Alternative Browsers

THE WORLD Wide Web (WWW) is one of the on-line services that has made the Net a mega-hit. The graphic interface with absolutely user-friendly navigation tools provided by popular web browsers is a major reason for the popularity enjoyed by the web service. When we think of web-browsers, only two names come to mind - Netscape and Internet Explorer (IE). Though the browser market is controlled by these two, there are other products with unique features that lie in cyberspace waiting for attention. This week we will examine a couple of them.

NetCaptor

NetCaptor is a web browser that has all the features of IE and much more. The program has an interface quite similar to IE. Some of the capabilities of the program that are not available with the popular browsers are:

Multiple site browsing: If you want to access more than one site through traditional browsers ( such as the IE), you need to invoke more than one instance of the program. This drains the machine's resources apart from making it difficult to switch between sites. The NetCaptor solves this multiple site access problem by opening the sites on tabs (located at the bottom of the screen) that allow users to effortlessly move from one site to the other without inflicting much strain on the system resources.

Multiple site navigation: NetCaptor allows you to group related sites (such as search engines and news sites) and browse them in a single shot. The feature that helps you do this is CaptorGroups, which can contain a list of web addresses of similar sites. To create a CaptorGroup, access all the sites that you want to be included and then from the main menu click at the CaptorGroups button and press the Save as Captor Group.. option. Once a group is created in this manner, when you want to access the sites that constitute the group the next time, click at the File option from the main menu, then access the Open button and type in the full name of the captor file. Once the correct information is fed in, the program automatically scans the Net and fetches all the sites that are members of the selected CaptorGroup. The contents of the Captor group can be modified subsequently if you so desire.

Popup Captor: Unsolicited windows popping up suddenly on your screen while you browse is an irritant surfers encounter frequently. NetCaptor's PopupCaptor incorporates a feature that can be used to control this nuisance. To enable this, click at the Options, access the NetCaptor Options, then click PopCaptor button and enable the appropriate button.

The program (around 1.4MB), which has many more features, can be downloaded from www.netcaptor.com. The program is an advertisement supported one and along with it an advertiser program (web300) also gets installed.

QuickBrowse

Most of us browse sites related to our profession/business - for instance, a computer professional may visit technology sites, a health professional may visit a few medical sites and journalists may visit news sites. A service that helps you combine a number of web pages (not web sites) into a single long page is QuickBrowse. In addition to combining the pages into a single one, the site will even email this long page everyday! This is a beautiful service and you will realise its potential only if you try it out. To avail of the service, access the site at www.quickbrowse.com and register with the service. Once successfully registered, you will be taken to your home page, where you will be presented with many service options.

In the box provided for entering the web page addresses, type in the addresses of the web pages you want to get combined into single page and press the QuickBrowse button. At this point the service immediately fetches the pages and presents them all in a single page. Presenting the long page apart, the service provides you the option to get the combined page sent through email everyday. This is not the only way to use the quickbrowse service. The service provides a free quickbrowse client that facilitates this process.

Download the program (501K) from www.quickbrowse.com/qbeasy.exe and install it. While browsing the Net if you come across a page that you want to be part of your long page, right-click at the `qb' icon (available at the system tray), and access the Grab web address option. Move to the next web page and if you want this page also to be a part of the long page to be produced, again `grab' the page as mentioned earlier. Continue this procedure till you finish all the constituent pages and once you finish grabbing all the pages and are ready to view all the pages together in a single window, right-click at the `qb' icon and click at the `Quickbrowse now' button. After a few seconds you will get all the pages in a single page window. The service has many more tools in its arsenal such as `Tech News', `Newsstand' and `Comics' which help you combine many useful pages together.

J.Murali

(The author can be contacted at: murali27@satyam.net.in)

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Science & Tech
Previous : Moringa stemborer