pages).
The Page Holder tab is new to IE 4.5 and allows you to place a page in the side window so that when you click on links they load up in the main window. While this is an excellent idea on Microsoft's part, only users who have their browser window set to at least 1024 pixels wide will really be able to benefit from it, since ideally you'd like to see both pages on the screen. There is a links-only button that will have the side window list only links (and the text that is part of the link), but this is only a partial solution since many times sites will have a tidbit and then link to the site, thus a new tidbit at iMac2Day simply reads "iMac2Day" in link mode. The most efficient method of browsing from a main page, such as MacNN's, is to use the "Open link in new window..." option that is available if you control click a link. That way you can simply go back to your main page by clicking its window and continue with your reading. Unlike Netscape, where opening a link in a new window places that window only a pixel or two below the previous window, IE 4.5 gives you a generous title bar's worth of space.
If you've ever found yourself being forced to complete a tedious personal information form (name, address, etc.) you'll appreciate IE 4.5's new AutoFill feature. You enter all your information into IE 4.5's preferences and when you come across such a form simply hit the AutoFill button in the browser's window and the form will be automatically filled out for you. IE 4.5's auto-complete URL feature has also been applied to AutoFill, so if you start filling out a field of a form by hand, IE 4.5 will try to guess what you want the rest to be. There are a few shortcomings to AutoFill, though. Most shopping sites ask for separate shipping and billing information, offering an option under one that says that the information is identical to the other. If you use AutoFill, all fields will be filled out. While this shouldn't cause a problem, I'd prefer to check a box that tells it to use the same information entered previously. AutoFill also won't select options from pop-up menus, and many sites force you to pick your State from such a list. Finally, the omission of a Fax number field in AutoFill is surprising.
Searching times three
By incorporating Sherlock into the browser, Internet Explorer 4.5 now offers a handful of different options to search the web. You can use the Explorer Bar's Search tab, search through a traditional Search Engine, or use the new Sherlock tab located under the spinning IE logo to launch Sherlock. However, Sherlock will only be launched if it is in the Apple Menu (where it is installed by default with Mac OS 8.5). From the Sherlock tab you can also have Sherlock search for similar sites or summarize the contents of the site to the clipboard.
Advanced printing options
Printing has always been a horrible experience from within a web browser. Traditionally, you'd have to shrink the window to the width of the page through complete guess work then hope that everything comes out ok. If the page that you printed up featured blue text on a dark background and you only had black and white printer, making out the text was a daunting task. IE 4.5 solves all of these problems with its advanced Print Preview and Print To Fit options.
Print Preview allows you to shrink the print out to fit on the selected size of paper in Page Setup, essentially performing the same tasks as perfectly sizing your browsers window to the printer's page. Dark backgrounds also come out as white with black text, saving ink and your eye sight. You can also crop wide web pages and choose not to print out images.
Stability issues
It seems that with every new version of a web browser new features are added but stability remains a problem, and Internet Explorer 4.5 is no exception to this rule of thumb. The program crashed with Type 3 errors a handful of times and every now and then if I tried bringing it to the foreground by clicking on a window, or if I hit the refresh button, the program seemed to politely quit; although it was unexpected, no error followed.
Internet Explorer 4.5 also suffers from a memory leak that was present in versions as early as 4.0. If you browse the web for fifteen minutes loading up a number of different sites, you'll see the Finder's memory usage balloon by as much as 10 MB. With 10 MB of RAM allocated to IE 4.5, after browsing for half an hour, the Mac OS 8.5.1 Finder memory heap expanded from 31 MB to 40 MB. This can most likely be attributed to the shared libraries that IE uses, but remains a large problem, although if you quit IE 4.5 the memory is restored. Also, if you max out IE 4.5's RAM allocation closing windows in the browser won't free up any additional memory.
The browser as a whole
No matter how ardent a proponent of Netscape Communicator you may be, there's no denying that Internet Explorer 4.5 represents a huge leap in web browser technology. The searching and printing features are second to none, AutoFill will save you time, and the caching method is fast and efficient. Internet Explorer has once again successfully raised the stakes.
