This month AO Relcom, Russia’s largest electronic mail service provider and one of Moscow’s largest Internet Service Providers, has announced that it was switching browsers from Netscape Navigator to Microsoft Explorer. AO Relcom will now provide all of its registered users with a free copy of Microsoft Explorer. The company says it decided to switch firstly because Explorer is free, and secondly because Netscape Communications Corp appears to have no plans to fully localize Navigator to produce a Cyrillic interface and enable Cyrillic friendly forms. Two of Moscow’s three largest Internet service providers – Demos and Relcom – now both give away Explorer. The third big provider, SovAm Teleport, is currently allied to Netscape.
