Name of Explorer Bookmark File
David S. Vaughan
dsvaughn at wentworth.region.library.on.ca
Tue Nov 26 12:30:03 EST 1996
I'm in basic agreement with you. The only advantage I can see to the shortcut approach is that it allows you to keep favorite sites on your desktop (or the Favorites section on the Office toolbar) and launch directly in to them. However, I have otherwise found IE3.0 to be a very good web browser. I have Navigator 3.0 as well, but haven't been using it as much lately. However, due to my concerns about ActiveX, I think that Navigator may be a better product for public workstations (although you can disable ActiveX, keeping it disabled could be a trick :-) )
David
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David S. Vaughan, Systems Librarian 905-546-4126 (phone)
Wentworth Libraries 905-522-9083 (fax)
Hamilton, Ont., Canada dsvaughn at wentworth.region.library.on.ca
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From: Ed Cherry[SMTP:cecherry at samford.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 1996 12:24 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: RE: Name of Explorer Bookmark File
On Tue, 26 Nov 1996 06:00:29 -0800 "David S. Vaughan"
<dsvaughn at wentworth.region.library.on.ca> wrote:
> IE doesn't have a bookmark file in the sense of Netscape (at least in =
> Win95 and, I suspect, NT). Instead, it creates a Win95 shortcut file =
> for each site and stores them in C:\Windows\Favorites. Can't say for =
> certain how the Win3.1 version works.
>
In my opinion, this is yet another strike against MSIE. Here's
why: I have 157 "favorite" web sites in this directory and its
subs. These 157 files together take up less than 10k of disk
space. But, since I have a 1gig uncompressed hard drive, where
each sector is 32k, these 157 files in total occupy 5.1 MB!
There's 99% "slack" or unused space where these files are
stored. In contrast, my Netscape bookmark.htm is ONE file of
32k, so it actually occupies only 32k sector of disk real
estate. If you have a large hard drive, think carefully before
you add all those "favorites."
In a public setting, netscape's bookmark.htm is much easier to
protect than this ridiculously wasteful alternative.
I know, I know, this is in part due to the outdated design of
the file allocation system DOS and its heirs use. But, if
ANYone should be aware of this limitation, wouldn't it be
Microsoft!?
Here's another, somewhat related question: I have continued
to use the 16-bit version of Netscape on our public Win95
machines. I can make the netscape.ini file read-only to prevent
alterations. Netscape for Win95 stores its settings in the
system registry instead of an .ini file. Has anyone found a way
of preventing users from changing Netscape preferences with the
32-bit version? I'm reluctant to keep "canonical" versions of
the user.dat and system.dat files and replace them at startup.
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********************************************************
* Ed Cherry * *
* Automation Librarian * Phone: (205) 870-2506 *
* Davis Library * Fax: (205) 870-2642 *
* Samford University * E-Mail: cecherry at samford.edu *
* Birmingham, AL 35229 * *
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