As the 2.0 release of Netscape evolved and early betas for 3.0 began to surface on the 'net, Netscape still enjoyed a huge lead over the competition -- its closest competitor being Internet Explorer 2.0, a browser far less powerful than its current incarnation. Not resting on its laurels, Netscape added even more essential features.
The most important additions have proven to be enhancements to Netscape's expandibility and underlying functionality. The introduction of plug-in modules, which allow other vendors to create programs that work inside the Netscape environment, highlight the improvements made in these areas.
Once integrated into Netscape, these modules add unprecedented power and flexibility to Netscape with technology like inline VRML (V-Realm and VR Scout), real-time audio and video (RealAudio and VDOLive), advanced scripting (LiveWire), 3D Web browsing (WIRL), and animation for movies and games (Shockwave).
Perhaps the most hyped of Netscape 2.0's new features, inline support for Java gave further credence to the functionality and expandibilitiy improvements being the single most important new elements of the 2.0 release. Other new features for this version included support for Targeted Windows, Frames, Super/Subscript tags, client side image mapping, and inline HTML editing (through the Netscape Gold package).
