164 lines
8.7 KiB
HTML
164 lines
8.7 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9">
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<TITLE>Linux WWW HOWTO : Setting up WWW client software</TITLE>
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<LINK HREF="WWW-HOWTO-3.html" REL=next>
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<LINK HREF="WWW-HOWTO-1.html" REL=previous>
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<LINK HREF="WWW-HOWTO.html#toc2" REL=contents>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-3.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-1.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO.html#toc2">Contents</A>
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<HR>
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<H2><A NAME="s2">2. Setting up WWW client software</A></H2>
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<P>The following chapter is dedicated to the setting up web browsers.
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Please feel free to contact me, if your favorite web browser is not
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mentioned here. In this version of the document only a few of the browsers
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have there own section, but I tried to include all of them (all I could
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find) in the overview section. In the future those browsers that deserve
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there own section will have it.
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<P>The overview section is designed to help you decide which browser to use,
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and give you basic information on each browser. The detail section is
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designed to help you install, configure, and maintain the browser.
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<P>Personally, I prefer the Netscape; it is the only browser that keeps up
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with the latest things in HTML. For example, Frames, Java, Javascript,
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style sheets, secure transactions, and layers. Nothing is worse than trying
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to visit a web site and finding out that you can't view it because your
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browser doesn't support some new feature.
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<P>However I use Lynx when I don't feel like firing up the
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X-windows/Netscape monster.
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<P>
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<H2><A NAME="ss2.1">2.1 Overview</A>
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</H2>
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<P>
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<DL>
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<DT><B>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-5.html#netscape">Navigator/Communicator</A></B><DD><P>Netscape Navigator
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is the only browser mentioned here, which is capable of
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advanced HTML features. Some of these features are frames, Java, Javascript,
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automatic update,
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and layers. It also has news and mail capability. But it is a resource hog;
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it takes up lots of CPU time and memory. It also sets up a separate cache
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for each user wasting disk space. Netscape is a commercial product.
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Companies have a 30 day trial period, but there is no limit for individuals.
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I would encourage you to register anyway to support Netscape in there efforts
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against Microsoft (and what is a measly $40US). My guess is if Microsoft wins,
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we will be forced to use MS Internet Explorer on a Windows platform :(
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<P>
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<DT><B>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-3.html#lynx">Lynx</A></B><DD><P>Lynx is the one of the smallest web
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browsers. It is the king of text based
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browsers. It's free and the source code is available under the GNU public
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license. It's text based, but it has many special features.
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<P>
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<DT><B>Kfm</B><DD><P>Kfm is part of the K Desktop Environment (KDE). KDE is a system
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that runs on top of X-windows. It gives you many features like drag an
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drop, sounds, a trashcan and a unified look and feel. Kfm is the K File Manager, but
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it is also a web browser. Don't be fooled by the name, for a young product
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it is very usable as a web browser. It already supports frames, tables, ftp
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downloads, looking into tar files, and more. The current version of Kfm is
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1.39, and it's free. Kfm can be used without KDE, but you still need the librarys that
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come with KDE. For more information about KDE and Kfm visit the KDE website
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at
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<A HREF="http://www.kde.org">http://www.kde.org</A>.
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<P>
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<DT><B>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-4.html#emacs">Emacs</A></B><DD><P>Emacs is the one program that does everything. It is a word processor,
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news reader, mail reader, and web browser. It has a steep learning curve at
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first, because you have to learn what all the keys do. The X-windows version
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is easier to use, because most of the functions are on menus.
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Another drawback is that it's mostly text based. (It can display graphics if
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you are running it under X-windows). It is also free, and the source code
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is available under the GNU public license.
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<P>
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<DT><B>NCSA Mosaic</B><DD><P>Mosaic is an X-windows browser developed by the National
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Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois.
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NCSA spent four years on the project and has now moved on to other things.
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The latest version is 2.6 which was released on July 7, 1995. Source code
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is available for non-commercial use.
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<A HREF="http://www.spyglass.com">Spyglass Inc.</A> has the commercial rights to Mosaic. Its a solid
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X-windows browser, but it lacks the new HTML features. For more info visit
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the NCSA Mosaic home page at
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<A HREF="http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/">http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/</A>.
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The software can be downloaded from
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/Unix/binaries/2.6/Mosaic-linux-2.6.Z">ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mosaic/Unix/binaries/2.6/Mosaic-linux-2.6.Z</A>.
