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Internet Software

Copyright © 1999-2000, 2002-2007 by David E. Ross

Various applications and tools help with surfing the Internet. Some of these are fundamental, allowing the user to send and receive E-mail or to browse the Web. Others make accessing Web pages quicker. And others provide information not otherwise available. Some of my favorite Internet software is listed below. All of these are available as freeware or shareware and can be downloaded through the links at the software names or from secondary sources found with a good search engine. Links to the sources are for home pages. (For some freeware or shareware, the download pages cannot be readily found through the home pages.)

Note that I am using this software on a PC with WindowsXP. Most will also work with Windows NT and Windows 98SE. Some of this software comes in versions for the Macintosh.

I have mixed feelings about paying for software. I resent paying for shareware that others use for free, and I question buying "purchase-ware" when the capabilities of the related freeware are sufficient for me. However, as a software engineer, I must recognize the need of software developers to earn a living. In any case, read the license. In most situations, freeware and shareware are licensed only for personal, non-commercial use. Personal use does not include use at work. Depending on where the software was created and where you are using it, commercial or work-related use of software contrary to its license might result in civil or even criminal penalties.

[On this Web page (and on some of my other pages), I use certain technical terms that appear as links to their definitions. If you select any of those links, the page of definitions will appear in a separate browser window so that you will not have to keep going back and forth between pages. Once the window with the definitions has opened, selecting a link for a different term will reposition the definitions to that term. However, if that window was in the background when the link was selected, it will remain in the background. In that case, you merely need to bring the definitions widow forward.]

CyberKit

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Unfortunately, some backbone providers block the form of ping messages sent by CyberKit and similar tools. Not only does this prevent the use of ping but also the use of traceroute.

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Have you ever tried to load a Web page and get no response? When that happens to me, I use CyberKit to ping the page's domain. A failure to get a reply to my ping means either the domain's server is down or there is something wrong in the route through the Internet to that server. I can use CyberKit to examine that route. If I have an IP address, I can use CyberKit to get the associated domain name and vice versa and even the name of a contact person for that domain; this can be very handy when complaining about spam.

For Windows versions earlier than WindowsXP, pay special attention to the requirement described on the CyberKit download page regarding Sockets 2. From that Web page, you can download a free tool to check your Sockets version; there is also a link to a Micro$oft page from which an upgrade to Sockets 2 may be downloaded.

CyberKit was "postcard ware" in that the developer required each user to send him a postcard, preferably one that showed a picture of the area where the user lives.

Developer: Luc Neijens
Unfortunately, the CyberKit Web site and Neijens's E-mail address no longer function. However, a search via Metacrawler will yield several sites where CyberKit can still be downloaded.

Eudora Lite

This is my chosen E-mail client. I like a number of its features, several of which I have not seen in Micro$oft's Outlook or Netscape's Navigator or Communicator:

With a simple keystroke, I can pick E-mail addresses out of messages and insert them into my address book — even into an existing distribution list — without having to type them manually and without having to copy and paste.
Another simple keystroke expands a distribution list into its individual components in the header of a message. I can then delete selected individuals from the distribution for this particular message without actually changing the distribution list in my address book.
The filter is fairly easy to use for blocking spam and for routing messages into specific folders.
I created two personalities — one for my wife and one for me — with a common set of message folders and address book plus a third personality that is completely separate.
Eudora Lite has a seamless interface with PGP 6.5.8. (For any E-mail client, PGP 8.x has only purchase-ware interfaces.)
Selecting a URL that appears in a message will launch Netscape (if it is not already running) and request that Web page.
There are many freeware plug-ins. Most were developed by fans of Eudora and not by Qualcomm. My favorites include one that removes the > that appears in the left margin of messages that quote prior messages and another that unwraps text lines that were wrapped when sent to me.

One very important consideration is that my using an E-mail client from a developer different from the developers of my browser client and my word-processing applications has somewhat protected me from the ravages of some of the virulent computer viruses that have make headlines.

