(Editor's note: the review cited above is no longer available.)

Navigator 3.0 is the best browser on every important count, including size, speed, and cross-platform support. It is roughly half the size of Explorer. It is, as we noted last week, considerably faster. It is essentially identical across platforms (we tested the Mac 68K, Mac PPC, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 versions); where there are differences (e.g., no Mac CoolTalk client), Netscape is working on them (a Mac client is due this month). In addition, Navigator 3.0 offers some exclusive new state-of-the-art features, as every previous version has.

Perhaps the most innovative new feature is "Netscape Inbox Direct," which, using HTML-enabled e-mail, will permit delivery of complete, full-featured Web pages to users' e-mail inboxes. Netscape Inbox Direct goes "live" the week of September 9, and a slew of content providers—including the New York Times, HotWired, and SportsLine USA—plan to take advantage of it. (Contrast this with the Microsoft plan to offer "free" content via traditional Web-page browsing.) Netscape Inbox Direct is a major breakthrough that will have an immediate impact on consumers and corporate intranets alike.

Other important new features include inline audio and video, Automatic Update (which points you straight at any plug-in[s] you might need for a particular page), and vastly improved layout capabilities. For example, this review utilizes the new "MULTICOL" tag to create a two-column layout—something you won't see unless you're already using Navigator 3.0. (Editor's note: no longer—we've since moved to a CSS-based layout.)

The browser "war" is far from over—both Microsoft and Netscape will release betas of their Version 4 products as early as next month. But Netscape is clearly out front, and clearly the open-standards champion. Navigator 3.0 is a superb product (if you have any remaining doubts, take the Web-based tour) that will fuel the company's continued growth.

(Reviewed September 6, 1996)