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<P>
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<DT><B>Arena</B><DD><P>Arena was a X-windows concept browser for the W3C (World Wide Web
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Consortium) when they were testing HTML 3.0. Hence it supports all the HTML
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3.0 standards such as style sheets and tables. Development was taken over
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by Yggdrasil Computing, with the idea to turn it into a full fledge free
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X-windows browser. However development has stopped in Feb 1997 with version
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0.3.11. Only part of the HTML 3.2 standard has been implemented. The
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source code is released under the GNU public licence.
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For more information see the web site at
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<A HREF="http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/Arena/">http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/Arena/</A>.
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It can be downloaded from
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/pub/dist/web/arena/">ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/pub/dist/web/arena/</A>.
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<P>
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<DT><B>Amaya</B><DD><P>Amaya is the X-windows concept browser for the W3C for HTML 3.2.
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Therefore it supports all the HTML 3.2 standards. It also supports some of
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the features of HTML 4.0. It supports tables, forms, client side image
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maps, put publishing, gifs, jpegs, and png graphics. It is both a browser and
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authoring tool. The latest public release is 1.0 beta. Version 1.1 beta
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is in internal testing and is due out soon. For more information visit the
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Amaya web site at
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<A HREF="http://www.w3.org/Amaya/">http://www.w3.org/Amaya/</A>.
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It can be downloaded from
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.w3.org/pub/Amaya-LINUX-ELF-1.0b.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.w3.org/pub/Amaya-LINUX-ELF-1.0b.tar.gz</A>.
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<P>
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<DT><B>Red Baron</B><DD><P>Red Baron is an X-windows browser made by Red Hat Software.
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It is bundled with
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The Official Red Hat Linux distribution. I could not find much information
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on it, but I know it supports frames, forms and SSL.
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If you use Red Baron, please help me fill in this section.
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For more information visit the Red Hat website at
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<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com">http://www.redhat.com</A><P>
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<DT><B>Chimera</B><DD><P>Chimera is a basic X-windows browser. It supports some of the
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features of HTML 3.2. The latest release is 2.0 alpha 6 released August 27,
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1997. For more information visit the Chimera website at
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<A HREF="http://www.unlv.edu/chimera/">http://www.unlv.edu/chimera/</A>.
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Chimera can be downloaded from
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<A HREF="ftp://ftp.cs.unlv.edu/pub/chimera-alpha/chimera-2.0a6.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.cs.unlv.edu/pub/chimera-alpha/chimera-2.0a6.tar.gz</A>.
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<P>
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<DT><B>Qweb</B><DD><P>Qweb is yet another basic X-windows browser. It supports
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tables, forms, and server site image maps. The latest version is 1.3. For
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more information visit the Qweb website at
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<A HREF="http://sunsite.auc.dk/qweb/">http://sunsite.auc.dk/qweb/</A>
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The source is available from
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<A HREF="http://sunsite.auc.dk/qweb/qweb-1.3.tar.gz">http://sunsite.auc.dk/qweb/qweb-1.3.tar.gz</A>
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The binaries are available in a Red Hat RPM from
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<A HREF="http://sunsite.auc.dk/qweb/qweb-1.3-1.i386.rpm">http://sunsite.auc.dk/qweb/qweb-1.3-1.i386.rpm</A><P>
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<DT><B>Grail</B><DD><P>Grail is an X-windows browser developed by the Corporation for
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National Research Initiatives (CNRI). Grail is written entirely in Python,
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a interpreted object-oriented language. The latest version is 0.3
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released on May 7, 1997. It supports forms, bookmarks, history, frames,
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tables, and many HTML 3.2 things.
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<P>
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<DT><B>Internet Explorer</B><DD><P>There are rumors, that Microsoft is going to port the Internet Explorer to
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various Unix platforms - maybe Linux. If its true they are taking
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their time doing it. If you know something more reliable,
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please drop me an e-mail.
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</DL>
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<P>
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<P>In my humble opinion most of the above software is unusable for serious web
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browsing. I'm not trying to discredit the authors, I know they worked very
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hard on these projects. Just think, if all of these people had worked together
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on one project, maybe we would have a free browser that would rival Netscape
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and Internet Explorer.
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<P>In my opinion out of all of the broswers, Netscape and Lynx are the best.
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The runners up would be Kfm, Emacs-W3 and Mosaic.
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<P>
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<P>
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<P>
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<P>
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<HR>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-3.html">Next</A>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO-1.html">Previous</A>
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<A HREF="WWW-HOWTO.html#toc2">Contents</A>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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