Note: I continue to use Eudora Lite 3.0.6, a freeware version that is no longer available. The purchase-ware version had more capabilities, but none that justified buying it. Eudora now comes in a single version (neither freeware nor purchased) with a user-selected configuration switch. The user can select Lite, Sponsored, or Paid modes of operation; the user can later change this choice. As with Eudora Lite 3.0.6, the Lite mode is free and has a reduced set of capabilities. As with Eudora Pro 3.0.6, the Paid mode requires payment of a registration fee and includes all current capabilities. The Sponsored mode is free but has all the capabilities of the Paid mode, plus one other: You see advertisements.

Note that Eudora can be used only with those mail servers that use the standard SMTP/POP interface. AOL and Juno each use their own proprietary interfaces, forcing users to install those services' unique E-mail clients. Web mail providers (e.g.: Hotmail, Yahoo!, WebTV) require Web browsers and not E-mail clients.

Source: Qualcomm (See also the Eudora home page)

FastNet99

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Giuseppe Criaco no longer supports this tool.

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If you visit a particular Web site or other domain that is relatively unknown to the general world then you might notice your browser is spending some time looking up the domain before attempting to connect. It is searching through a string of DNSs to convert the domain name into an IP address. Since the domain is obscure, it might take some time to find a DNS whose table contains that domain. If you visit such a domain frequently (you might be the only visitor), you can establish your own DNS on your PC. The software is already within Windows; all you need is the DNS table.

FastNet99 will create a DNS table for you where Windows can find it. This tool will take a domain name and find the IP address or vice versa. It can also take the existing table and reverify the name-IP address relationships, for selected entries or for the whole table. New entries can be added to the table, and old entries can be deleted.

Source: Giuseppe Criaco (an E-mail link)

mIRC

This is the Internet relay chat (IRC) client I use. I have never used any other IRC client, so I have no comparison to use as a basis for my choice.

Source: mIRC Co. Ltd.

RealPlayer

Some radio stations broadcast into the Internet. See my Music on the Internet page and scroll down to "Streaming Radio" for information.

SocketWatch

In a world where perhaps more than half the VCRs do not even have their clocks set, why would a few minutes discrepancy make a difference on a PC? If I am exchanging E-mail with my daughter and I received a message from her shortly after I sent her one, I would like to know (without sending another message) if she sent hers before or after I sent mine. I can check the time each message was sent, but that is valid only if the clocks on her Mac and my PC are accurate. I don't know how my daughter sets her clock, but I keep my PC clock synchronized to highly accurate clocks — mostly atomic clocks — that are setup as Internet time servers.

I could use CyberKit, but that client lacks several advantages found in SocketWatch. (But CyberKit indeed has some very useful features unrelated to clock synchronization.)

CyberKit	SocketWatch
User must input the name of a time server	Operates on a list of time servers supplied with SocketWatch
Synchronizes to the one specified server	Queries several servers and then synchronizes to the one that gave the best results (based on a scoring algorithm)

SocketWatch is the only item on this list of software for which I paid to register. It is available as shareware, but in that form it will synchronize my clock not more than three times in one day. The developer is based in Canada, and the price was quoted in dollars. When I inquired, I was informed that foreign payments had to be in U.S. dollars but that the same number of dollars would be accepted if Canadian dollars were remitted. Since the exchange rate was about $0.65US to $1.00Canada at that time, I got about a one-third discount by having my daughter (then living in Toronto) pay for this and then reimbursing her.

Source: Robomagic Corp (was Locutus Codeware (resistance is futile?))

SeaMonkey

The first Web browser I used was Netscape. The Netscape company was bought out by AOL before the latter merged with Time-Warner. Shortly after AOL announced that it would no longer develop new versions of Netscape, the Mozilla Foundation was created and acquired AOL's rights to Netscape. (At the Netscape company, Mozilla had been an internal name for the project that developed the browser.)

