Emissary

Emissary -- In addition to delivering an excellent suite of 'net apps, Attachmate's (formerly Wollongong) Emissary offers seamless, multi-threaded integration better than any other client I've used. Web browser, newsreader, local and remote file management, mail, and telnet services are all offered from one central interface. In addition, inline plug-ins can be added for even greater versatility and functionality. Most 'net suites available today excel in one area but noticeably trail in several others; Emissary is perhaps the lone exception to this prevailing trend. The speedy web browser is Emissary's strongest client and stacks up very well against the competition, offering many advanced features like centering, background images, tables, frames, Netscape 2.0/Internet Explorer 2.0 tags support, client side image mapping, transparent gifs, inline plug-in support, and much more. Additionally, as with Netscape 2.0 Gold, Emissary offers users the ability to conviently and easily edit web pages from within the web browser -- even tables can be modified. A recently added toolbar for editing HTML documents makes the process even easier than before. While the web browser alone makes this client a viable download, there are several additional clients that are just as strong. The local and remote file management services are, in a word, awesome. Transferring, deleting, and updating files from different locations have never been easier, largely due to the efficient drag and drop interface. Another client, the e-mail app, delivers multimedia mail in an efficient and extensive package -- sound clips, images, formatted text, and more can all be integrated into an e-mail message within Emissary. Unfortunately, the multimedia mail capabilities can only be best utilized when the receiving side is also using Emissary. The news reader offers some impressive features as well and is one of the faster news clients currently available. The extremely cool ability to automatically decode images from within Emissary, multiple sorting options, asynchronous processing, right-mouse button functionality, the ultra-awesome SpamDefense and Bozo protection features (kill list filtering and thread watch/ignor monitoring), and complex article searching are just a few of this client's strong features. Each new release of Emissary has delivered the most sought-after features requested by users of the product, and the current beta is no different. The new version offers important features like Emissary agents for automating and scheduling repetitious tasks, a navigation wizard for helping users construct URLs, a themes feature for creating custom macro buttons and bookmarks, SSL and 128-bit PCT security, offline mail support, progressive and multiscan JPEG support, automatic retry for the FTP client, and also improved performance. Perhaps the best feature of all, Emissary now offers an integrated spell checker that works seamlessly with each of Emissary's individual applications. The bottom line? Emissary is by far the best 'net suite currently available, and even at $99, Emissary is still the steal of the year for 'net apps. Pros: Excellent integration of six superior 'net apps, all the best features and a whole lot more Cons: Telnet app is the only weak link of the 'net suite, no 32-bit native version New for 2.0: Frames, tables, inline plug-ins, CSIM, SpamDefense kill lists, SOCKS support, more New for Beta 3: Animated GIF and proxy support, an inline .AVI movie player, more Version Reviewed: 2.0 Beta 3 Date of Review: 5/29/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud apps conference Main Menu