In our episode yesterday, we wondered aloud if anyone could free us suffering Mac surfers from the repressive shackles of a two-party system. With Microsoft's Borg-like bent for dominion on one side and Netscape's indifference (and occasional hostility) to all things Macintosh on the other, we find ourselves trapped in a "lesser of two evils" scenario unmatched since the last U.S. Presidential election. With independent candidates like Apple's Cyberdog cast in the role of (ahem) Perot, things looked gloomy in the browser races.

But just when we'd lost all hope, it was AtAT's faithful viewers to the rescue. The biggest buzz is for a fresh young face looking to get into the Macintosh ring, known as Opera. This Mr. Smith lightweight is making a noteworthy splash on the PC side, with its tiny RAM footprint, super speed, and advanced features such as Javascript support. Learn more at the Opera Software web site. And then join the effort to bring this contender to the Macintosh by visiting the Project Magic web page, which asks for interest and support in porting Opera to alternative OSes. (The official voting period is over, but it's not too late to tell them that you'd love to be able to run Opera on your Mac and trash the "incumbents.")

But that's not the only alternative sparkling on the horizon. Paul Arthur tells us of a development that may elevate Cyberdog to spoiler status, at least on the Mac side. A venture known as Kantara Development is working on a new web browser component for the OpenDoc-based internet suite. Code-named Blake, this browser part adds Javascript support and fixes the rendering and speed problems that made AtAT switch back to Netscape. Best of luck to Steven Roussey, the head of Kantara who's heading up Blake development-- the web site claims that the part is due by the end of the year.

Thanx to the slew of AtAT viewers who wrote in with information! We're constantly amazed at how responsive you folks are. Kinda gets us all choked up inside... (snif)