IBM Web Explorer

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IBM Web Explorer was an early web browser designed at IBM facilities in the Research Triangle Park for OS/2.

1 Name
2 History
3 Features
4 Shortcomings
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Name

Not to be confused with IBM Web Browser, a later program based on Mozilla, or with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

[edit] History

Presented in 1994 with OS/2 Warp (v3), it was hailed as the best browser by Internet Magazine in their November issue(?) and leveraged its position as the only native browser in OS/2 at that time. Almost immediately after the introduction of OS/2 Warp version 3, IBM dismantled the development team and that relegated the Web Explorer to the annals of history. IBM Web Explorer, at that time, was the browser application to beat. OS/2 Warp 4 (1996) included it, but also included a link to download an OS/2 version of Netscape Navigator 2.02, which was late for shipping on CD. IBM had already planned the substitution of Web Explorer.

[edit] Features

Support for HTML 3.0 (with tables).
Usenet reader.
Some of its parts were scriptable with Rexx. Some external companies used this capability to offer an enhanced browser with IBM's rendering engine.
A page could define what the animated throbber should look like. It was implemented through a non-standard <frame> HTML tag. OS/2 users created several animations. The latter introduction of Web frames leads Web Explorer to confusion on modern pages.
A presentation mode without visible menu bars.
A menu option Links collecting all the links in the page. It was used by IBM VoiceType for voice navigation.
Java applets.