1997 Readers' Choice Awards: Internet Applications

e-mail Client

The winner in our e-mail category for the second year in a row, MR/2 ICE, is one of OS/2's best-known e-mail clients. Its customizable notebook interface makes it easy for any user to adjust it to their own liking. Many of its users have created conversion utilities to carry over address books and such from other popular Windows and OS/2 mailers.

With an extensive string of appearances on the "BMT Micro Top 10" list, it's no news flash that MR/2 is popular with Internet citizens. But if anyone did need further proof, our Readers have spoken once again.

PMMail
by SouthSoft

Once again hot on the heels of MR/2 ICE, SouthSoft's e-mail client continues to offer powerful and outstanding features, not to mention a degree of polish that makes it look great too. Along with all the standard features, PMMail integrates PGP security, address-book management, and powerful filtering abilities for sorting or filtering out unwanted e-mail.

Also blessed with a long history on the "BMT Micro Top 10" list, PMMail is another OS/2 e-mail client that is wildly popular with our readers, helping it repeat as this year's Runner-Up.

Web Browser

Netscape Navigator
by Netscape Communications Corp.

Netscape Communications' Navigator for OS/2 runs away with this category, being overwhelmingly adopted and voted for by OS/2 users even more so than when it was selected in last year's awards. In fact, Navigator/2 received almost 30 times as many votes as its nearest competitor, StarOffice's built-in web browser. While Microsoft's browser may be eating into Netscape's in the Windows market, it's clear that Navigator is still on a popularity wave in the OS/2 world.

Although technically the whole Web craze started with Mosaic, it was Netscape that first brought a high quality web browsing experience to the masses. This OS/2 version, while called v2.02, has many of the features found in the 3.0 version of its cross-platform counterparts and has a growing collection of native plug-ins behind it too.

StarOffice Browser
by StarDivison

StarDivision's new StarOffice 4.0 suite contains a variety of Internet integration, including its own built-in web browser. Having access to the Internet without ever leaving the interface of your office suite is found to be a convenient option by some, as evidenced by StarOffice's position as runner-up this year.

Including support for Java and Javascript as well as for recent versions of HTML, StarOffice's browser is a good choice for anyone who doesn't want to use Netscape and could use a decent office suite as well as a browser.

News Reader

MR/2 ICE w/News
by Knightware Software

Although it's still only in beta stages, Nick Knight's newsreader extension for MR/2 ICE has many users interested, as evidenced by the product's first-place finish this year in the "News Reader" category. Its tight integration with the existing MR/2 e-mail client is probably one of this reasons for this, as users used to the MR/2 ICE interface will have no problems getting used to the news reader.

However, the news reader also includes some features the competition doesn't; one example is MR/2 ICE's ability to interface with web-based news archives like DejaNews in order to read older articles a normal news server might have already expired. With features like multiple news servers, 'virtual' news groups and grouping of news groups planned for the final release, MR/2 ICE's newsreader looks to only get better.

ProNews/2
by Panacea Software

The newest offering from the company who brought OS/2 users the web development app HTML Studio, ProNews/2, promises to be a nice addition to the programs already on the market. It has extensive filtering capability, automatic decoding of binary messages, ability to cancel Usenet messages and configurability all over the place, as well as all the normal features you'd expect from a decent newsreader.

Given that the first non-beta version was only recently released and yet it still made it to second place in our Readers' Choice line up, many people seem to think a lot of ProNews/2.

FTP Client

OS/2's FTP Clients
by IBM

Warp 4 includes a new way of handling FTP sites, right from the WPS. The old 'FTP-PM' program still exists, but now you can actually use templates to create an object for your FTP site and access it just as you would a folder on your own system. This convenience combined with the already solid FTP-PM and command line FTP apps bundled with Warp (and the fact that they're free) make OS/2's built-in FTP clients our Readers' Choice this year.

FTP Browser
by Jason Rushton

FTP Browser is another good option for FTP-needful OS/2 users. It's fast, doesn't take much memory, and has a low learning curve. Additionally, its WPS integration makes file transfers as easy as drag-and-drop (much like Warp's FTP Hosts), while a variety of other features including directory caching, file searching, and 'quick paths' all combine to make it a nicely feature-rich program that many users seem to find indispensible. All this and great looks too make FTP Browser this year's Runner-Up.

IRC Client

OpenChat/2
by Max Mikhanosha

OpenChat/2 is an extremely powerful GUI IRC client which boasts features such as WPS integration for drag 'n drop file transfers, blinding fast IRCII compatible script support and a colorful, fully configurable user interface. The sample scripts included allow users to see colors generated by mIRC clients, right-click on URLs and send them to a currently running Netscape session, and automatically fill out lengthy commands with a few taps of the TAB key.

This is OpenChat/2's second year of being in the top two IRC clients. While last year the top entry belonged to GammaTech IRC, this year the masses chose OpenChat/2.

GammaTech IRC
by SofTouch Systems

GammaTech IRC was one of the first GUI based chat clients for OS/2, where only character mode versions stood before. It is loaded with features that make on-line chatting fun, such as CTCP sound effects support, string highlighting and support for nicknames up to 30 characters long. GTIRC also has powerful REXX scripting support that allows for sophisticated command aliasing, filters and automation. Like OpenChat/2, this is GammaTech IRC's second straight year in the Readers' Choice top two for "IRC Clients".

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