<html><head><title>ANT Fresco</title></head>
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<center><h3>ANT Fresco</h3></center>
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<h4>Background</h4>
<p>
  A while ago, ArgoNet (or, as some of its users prefer to call it, AggroNet) bought the right to distribute ANT's !Fresco browser to its customers. 
<p>
  Fresco is, without doubt, the most powerful browser yet to appear for Acorn computers. The fact that ArgoNet subscribers get a product, which is supposed to cost over 100, for free is obviouisly a major inducement for Acorn users to use ArgoNet as their <a href="../../NetTerms/ISP">ISP</a>, and, unless other providers take similar steps, looks set to well-nigh eliminate the competition.
<p>
<h4>The browser</h4>
<p>
  This is a piece of software which allows you to explore the World Wide Web, the section of the Internet which is most publicised, user-orientated and overloaded with fancy graphics.
<p>
  In fact, there now exist so many different ways of making your Web page look pretty in addition to standard <a href="../../HTTutor">HTML</a> that even the PC browsers like Netscape and Internet Exploder (sorry, Explorer) are finding it hard to keep up to date. Technologies such as Java, ActiveX, DHTML, and the multimediaising of even normal Web pages with things like animated GIFs mean that a browser will go out of date in a matter of weeks.
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<img src="../../Images/Fresco">
<br><i>The 'control panel' of ANT's !Fresco</i>
<p>
  If it is hard for multi billion dollar companies like Microsoft and Netscape, with user bases counted in the tens of millions to keep their browsers up to date, it is next to impossible for those who write browsers for RISC OS.
<p>
  This means that PD Acorn browsers, such as !ArcWeb, are often nearly a year out of date (or rather more, when you consider the lack of Java capability). Since, whenever a new technology is released by Netscape or Microsoft, the Web reacts by putting it in thousands of pages, a browser which is as up to date as possible is essential.
<p>
  The obvious answer is a commercial browser. However, these are either priced out of most people's budget (as can be the ANT Internet Suite), prone to crash (I suspect !WebsterXL of this, having spent large numbers of hours trying to get the PD version, !Webster, to work), or nearly as out of date as the PD versions (Doggysoft's Termite suite is under suspicion for this, as they haven't updated !Webite (the PD disc-only HTML reader, which is used for Aliquid Novi) since 1995).
<p>
  However, if ArgoNet are distributing !Fresco as standard, this problem should, for the most part, anyway, be solved.
<p>
<h4>Why?</h4>
<p>
  !Fresco, like all other HTML browsers, takes a text file and renders it in a window, applying special effects according to formatting tags embedded in the text (see the <a href="../../HTTutor">HTML tutorial</a> for more details of these). It's just that !Fresco, unlike all the other browsers of my aquaintance, encorporates most of the modern 'extensions' to HTML, such as:
<p><ul>
<li>Forms
<li>Frames
<li>Tables
<li>Display of animated GIFs
<li>Netscape's HTML extensions
<li>Java support
</ul><p>
  I could go on, but I don't think it's necessary. Any Internet user who has been suffering with the archaic !ArcWeb, or some other unsatisfactory browser will already be on the phone to ArgoNet...
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