Best of the Web

Information

Career

Craigslist vs. Monster.com Craigslist is the best job resource for what may be the hottest market in the world: the San Francisco Bay Area. This site has the best leads to employers and employees in dot-com heaven. But overall, Monster.com rules. It's easy to search for jobs that match your interests, and there's lots of career advice (easier to swallow from a Web site than from a nagging relative). With 400,000 job listings, there's a good chance you'll find several that interest you.

Winner: Monster.com

Computing

CNet.com vs. Tom's Hardware Guide We're naturally biased in favor of PCWorld.com, so we've disqualified ourselves. CNet.com gets our nod on the strength of News.com, its first-rate tech news channel, and Download.com, its shareware site. Do CNet's e-commerce features, such as auctions, affect its reviews? They don't seem to, and users can post reviews, too. Tom's Hardware Guide has a narrower focus, with in-depth looks at PC components. It's aimed at geeky types, but the info is superb.

Winner: CNet.com

Consumer Guides

Deja.com vs. Productopia At Deja.com, you can find out what real people think of the DVD player you're considering, or uncover the top-rated men's razor blade. Navigation is easy, considering the enormous range of products reviewed. And the origins of ratings are clear, down to the number of reviews the scores are based on. Productopia mixes its own reviews in with user ratings; the evaluations are helpful, but user reviews are much scarcer than at Deja.

Winner: Deja.com

Encyclopedias

Britannica.com vs. Encarta Encarta is a fine online encyclopedia, but much of what it offers is available only to owners of Encarta on CD-ROM. Britannica.com, by contrast, gives you the entire contents of the standard-bearing print encyclopedia for free. There's a free download for using the site with a Palm VII, and a fine search engine for taking your quest to the Web at large. In short, if you think encyclopedias are dull, you haven't visited Britannica.com lately.

Winner: Britannica.com

Health

Mayo Clinic Health Oasis vs. WebMD Mayo Health has long been a favorite of ours; WebMD has not. But WebMD's recent redesign has made it easier to find information and cranked up the quality of its articles, search tools, and community features. Now it's the health site to beat. Still, when you need a second opinion, jump over to Mayo for its readable, in-depth articles.

Winner: WebMD

How-To

Learn2.com vs. NoWonder Learn2.com is both educational and fun. Tutorials on everything from caring for a rabbit to finding a financial planner are free; you pay a fee for in-depth classes on PC-related topics like using Microsoft Office. Computer help is also on tap at NoWonder, which lets you pose queries to a network of tech experts. The question that dogs us: Is this help desk really better than your PC maker's support line?

Winner: Learn2.com

News

CNN.com vs. the New York Times CNN.com (a partner of our parent company, International Data Group) remains the best online news source, thanks to first-rate reporting and plentiful video clips. Sister sites like CNNfn.com (for financial news) are also tops. The New York Times on the Web, another online news titan, has some of the country's best journalism. But it doesn't match CNN's scope and multimedia appeal.

Winner: CNN.com

Personal Finance

MSN MoneyCentral vs. The Motley Fool As always, The Motley Fool is one of the Web's very best sources of commentary and education on all things financial. But MSN MoneyCentral has quietly become king. Its writers are insightful and engaging, and the services rival those of Quicken.com. The deluxe stock analyzer requires a download, but it may be the Web's most powerful free research tool.

Winner: MSN MoneyCentral