After releasing several versions of its renamed Mozilla Suite (browser, E-mail and newsgroup client, and other tools), the Mozilla Foundation starting unbundling its product. Firefox became a browser-only product, while Thunderbird became the E-mail and newsgroup client. The combined Mozilla Suite was relegated to an internal-only base for the unbundled products.

Although I had experienced the use of Internet Explorer (IE), as a software engineer I much preferred the capabilities of Netscape and the subsequent Mozilla products. The Mozilla browser was especially superior to IE. However, I found that the user interface for Firefox was not as good as the interface of the prior Mozilla browser. Thus, I was happy to learn that a group of Mozilla Suite fans had received permission from the Mozilla Foundation to take the open-source code of the internal-only base and release it to the public under a different name: SeaMonkey. The Mozilla Foundation even hosts the distribution of SeaMonkey. Whew! What a relief! The evolution of Netscape continues.

Micro$oft's attitude — that their Internet Explorer (IE) browser is an unavoidable, integral part of their operating system — was an important part of the proof that Micro$oft illegally engaged in anti-competitive practices during the monopoly trial. I use IE only to download WindowsXP patches; Micro$oft configured its own Web site to prevent such downloading via any other browser. In the meantime, by using a browser not tightly integrated with my operating system (WindowsXP), my word processing (Word 97 and the rest of Office 97), or my E-mail client (Eudora), I reduce my risk of spreading computer viruses.

Note that I installed only the browser capability of SeaMonkey, not the "mail-news" capability. I get the latter from Eudora and Thunderbird.

Source: Mozilla Foundation

Thunderbird

This is the "mail-news" client product of the Mozilla Company (the for-profit arm of the Mozilla Foundation). I use it only for reading newsgroups, not for E-mail (for which I use Eudora).

While Thunderbird has more features than the old Netscape that I previously used, it is also quite buggy. The only reason I use it is to avoid using such Micro$oft products as Internet Explorer or Outlook. I cannot really recommend Thunderbird as a newsgroup client until many of those bugs are fixed; I would definitely recommend against using Thunderbird as an E-mail client at this time.

Source: Mozilla Company

WS_FTP

FTP means file transfer protocol, a standard Internet interface for transferring files across the Internet. I use WS_FTP to upload my Web pages onto the VCNet Web server and to download various files (e.g.: software, text). WS_FTP allows the creation of profiles, each for a different purpose. For example, I have two profiles to connect to www.vcnet.com, one for my own Web pages and one for the Web pages of a non-profit organization for which I maintain the Web pages. For downloading large files (several megabytes), I prefer WS_FTP over using a Web browser. WS_FTP seems less likely to fail in the middle of the download, and it can resume from the point of failure if it does fail. Also FTP seems to download slightly faster than do Web browsers, but that might be just an illusion.

Apparently, freeware versions of WS_FTP are no longer available. I am still using a "light edition" — WS_FTP LE — that I downloaded in 2000.

Source: Ipswitch, Inc.

Note that no Web filtering software is listed. I did use the E-mail filters in Eudora to eliminate spam until my ISP implemented its own filter on its mail server. For several reasons, however, I most definitely reject the very concept of a Web filter:

My "baby" is 35, has her own Internet account and has a career of developing adult education courses for the Web. Her brother is 39, Surely, my children need no protection. Since both have moved out of my house, I cannot give them any protection even if I wanted to do so.
No software can be as effective as a caring, alert parent.
Too many filters reflect the personal biases of their creators.
Even more filters block access to innocent and even worthwhile material that is clearly appropriate even for children.
The very concept of censorship offends me more than anything I have even seen on the Web. What characteristics does a censor possess that is not found in the rest of us, that allows a censor to dictate what the rest of us can view?

For more information on this topic, see my Unrated.

Also note that I do not list AOL Instant Messenger or any similar tool. See "E-Mail" under Surfing the Internet for an explanation.

Last updated 4 June 2008

This page was visited 7552 times since 20 May 2000.