Active Channel is a website type which was introduced by Internet Explorer 4.0 in 1997. It allows synchronizing website content and viewing it offline. It makes use of the Channel Definition Format, which is a way of defining a website's content and structure.
Most Active Channels were provided by bigger entertainment companies like Disney, WB or AOL and also made heavy use of DHTML (Dynamic HTML).
Each country had different channels, so picking a country during the installation of Internet Explorer 4 (and therefore Windows 98) was important. Channels could be displayed in a Channel Bar.
Active Channel support has been removed from Internet Explorer as of version 7 as it had been superseded by the more popular and standards-based RSS format.
Famous quotes containing the words active and/or channel:
“You need not be proud of me.... I’m only being active till you can be again—it isn’t such a great desire on my part to serve the world and I’ll fall back into habits of sloth quite easily!”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed of a mountain torrent, but fed by the ever-flowing springs of fame ... and I trust that I may be allowed to associate our muddy but much abused Concord River with the most famous in history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)