Encarta users (like myself) will find Britannica to have a very different format. It is certainly less eye catching and lacks many of Microsoft's multimedia features. However, what it lacks in snazz, it makes up for in content. I like both Encarta and Britannica because of these differences, and I will continue to use both. As far as information is concerned, Britannica is the grand-daddy of encyclopedias. The content is identical to the company's online version, but for users concerned about downtime and slow downloads, the CD-ROM version is a life saver. Also, the offline version allows parents of young children to access the content without supervision and without installing Internet filters.

I recommand you buy this great product.

"Avoid This Like Broccoli", Putting the merits of the content aside (though I tend to agree with other writers that the content is shallow as a coy pond), this product has a poorly conceived interface that works only intermittently. Couple this with the poorest support effort around, and you will be pulling your hair out every time the kids say "Daddy, the encyclopedia doesn't work again."

Most irritating of all is the [price]per call 900 number that Britannica uses for telephone support.

Save yorself the aggravation, avoid it!!!

"GOOD, BUT....", Undoubtly Brittanica is a very good encyclopedia, but today, in CD-ROM and DVD version, Encarta is much better... For Britannica fans or pre-owners.

"An excelent product, educating and user friendly", The Britannica CD's is one of the best of it's kind, and for the purpose of concise very updated and responsible information -without the need to tour in big books - it does the work on the best way.

"A Waste of Money", I love references and have frequently enjoyed looking things up or just browsing Britannica. At last the entire text of this wonderful encyclopedia was available loaded on to my hard drive so carrying around disks would not be necessary!...With great anticipation I purchased, loaded and opened the Encyclopedia Britanica. Within thirty days I had discarded it as useless. Why? 1. The encyclopedia feeds you only pieces of articles, paragraphs at a time requiring a frustrating series of clicking even to read one article. 2. Even when you are "allowed" to get a larger segment of an article, the viewing box is NOT resizable, requiring constant scrolling. 3. Searching is based on finding text in titles or the body of the article. This may be good as a last resort, but the wonderful and complex index of the book version is NOT AVAILABLE! 4. It comes with Merriam-Webster dictionary. Of course "Webster" is not copyrighted and any garbage dictionary can use that word, but I know Merriam-Webster to be of very high quality. Unfortunately, you cannot load the dictionary unless you also load the encyclopedia. You must search the dictonary with the same useless search mechanism of the encyclopedia and of course the tiny dictionary window is NOT resizable, forcing you to scroll for the smallest definitions. 5. Six months later, I'm still waiting for my rebate.

A Waste of money. I'm still waiting for a useful encyclopedia that can be independent of disks.

"In 1992 Microsoft decided to get into the encyclopedia business. The company bought the rights to Funk & Wagnalls, a second-tier encyclopedia that had been reduced to supermarket sales by the time of the purchase. Microsoft used the Funk & Wagnalls content to create a CD... Britannica started to see its market erode and soon realized that it needed to develop an electronic publishing strategy... Everyone agrees that the quality of the product (Britannica) is high; PC Magazine gave it the top rating in its comparison of multimedia encyclopedias... ... . In any event, Microsoft has improved its product content and quality, but it suffices to say that it still doesn't parallel that of the Britannica.

I'm satisfied with my purchase, and I'm using it for my research in graduate school. It includes a bookmark feature for tracking research. It's timeline feature also fuels my interest in architecture and art, among others. If you're a history buff, then this is the perfect product. It's maps are current, and the statistics are right on, one idea of how accurate they are: Canada's new territory (Nunavut) is included in its maps. One of its shortfalls is on policy issues. While it has coverage on the all important Uruguay Round of the WTO in 1993, it has no mention of the agreement on intellectual property rights (TRIPS) that came with this agreement, there's no excuse for this. I tried looking up the H1-B visa issue, but there were no entries, nor was there any information on other U.S. visa issues, but then again, this is such a specific American issue, so can you blame it?

"the britanica on your notebook computer!", The encyclopedia britanica on cd is way better than the book version: The articles and entries are hyperlinked, so you can jump from one entry to another immediately. Search for what you like and then click away on a tangent! You can always return to where you were. I got the britanica for reference, and now it's become reading material!

I do not have the 2001 edition: I purposefully bought the 1999 edition and I want to tell you why: Since the 1999 edition, the britanica has been placed on two cd's. It's a fancy package -- with multimedia, pictures, movies, etc, and I would have loved to have had it, but... it's two cd's! This is the one major disadvantage of this offering: Most people don't have two cd players on a single computer. What's worse, notebook computers just don't come with two cd players. This means that you'd need to flip cd's. That didn't make sense to me -- having to carry an extra cd around + having to flip cd's, so I specifically asked for the 1999 edition off of the britanica web site... .

Other than that, the search engine's a bit simpler than what I would have liked, but... that's a minor thing.

Having the britanica on cd is a unique experience -- authoritative information within seconds, links to additional relevant information only clicks away. No book can compete with this, and really no other encyclopedia -- after all, this is the britanica!