Windows 98 Makes the Internet Connection Easier, Quicker.

Publication: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Publication Date: 14-JUN-98

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COPYRIGHT 1998 Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jun. 14--If you connect your computer to the Internet, you'll probably want to upgrade to Windows 98.

While Microsoft Corp. has built several new levels of Internet functionality into this latest offering, most of the changes are ho-hum at best. At worst, they're damned annoying.

But the company has made a genuine effort to improve the guts of its Internet connection software, and it shows. An Internet connection running through Windows 98 works faster than an Internet connection running through Windows 95.

Not that this is saying a whole lot. Microsoft engineers freely concede the Win 95 Internet connectivity software was literally slapped in the product just before it shipped. At the time, the company just didn't "get" the Internet -- reasoning that since the Internet was free, there was no way to make money off of it, so what's the point? Now, three years later, the Internet is the foundation upon which Microsoft wants to expand its empire.

Whatever operating system you're using, the OS needs what's called a TCP-IP stack to connect to the Internet. The stack is simply a bit of software that speaks in the basic language of the Internet, called Transmission Control Protocol-Internet Protocol. The TCP part dices your messages into smaller "packets" that are transmitted on the Internet and reassembled...

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