Far and Away the best, most feature filled portal on the internet. This is where any beginner should look when they start up. If you find a better portal later that's o.k.

Says they will make you a portal based on where you live, but it couldn't possibly have the features of My Yahoo!

Comparable to My Yahoo! but can't match the in-depth features. Better for Netscape users than IE users. Has options that make communicator work better.

Net Mail

AOL Instant Messanger

NetCenter Search

Nearly Identical to Netscape, no browser pref, no communicator options. Includes: Mail, Chat, Message Boards, Maps, Yellow Pages, etc

This is by far the best directory on the net. It also is a very good search engine with only the best sites listed.

Biggest Search Engine on the web.

Meta Search Engine- sends out a search to many different search engines.

Searches for many different things like pictures, video, sound, news articles, etc; not just web pages.

Best for locating pages posted during a specific time.

Owned by the Go network (ABC and Disney) so it's mostly things from these companies' affiliates.

This search engine can be customized for each search you do, to get different things.

This engine is just a pawn in the browser wars and gives back mostly Microsoft friendly sites.

Netscape's pawn in the war, same thing as MSN

Searchable Nation Wide telephone book. Includes home and Business listings. Traditional search where you supply the name and it will give you a listing or you can give the number and it will tell you whose it is.

This search engine specializes in finding e-mail addresses but also finds other info.

This search engine specializes in finding e-mail addresses but also finds other info.

This search engine specializes in finding e-mail addresses but also finds other info. Then lets you look at things to do in the vicinity of the found person.

This is a freeware app that makes you Internet Service Provider (ISP) think that you are using your connection even when you are doing something like reading a page or writing a message. This keeps the feature of the ISP that closes down unused connections from working.

This is the browser that all windows computers come with. However most people don't have the most current version, so get it here.

This is a do-it-all compression program that can handle almost all compression formats including the Macintosh format. Because this is freeware it is a great deal even if you already have a compression program like WinZip.

From Microsoft is for win95 users and include some things that were left out of the win95 program. It includes things like tweak UI which can customize settings, fast folder feature that lets you see the contents of a folder by right-clicking it, and a program for your system tray that minimizes all the open windows.

This program speeds up web browsing by downloading pages that you are likely to go to while the modem is idle because you are reading a page or writing a message. You can customize this so that it doesn't eat up your hard drive.

This is a must have for any net user with a 28.8 or faster modem. It allows you to view news shows, movie previews, video clips, and audio clips. This is just the tame stuff. There is also streaming audio and video that come live from T.V. and Radio Stations. Most U.S. radio stations also broadcast on the net so you can always tune into your favorite DJ even when you are on vacation.

This program is the free ware version of Pro version, basically with ads built in. It is a meta search engine built into your computer. That significantly speeds up web searches. There is also a fileferret, phoneferret, emailferret, and newsferret.

This is a toolbar that attaches to the bottom of your browser and tells you info about the site that you are visiting, such as size. (IE only)

Searches the Web just like webferret but you can save its results as html, xml, text, or dbf. this only searches webpages, newsgroups, and e-mail directories. For $30 you can get 20-odd additional channels.

This is a great player for MP3 files (audio files from the net featuring songs off CD's, often illegal, and other). However it also plays almost any multimedia format you can throw at it. WAV, MIDI, Sun AU, Apple Quick Time, Video for Windows, Video CD, MPEG Video, audio CD, etc. You can also associate images or text with each track/clip.

Use cartoon images that you can choose from as faces in this virtual room where you can chat with others. V-Chat is more ambitious using 3D images and ambient sound to create an environment. However downloads are hefty, Microsoft chat is 1.7MB while V-Chat is 3.5MB.

Broadcasting service that plays music on over 100 channels all day everyday, NO COMMERCIALS. Everything from rock to classical movie scores.

DANGER: HIGHLY ADDICTIVE

This is the site for downloading the shock wave plug-in. This allows you to watch the most current animations on the net, as well as play net games, and general web goofiness.

Yahoo! Messenger, formerly Yahoo! Pager, the best but least popular of the three big programs. This tells you when you have mail in your yahoo box as well as lets you look at news headlines and stock quotes. However the best part is that it is not just an instant messaging program where you can only type to your friends but it lets you talk to them through your computers microphone.

Pronounced I seek you, this is by far the most popular instant messenger on the net. It has some support for telephony. This also allows you to play games with, or against, your friends.

This has few features like the others but it is useful because it interacts with the AOL instant messaging system and tells you when AOL users on your buddy list are logged on, not just in the Instant messaging system.

Free E-mail, one of the best interfaces on the net, lets you do things like write in html code (if you know how), keep folders for different saved messages, and apply filters to get rid of junk mail.

This is the only interface that beats Yahoo! Mail. However this does not work in any systems outside its interface, whereas Yahoo mail can be accessed from the Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Companion, or My Yahoo! site.

This interface isn't very good but the great feature of this is that you can set it up to be a relay. If you change e-mail addresses with any frequency, once a year perhaps, this would be very beneficial to you. With it when you change your address you simply log on to the Alta Vista system and change the place it is relayed to. This saves you from telling everyone that knows your old address your new one.

If you really, really like excite this could be for you, otherwise don't bother with it.

Good if you use filters or need to search mail.

Lots of features such as: 5MB space, HTML templates, imports and exports address book. Also lots of ads, slow.

Integrates with ICQ or pagers like Yahoo! Mail, lots of ads and links to shopping.

Contains links to PC worlds File World (http://www.fileworld.com), Tip World (http://www.tipworld.com), and free e-mail (http://www.myworldmail.com).

Free Stuff Galore! not just on the net but also real things like magazine trials, catalogs, and trial products.