Sound is becoming more commonplace the Internet with every passing day. While you should have no trouble hearing audio on your computer, there are a few things you need in order to do so.

The Hardware you'll need

Unless you have speakers and a sound card, you won't be able to play sound at all. While most computers, particularly Macintosh computers, now come equipped with these items, some won't. Moreover, while you may have a sound card and speakers, the speakers may be just little things inside the computer designed to produce beeps and chimes. Such speakers will not reproduce more complex sounds very well. If you want, you can use headphones.

If you need a set of speakers or a soundcard, your local computer store will be able to help you.

Playing the sound

There are two ways to hear sound. The first involves downloading complete sound files and then playing them. The advantage of this method is that you often get better quality sound. The disadvantage is that you can't hear anything until the whole sound file has been downloaded to your computer.

Files that you have to download before playing include AU, WAV and AIFF files. Netscape Communicator is equipped to play all these files.

Streamed audio

The second method is called 'streamed' audio. The big advantage of this method is that you don't have to download these files before playing them; they play as they download, in 'realtime'. The disadvantage is that the quality of the sound quality isn't always great, depending on how busy the Internet is. However, it's usually pretty impressive.

These files require additional software to be played. The most popular piece of software is the RealPlayer plug-in.