I miss those days long ago, before Netscape and Internet Explorer came along. There was a little more magic, I think, and a larger sense of exploring unknown wilds of cyberspace. It all seemed, I don't know, more fulfilling when I searched for hours using FTP and Archie for someone who had a copy of Dungeon (before it became Zork) or for a document about how DNS worked.

I guess difference is like flying across country to Boston, taking train, or driving there in your car. If only thing of interest is destination, then by all means take fastest airplane. If, however, you want to enjoy trip and take in sights, you may want to drive.

My first "browser" was via CompuServe. I don't know if you could really call it a browser, but it worked. There was only text, and it was very difficult to get around, but somehow we all managed to get along and we got what we needed. I followed CompuServe with America Online, which was, believe me, a huge step up. From there I skipped to Netscape, then to Internet Explorer.

In my humble opinion, Internet Explorer (even those early versions) was a tremendous step up from anything else that was available. It wasn't that IE had any better features or anything like that - it was just that IE, well, felt better. The browsing experience was smoother, a little more refined, a touch classier.

I found that Netscape stuttered. As pages loaded it would stop and start and stop and start, and I found it incredibly annoying. On other hand, Internet Explorer was smooth; it seemed to load pages and graphics much cleaner.

A mousetrap is extremely simple to create. You've seen simple ones all over place. You click on a link, say from a search engine, and you go to a page. This only displays for a second, then you are directed to another page. Now, if you hit back key, you go back to redirect page, which effectively prevents you from using back key to get out.

The idea is to make it a little more difficult to leave site. Personally, I take offense at these kinds of tactics and will virtually never return to sites which do this little trick. My opinion is web sites should never, ever modify browser controls. Do what you want on page - but don't mess with my browser or my system.

Some sites raise ante a little and pop up a window or send you off to a third site. The idea here is always one of deception - you think you are backing up out of site, but what you are really doing is something else. Honest sites with valuable information do not need such tricks.

Very dishonest people carry these mousetraps to extreme. Here's what could happen to you - click an interesting link in a search engine and you find yourself on a site which does not appeal to you (these are virtually always pornographic sites). So you click back key to get out.

Now fun starts. The back key simply reloads current page, but also pops up a couple more windows as well as a pop-under window. You start closing these annoying things, cursing under your breath, only to find that clicking close button actually pops up yet another window. In these instances, back button has been redefined and a javascript has been set to be called when windows is closed. This javascript opens up yet another window.

Ah, this gets even more insidious when mouse trapping is combined with page jacking. Here's sequence of events. Let's say you are one of these scum. You look around web until you find a nice, high traffic site. You steal page and make a copy of it on your own site. Keep same basic page but change links and set up mousetraps on back key and when page is closed. Now, submit page to search engines, and within a month or so you will be getting tons of traffic.

Why do these sites go through all of this trouble? It's a matter of money. You see, these sites want you to click links, look at banners and, best of all, buy something.