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There are a large number of books on the use of the Internet which cover getting connected, tools (browsers, ftp, telnet), facilities (mail, news, WWW, etc.), web authoring, etc. In the main such texts are aimed at new users, taking the reader through facilities in a tutorial style at a slow pace and hence tend to be large. This book is one of O'Reilly's Nutshell series which areintended as desktop references and it is aimed at existing Internet users who wish to quickly look up tips on tools and facilities.

After a brief introduction the Netscape 4.01 and Microsoft 3.02 web browsers are described. There are then chapters on finding information (indicating sites of particular interest and discussing the pros and cons of the various search engines), email and news, file transfer (tools and compression and archive facilities), helpers and plug-in, web authoring and IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Although intended as an overview and quick reference on the topics there is plenty of detail and useful hints (but clearly not to the level of 1000 page books dedicated to the Internet or particular tools such as Netscape). A useful text for experienced computer users new to the Internet or as a quick reference for experienced Internet user. Less experienced computer users would benefit from a more tutorial style introductory text.