AvantGo Update

I first reported on AvantGo several months ago, in PC Pro issue 45, in July '98. At the time I had a number of criticisms of the 1.03 release that I tried out. A few weeks ago, AvantGo released 1.1, which is free for all personal users. All of the problems that I reported on then are still present, and the installation procedure has become more involved, as you now also have to install the Microsoft Virtual Machine for Java on your PC as well. One new feature is the addition of channels, whereby you have an easier way of adding definitions of web pages that you want to download to your machine directly from the AvantGo web site. One further thing: that site is almost impossible to view with Internet Explorer 3.02, and I had to resort to Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape to retrieve the software.

Once again, I have to say that AvantGo is a good idea, with good overall presentation, but poorly implemented.

Words and design by:
Paul Lynch
Last updated: November 3, 1998