I've been surfing the internet now for about 8 years--basically since it's inception to the commercial market. I have grown up with computers and am a college student now.
But I have seen the development and advancement of products on the internet at internet time.
I was one of the first members of Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL, and even Delphi. I have experimented with all sorts of applications and internet explorers as a result of this.

It's amazing how good some of these products have improved over time.
I remember using NCSE Mosaic a while ago. Now, we have come all the way to MS IE 5.

Microsoft's IE 5 exemplifies a great product <albeit the only product other than Netscape Navigator and a few other web browsers out there>.

What more do I have to say about it besides if you need a web browser, this is the one of choice for most users. So go ahead and download it and see it for yourself. Most people currently use MS IE 5 or Netscape Navigator as their web browser.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/nt5download.htm?RLD=11

I used to be a Navigator buff -- but because of speed and convenience of use (for example, Windows integrates it's platform OS to the internet), I switched to IE 5.

CONS
IE 5 is the internet browser to use. It does seem to crash sometimes, but overall most HTML supports IE 5 over Navigator. And, when designing web pages, IE 5 conveniently opens up Notepad so you can basically save the file in HTML format. Navigator, on the otherhand opens up their own browser (with a grey background), but shows the HTML markup errors if there are any.


PROS
IE 5 auto-finishes your URLs and will save your passwords if you configure it correctly.

Furthermore, IE 5 lets you remove files and cookies and cache relatively easily as compared to Navigator <Tools, Internet Options, Delete Temp. Files>, where I must search through folders and delete unwanted files and URLs.

Netscape Communicator (Navigator is included here) does boast a web designing HTML tool in its Netscape Composer. <Microsoft does not bundle its web products this way.> But Netscape's product (Composer) is very slow, weak and not worth the download, in my opinion.

If you're a Yahoo! buff, then IE 5 is more reason to download over Netscape. IE 5 easily works with Yahoo! Companion, where as Netscape sometimes is buggy and does not load the Yahoo! Companion.

IE 5 is integrated into the Windows OS. This allows for convenient access to the internet. The "View as Web Page" function works well when you are looking through your files of pics. This option lets you view all your pics quickly in the current browser/folder. How convenient..

IE 5 allows you to set images as wallpapers using the right click button.
IE 5 supports and accepts more HTML code than Navigator. Netscape sometimes tends to ignore and sometimes distorts the web page.

IE 5 is the product of the present. Perhaps in the future, we will shift to a some kind of LINUX product or maybe Netscape will come out with a more competitive product.

OVERALL
IE 5 is currently the browser of choice for most users. Until other competitors enter the market and come out with a more user-friendly product, I recommend sticking with and downloading Microsoft IE 5




Recommended: Yes