Understanding ESRI's Free "Explorer" Applications

ArcGIS Explorer and ArcExplorer described below are freely available, easy to use, geographic data viewers whose purpose is to allow organizations to provide access to their GIS to a wide audience of non-expert users.

ArcGIS Explorer—Geobrowser Client of ArcGIS Server

ArcGIS Explorer is a lightweight desktop client for ArcGIS Server. You can use it to connect via the Web to ESRI-hosted servers that offer unlimited access to ArcGIS Online services. You can also use ArcGIS Explorer to combine ArcGIS Online services with your local data (e.g., shapefiles, geodatabases, ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, KML, JPEG 2000, GeoTIFF, MrSID, IMG) and other Web services. ArcGIS Explorer lets you perform GIS analysis using tasks (e.g., visibility, modeling, and proximity search).

ArcExplorer

ArcExplorer is a lightweight GIS data viewer written in Java that is used to perform basic GIS functions (e.g., view, navigate, and query). It is a downloadable application that operates in a stand-alone environment and does not need to connect to a server. ArcExplorer is heavily used in the education world and runs on both Windows and Apple Macintosh computers.