Communicator, which we reviewed in Prelease 2 form, has an integration plan of its own. Although incomplete at this point, the company's Active Desktop technology essentially creates a container for viewing ActiveX controls, HTML objects, Java applets and other live content. IE lets you choose to do away with individual application windows altogether, leaving a wide-open desktop display in which Windows Explorer becomes just another browser view, albeit one with a very specialized role. In case you don't want this level of integration, IE can act simply as your Web browser. Expect Netscape to catch up in this regard with the release later this year of Constellation, in which Navigator will start to take on the role of an OS shell.
Navigator is now a legitimate groupware program with enhanced mail and news features.
The program has a much improved interface, which is sleek, functional, and efficient. Version 4.0 of Navigator fully catches up with IE 4.0. Both IE and Navigator perform the tasks of basic browsing well. They support HTML 3.2 specifications, Cascading Style Sheets, and dynamic style sheets, but that's just the start. And because they both work with the IMAP4 protocol, you can keep your e-mail on the server and download only the headers or the first few hundred bytes of individual messages.