(FORTUNE Magazine) – Question: What's the best Web browser?

Answer: The one you know how to use.

Any rational computer user is reluctant to abandon a friendly, trusted program. So to lure people away from their friendly, trusted Netscape browsers, Microsoft has spent lots and lots of time, effort, and money developing its new browser, Internet Explorer 4.0. The result: IE 4.0 may be just enough to win over Netscape devotees. It's a superb collection of tools for navigating the World Wide Web, staying in touch with friends and family, and working with business associates. And if you're willing to take the leap, Explorer will even change the face of Windows 95, turning the Web into an extension of your desktop.

Like Netscape's Communicator, the expanded version of its Navigator browser, IE 4.0 is really a half-dozen programs. Most users will rely on two--the slick Web browser and Outlook Express, the latest name for Microsoft's E-mail program and news-group reader.

The browser is fast, efficient, and so chock full of improvements that it beats Navigator hands down. The most useful feature is something Microsoft calls "browser bars." They display bookmarks (which Microsoft calls "favorites"), your most recent searches, a history of the Websites you've visited over the past month, and a list of so-called Active Channels, which push data to your PC automatically.

Let's say you want to search the Web for articles about Corvettes. Click on the search button, and your browser splits into two frames. In the narrower pane on the left of your screen, you choose a search engine, enter the word "Corvette," and get the results of your search. Click on any link, and the Web page you reach is displayed in the the right panel. No more hitting Forward and Back to return to your search engine as you race through one Corvette link after another.

Outlook Express makes staying in touch a breeze. If you've got two or three E-mail accounts, you can manage all of them with Outlook. I wish the window that Outlook opens up for messages were smaller, but the program does a nice job of filtering mail, routing messages from the boss to a top-priority folder while sending mail that says things like "Make Big $$" to the trash bin. Outlook also handles HTML mail that's formatted to look like a Web page, and makes it easy for you to send fancy-looking E-mail as well. This is fun for about two hours, and useless if your correspondent doesn't have an equally loaded E-mail program.

The most radical change Microsoft is introducing with IE 4.0 is something it calls Active Desktop--a preview of how Windows 98 will work when it's released next year. Active Desktop combines the Web browser with a file manager that views the Internet and your hard drive as one big, happy family. It uses the same software to browse the Web and manage the contents of your disk, turning your folders and directories into instant Web pages. Instead of moving up and down through layers of folders and files, you click on Forward and Back buttons. Active Desktop may feel strange if you've grown used to Windows 95. The good news is that you choose whether to install it or not--progress with an escape hatch.

These features alone would make IE 4.0 worth a look--but if you dig deeper, you may find some real gems. NetMeeting, for instance, makes it easy to exchange typed messages in real time with other folks, share programs and files, or brainstorm together on a digital "whiteboard." NetMeeting is so cool that surfing the Web may soon seem just a sideshow.

The feature known as Active Channels uses "push" technology to deliver automatic updates of news and data from sources as diverse as the New York Times, Disney, and Warner Brothers. Then there's FrontPage Express, a simple program for editing Web pages.

So what's the verdict? I still feel more comfortable with the way Netscape handles a lot of little chores. But I'm not a Microsoft hater who will use anything else just to spite the giant. The more I use Internet Explorer, the more I like it. Someday soon, I may just have to bid Netscape a fond adieu--unless Andreessen & Co. come up with something better.

What you need and where to go: While IE 4.0 will run on a PC with an Intel 486 processor and as little as eight megabytes of RAM, you're better off with a Pentium and 16 megabytes of memory. (If you're using Active Desktop, you'll need 24 megabytes of RAM.) To learn all, point your browser to Microsoft's home page at www.microsoft.com.