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Stilesoft develops NetCaptor (NC) a free, alternative Web browser. In an exclusive interview, G Menon of it@tt, chatted with Adam Stiles CEO and self-professed Chief Captor on what makes a good product great. Excerpts.

IT@TT: You seem quite an unassuming person. Could you give our readers a brief backgrounder about yourself.

AS: Ummm! OK. I enjoy outdoor stuff like golf, running and mountain biking. I have a masters in Law and Public Policy which is useful when playing trivia games. I began programming early with a TRS-80 but gave up when I couldn't convince the tape drive to save programs. I've been married for 6 years. My wife Nancy is the brains behind the company. We've two children, Lauren who loves to play outside and is drawn to dirt like a magnet. And Luke who doesn't do much yet, but's a great eater and sleeper.

IT@TT: Whew. That is comprehensive. How what exactly made you famous?

AS: I don't know about famous...

IT@TT: You are quite an unassuming guy. I remember when you first launched an alternative Web browser while programming for a trucking firm. So Why did you feel there was a need for another browser

AS: When I started creating web pages my favorite HTML editor was HomeSite, written by my buddy Nick Bradbury who later sold it to Allaire. HomeSite let you work on several web pages at a time (as a text editor) and each one was on its own tab. I got very used to flipping between multiple web pages. After a while, I noticed how inefficient the current browser paradigm was; one page at a time. Or multiple windows crowding everywhere. That may have made sense when connection speeds were slow, and the web was just starting, but it seemed a really inefficient way to browse the web.

So, in 1997, I started playing around with Delphi and embedding the Microsoft (MS) browser control: back in the IE3 days. It was just a hobby really, to see if I could do it. I played for months, and finally, I released a little freeware browser called SimulBrowse in early 1998.

IT@TT: I remember that product well because at the time I was putting together CD-ROMs and found it cool. It hooked me but good! Incidentally, as a network admin, I've noticed that some builds of NC (the new ones are much better) don't like to surrender system resources. Is this NC or IE or Windows or a mix of all?

AS: A lot of it has to do with IE and the way it handles resources. To gain speed it doesn't always release resources like it should. You'll note that all IE-based browsers perform in a similar way.

IT@TT: Somehow I kind of like IE6. It's really fast; even on Win98SE which is a real hog by itself.

AS: IE gets better and better with each build. IE5 (and IE5.5) was way better than IE4 in terms of system resources.

IT@TT: Getting back, SimulBrowse did eventually make way for NC. But what exactly did you do to keep development funds flowing in while you slaved to develop the perfect browser?

AS: Hmmm...there weren't any funds for a long time. There was a serious bug in Delphi's ActiveX handling at the time I wrote SimulBrowse. This caused massive resource leaks. So bad that eventually I rewrote SB in VB5 (yuk) and released SB3. Then I didn't work on it for a while.

However, the Delphi bug was eventually fixed and I picked up my SB1 code again, and played with it some more. Finally, it began to become more popular in the late 1998, early 1999.

I went to my (then) boss and asked about going half time at my current job so I could spend the rest of the time writing NC. I raised the other half of my salary from him, my dad, and my father-in-law to cover about 9 months. That was the only investment I've had. Using the company profits, the company re-purchased all the outstanding stock of Stilesoft Inc. So now I'm the only shareholder.

IT@TT: Boss, what boss? You mean who actually had to slave to make end meet?

AS: I was the VP of software development for a small company that writes software for trucking companies. I did all sorts of weird stuff, including web and windows development.

IT@TT: How then did Stilesoft get into the profit cycle when NC was essentially a free download with an ad window

AS: Ads. First I worked with Radiate, for a few months. And then I worked directly with a major ad sales company called 24/7 Media to embed ads directly (remember it is a browser). Later on I worked with Web3000.

IT@TT: Lots of it@tt readers email us with requests for making it big. With VCs developing cold feet what's your take on working to succeed?

AS: You've got to sell something. And sell it to peele who are used to buying, and it helps if they are used to buying whatever you are selling. Case in point: its tough to sell a browser, no matter how great it is, because people aren't used to buying browsers.

IT@TT: Getting back, many of the enhancements that the latest IE6 build has like Smart Tags were included in NC with the Flyswat service. Do you consider yourself, in part, a visionary?

AS: And Netscape too. How many people were buying Netscape back then. You could download it for free. It was an honour system thing.

IT@TT: I think what killed Netscape was it never did ActiveX or any Microsoft-product developed site too well. And the new builds too have the same flaw.

AS: Well, I didn't write Flyswat; I just bundled it with NetCaptor.

IT@TT: Yeah. But you did bundle it when nobody else did. But at the same time avoided Alexa.

AS: One of the smartest things MS did was make it easy to embed IE. Its still incredibly tough to embed.

IT@TT: Could you elaborate a bit further on this "embedding"

AS: Alexa was a great product; before Amazon bought it. I actually had an agreement with them, long before Flyswat, before Amazon bought them. It fell through when Amazon purchased Alexa. Anyway on embedding. MS made it easy to create custom web browsers, or at least to get started. Think of all the custom IE browsers... AOL, Compuserve, NeoPlanet, NetCaptor and a host of others. If you are using VB or Delphi, you can build a functioning browser by dropping an ActiveX control on your form.

IT@TT: How successful is NetCaptor as a product? Isn't it dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket, especially as you are planning to kill the ads

AS: Its been great. Because its allowed me to do what I like to do. And that's work for myself, at home, so I have lots of time for my family.

IT@TT: Are you willing to share your profit details?

AS: The crashing ad market has definitely changed things. And I'm always on the lookout for ways to make money. There aren't many options at this point in the ad world.

I don't want to share specific details, but we had a very successful year last year. This year will probably be lower, not in users, but in revenues earned.

IT@TT: Have you any plans to offset this revenue decrease with customized versions for portals?

AS: I'd like to do that. And have already a bit with NBCi and the current free version. However, NBCi is closing down. And I haven't found a good replacement at this point. I'd really like to find some good portal partners.

IT@TT: Perhaps one of the Indian players like Caltiger (India's only free ISP) will read this interview and pickup from it

AS: That would be great.

IT@TT: I notice a new plug-in for NC; Blink. What does it do?

AS: It lets you access your favorites online, and also to synchronize your favorites.

IT@TT: OK. I haven't had a chance to check out the translated version of NC. But how successful are they.

AS: We get a good number of downloads from the various versions, especially Chinese, Japanese, German, French.

IT@TT: So these localized editions are hosted by Stilesoft; or by the localisers

AS: The localization files are hosted by Stilesoft, but contributed by users. Anyone can create a localized version of the NC UI, just translate the nceng.ini file.

IT@TT: OK, could you share with readers the 5 web sites that you regularly visit and why u like them

AS: Slashdot -- all around great stuff, Userfriendly.org -- great, daily comic, News.com for general news (and also Download.com), ArsTechnica for its hardware stuff...

I also goto msdn.microsoft.com a bit for developer news, and I use Google almost exclusively for searching... I use it and Google groups from NetCaptor's address bar, using QuickSearch many, many times a day.

IT@TT: While your email signature lists you as "Chief Captor" you'd mentioned your wife is the brains behind Stilesoft. So what exactly do you do?

AS: Chat :) But seriously, the web is the captive but when you use NetCaptor, you are in control.

Interviewed By G Menon
[email protected]

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