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Review of Maxthon Browser
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Review of Maxthon Browser
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Download from: http://www.maxthon.com/download.htmCurrent Version: 2.5.8.1332Maxthon is a little-known Browser that puzzles us. For, it is as good as any of its better-known brethren, packs all the features found in the 'big' Browsers (and a few extremely nifty ones of its own!) and is free, like every one of the thirteen Browsers we have reviewed. It is so little known that we too did not look seriously at it until very, very recently... We regret not having reviewed it much earlier...
The Browsers niche is definitely a big one today and any challenger - however good - needs to build up share carefully. Why Maxthon is not known more widely than what it is, is what has us puzzled. Maxthon is unique in terms of its looks (but for its twin, Avant Browser and Avant's Mozilla cousin Orca, and the other IE 7-based TheWorld Browser, that is!) Again, Maxthon loads up in pretty nifty time as well, just like Avant, TheWorld and Orca. Yet, the look and feel is familiar right from the word go: it is comfortably reassuring, while with Safari, one feels just a little unsure about where the feature you want would be - at least initially...
Although Apple Safari is the 'doe-eyed' beauty amongst Browsers, Maxthon is lovely in a different way too! It looks much, much better than Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, CometBird, Chrome or SeaMonkey. Our first impression was that a Browser such as Maxthon should NOT be unknown and unheard of, for it is a well-rounded, feature-rich Browser. However, the converse is that it does not cater to any particular segment of the browsing public. Thus while Flock has the Social Networking segment, Firefox the Web Development and Online Marketing segments, Safari the Mac-using segment and so on, Maxthon has none to call its own. Our opinion is that whittling down the market into segments and catering to one or more segments is the best approach to gaining market and mind share! Here is the link that tracks Browser usage and publishes Browser Statistics: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp Since Maxthon is NOT based on the Mozilla Engine, the plug-ins and add-ons that work with Mozilla-based Browsers do not work with Maxthon. However, to tilt the scales a little in its favor, Maxthon does have a core of fans worldwide, who have developed a fair number of add-ons and plug-ins for Maxthon. These cover most of the feature sets that most users look for. In fact, Maxthon is very, very customizable! Some of the Maxthon customization features we have discovered are; |
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The ability to combine the Refresh and Stop Buttons. Browsers either combine the two or keep them separate; Maxthon lets YOU decide! Ability to make your own Keyboard Shortcuts, i.e., make virtually any keyboard combination start up a pre-defined action Similarly, ability to create limitless number of your own Mouse Click and Mouse Gesture actions. We have not yet checked out this feature, though it does sound very interesting! Ability to enable/ disable Multi-thread Tab Support. If enabled, each Tab works within its container, unaffected by happenings in other tabs. This is something Google claims to have introduced for the first time in Chrome, but nevertheless, was already present in Internet Explorer 8 Beta itself. Clearly, this is implemented in Maxthon too, while the others are still working on it... UserAgent String can be set to read any of the following Pre-defined Browsers:
This works just fine - Maxthon correctly returned the set value, when we ran a simple Javascript asking it to name the Browser and screen resolution. However, when we set it up to display Maxthon 2.1 as the Browser, it returned the value Internet Explorer 2.1 instead! The default setting too displays the value Internet Explorer 7 - trust this will be corrected in the next version. While this may not be a feature that affects casual surfers, web developers and online marketing professionals are quite likely to find it useful
Despite the decent number of add-ins and plug-ins already on display for Maxthon, we were carried away by one feature that is built right into Maxthon. We had never imagined using, say our favorite FTP program, from within a Browser. With Maxthon and its button titled "Addition/Add External Tool", that is exactly what we did! As Web Developers and Online Marketers, we frequently make changes to our website as well as the websites we are developing and therefore, easy access to our FTP program saves us a lot of time each time! We could of course run it from the Desktop or from the Start Menu, spending a lot more time doing it that way! Clearly, this is a great, flexible tool for a number of folks! For example, a Sales professional could run PowerPoint from within Maxthon (and thus access all his sales presentations), an Accounting professional could access his Accounting program from within Maxthon, a professional Photographer could access PhotoShop from within Maxthon and so on - the possibilities are endless! To add to this, you have the option of letting these external programs start with Maxthon, close with Maxthon or start only when you click the icon that sits there right on the Maxthon screen! This is one innovation that we believe will be worth a lot to almost anyone browsing the Internet! One difference ought to be mentioned - the unique placement of the Standard Menu Bar. The Standard Menu bar is placed at the Right Top of the screen, in contrast to the universal Left Top placement for almost every software created till date! Its not something that you can't get used to quickly, though we feel it should find a mention in a serious review of Maxthon! We were also pleasantly surprised that Orbit, the software we use for downloading media files from sites, works perfectly well with Maxthon: if anything, it works even more intuitively with Maxthon than with Firefox!
The Standard Browser buttons too sports an innovative feature. Left-click the Refresh icon and it does what you expect it to do, namely refresh the current Tab. Right-click it and as the Tooltip tells you, it refreshes ALL Tabs! Similarly, Left-clicking the Stop button stops the current Tab and Right-clicking it stops all Tabs. Right-click on any Tab and you can close all Blank and Error Tabs in one fell swoop! If all this isn't enough, Right-click on any Tab and you have the option of closing all Tabs to the LEFT of the clicked Tab or close all Tabs to the Right of the clicked Tab! Nifty, isn't it, for web designers checking out multiple pages for how they display on Maxthon? It is now time to discuss what we would like to see, in future editions of Maxthon. Here is the list...
Why and what is MSA? Take you back where you were... Here is the Changelog for Version 2.5.8: Core Interface Mute Browser Quick Access Float Button
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