Active Channel was a technology introduced by
Internet Explorer 4.0 in 1997. It allowed synchronizing
website
A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...
content and viewing it offline. It made use of the
Channel Definition Format
Channel Definition Format (CDF) was an XML file format formerly used in conjunction with Microsoft's Active Channel, Active Desktop and Smart Offline Favorites technologies. The format was designed to "offer frequently updated collections of inf ...
, which was designed to "offer frequently updated collections of information, or channels, from any web server for automatic delivery to compatible receiver programs."
History
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
unveiled the Active Channel component as part of an Internet Explorer 4.0 preview release in July 1997, and brought out the final version with the launch of the 4.0 browser in September that year.
Most Active Channels were provided by bigger entertainment and news companies like
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
,
WB or
AOL
AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc.
The service traces its history to an online ...
and also made heavy use of
DHTML (Dynamic HTML). Channel defaults varied by country/region, and were controlled by the choice of country/region during the installation of
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
4 (and therefore
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...
). Channels could be displayed in a Channel Bar.
Active Channel support was removed from
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...
in
version 7,
as it had been superseded by the more popular and standards-based
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...
format.
See also
*
Active Desktop
Active Desktop was a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4, Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allowed users to add Hypertext Markup Language, HTML content to the desktop metaphor, desktop, along with some other featu ...
*
Channel Definition Format
Channel Definition Format (CDF) was an XML file format formerly used in conjunction with Microsoft's Active Channel, Active Desktop and Smart Offline Favorites technologies. The format was designed to "offer frequently updated collections of inf ...
*
Web Slice
Web Slices are a web feed technology based on the hAtom Microformat that allows users to subscribe to portions of a web page. Microsoft developed the Web Slice format, and published a specification under their Microsoft Open Specification Promise, ...
References
External links
MSDN Introduction to Active Channel Technology
{{Internet Explorer
Microsoft websites
Discontinued Microsoft software
Windows 98
Internet Explorer