Arachne (web browser)

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Arachne
Arachne in VESA mode

Arachne in CGA mode
Arachne GPL web browser using its VESA and CGA display modes, respectively.
Maintainer Michael Polak and contributors.
Stable release 1.90;J1  (August 14, 2006) [+/-]
Preview release none  (n/a) [+/-]
OS DOS, Linux
Use Internet suite
License GPL
Website Arachne GPL

Arachne is a full-screen Internet suite containing a graphical web browser, email client, and dialer.[1] It primarily runs on DOS based operating systems, but includes a few preliminary builds for Linux.[2] Arachne was originally created by Michael Polak (under the label xChaos software, later renamed to Arachne Labs) in the C language and compiled using Borland C++ 3.1 compiler, but since been released under the GPL as Arachne GPL.

Arachne is currently the most advanced graphical web browser available for DOS as it supports many file formats, protocols and standards. It is also capable of displaying between CGA 640×200, two color and VESA 1024×768, high color modes. Arachne is designed for systems which do not have any windowing systems installed.[3]

Arachne has image support for JPEG, PNG, BMP and animated GIF. It contains a subset of HTML 4.0 and CSS 1.0, including full support for tables and frames. FTP, NNTP for USENET forums, POP3, and SMTP are a few protocols which Arachne can handle. Arachne includes a full-fledged TCP/IP connection suite, which has support for some dial-up and ethernet connections. However, Arachne currently has no support for JavaScript and SSL. Arachne can also be expanded with the use of addons for such tasks as watching DivX movies, playing MP3 files, IRC chat, RSS, and viewing PDF documents.

The first release of Arachne with a known release date was 1.0 Beta 2 which came out 22 December 1996. The final official version by Arachne Labs was 1.70R3 for DOS (released 22 January 2001) and 1.66 beta for Linux (released 20 July 2000). However, the DOS GPL version is still being developed, and its latest stable version, 1.90;J1, was released on August 14, 2006. There has not been any notable developments for the Linux version since Arachne Labs abandoned the project.

xChaos software licensed full source code of Arachne to Caldera UK. People from Caldera added animated GIFs and Novell dialer, completely changed the design of the browser, implemented their own support for frames, and succeeded in compiling it as a 32-bit protected mode application (using DJGPP, GNU compiler for DOS),[4] while Arachne is a 16 bit application at the moment. This program was sold as DR-WebSpyder; the name was to associate it with DR DOS, which Caldera owned at the time. A 32-bit protected mode (DPMI) version of Arachne is available but still needs some development.

  1. ^ Rakitin, Jason "Review: Alternative Web browsers" Network World, October 27, 1997
  2. ^ "Section 508 Alternative Browsers" National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  3. ^ Stutz, Michael "Czech Browser Won't Do Windows" Wired, June 6, 1997
  4. ^ "Is Arachne the same program as Caldera Webspyder ?" Arachne Frequently Asked Questions

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne_%28web_browser%29"
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