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Software This year, the Web has left its mark on all the best applications.
The World Wide Web's imprint is all over the Win 100 software list. You'd be hard-pressed to find an application that can't in some way leverage the Web's enormous reach. Web-smart features not only enhance the functions you've always performed, they also enable you to do things that before were either impossible or too expensive to consider. Whether it's conferencing with colleagues halfway around the world or working collaboratively across time zones, you can do it now-from the comfort of familiar, standby applications.
Office application suites have built-in HTML editors to turn documents into Web pages; graphics programs can now be used to prepare images for the Web as easily as they've been used to create printed pictures. You can fuel financial applications with online stock updates, pay your bills and manage your company's bank accounts. Utility programs tap into the Internet to deliver timely updates so they can stay in step with evolving technologies and one step ahead of viruses and other dangers that could pull the plug on productivity.
Communications apps have become a quintessential part of everyone's software kit, delivering unprecedented ease of use and functionality for Internet-based e-mailing and faxing. Application-development tools are also Web-aware, with Java and ActiveX leading developers into new interactive environments.
Perhaps the greatest activity has centered around programs designed specifically for the Web. The top browsers are on course to become fully contained desktop environments. The tools that make Web use easier abound-from personal search assistants to zip software that lets you unbundle the goodies you download.
On the following pages, you'll find the best apps we've seen to help you find your way through this brave new world and make it work for you.
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