Web Browsing Streamlined
Snippets, Entry Point, DoDots....

How does an average person browse the web? He would open Netscape or Internet explorer, key in an address, go to a page and then navigate from page to page. During its inception this page turning process was more than one could ask for. With the advancement in technology this system appears tiring and ridiculous. It seems absurd that anyone would actually want to go through full pages of irrelevant material till he reaches the information he is looking for. Banking on this need for a change, many tools have been devised by companies.

There are a host of new tools and task bars available to stream line web browsing. Among them, Snippets and Entry point make use of a long horizontal bar that takes its position at the screen's bottom. DoDots, tiny windows on your desktop facilitate users to eye bits of info like weather reports or traffic updates without actually going over to a full page. Neoplanet empowers users to dress their Internet web browsers with colour and patterns. They can also add buttons that give the latest on their favourite sports or shopping sites. HotBar.Com also offers similar options.

Next comes the provision of customised services which include setting up personalised gates to the web. OnePage and Octopus are two such personalisation companies. Octopus allows for new buttons as well as Click Marks which provide personalised portals for wireless devices. New browsing tools are also being devised. Netscape6 has provided for left side browser tabs which can be modified to bring in web content. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.5 has buttons which bring up frequently used web sites. These facilities that would bring in users to rely on them in turn translates into advertising and e-commerce revenue.

True, these features are not of recent origin. Pointcast, it may be recalled, devised non-web toolbars. The ZIP code specific data on weather reports provided by America Online was also an attempt at offering personalisation services. The new options, developers contend are more time saving and flexible. Likewise, they have also come up with products tailor made for Intranets and customer-based web sites. In the absence of these services navigating through for a piece of information could prove labourious.

In this quest for new tools, new glitches and few irritants have also come up. Handy personalised features can be accessed only by revealing personal details. For example Snippets needs the user's sex, ZIP code, job interests and e-mail address to be divulged. This may, privacy advocates opine, lead to security breaches. By downloading these programs, users may have inadvertently given way for a deluge of information to go into and out of their systems.

The downloading process itself may be exhausting. It may become slow to set up a customised web-clipping service. Looking for many of the .exe files that install these browsing applications may be a bother. There is a chance that your computer may start up more slowly or hang up suddenly because of a conflict between the new software and software already running on the machine.

Therefore users need to carefully analyse whether they really need to compromise their system's resources and stability for personalised tailor made tools.