Download from: http://www.ioage.com/en/

Current Version: 2.4.1.2

We had not heard of this Browser, until a visitor pointed it out to us, urging us to try it out in our Guest Book - Thanks, Phil!

TheWorld is perhaps an unusual name for a Browser. Or is it? For, you have FireFox, CometBird, SeaMonkey and Orca, that are named after animals, while you have others like Opera, Chrome, Flock, Avant, Maxthon, etc., which are named after nothing in particular. You also have names like Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, Apple Safari, etc., that hint at the fact that they are Browsers, however vague the hint may be!

Anyways, under the hood of TheWorld Browser is the Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Browser Engine. TheWorld Browser therefore joins Avant and Maxthon, swelling the ranks of Browsers based on IE 7 to at least 3. There are a few others too, which we will not be reviewing...

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 remains the only Browser based on the latest Microsoft Browser Engine: it is unlikely that Microsoft will allow developers to lay their hands on their latest engine, the way Mozilla make their latest Browser engines available to the public (read CometBird, Flock, etc.!)

On to the Browser's features now. All three Browsers based on the IE 7 engine - Avant. Maxthon and TheWorld, look similar. The Menu Items are placed on the top Right corner, instead of the more usual top Left corner. Like Maxthon (and Chrome and Opera and a number of other Browsers), TheWorld opens with an extremely spartan start page, the screenshot of which is shown below.

TheWorld displays web pages, Java/ DHTML/ CSS and other website stuff very well - only to be expected, with its IE 7 lineage, notwithstanding its TINY size! Here are the screenshots of WellOiledPC, as displayed under TheWorld

While TheWorld is a pleasing Browser with a nice set of basic features, extremely fast to start up as well as load web pages and is a tiny download in comparison with other Browsers, it needs to do more, to be counted in the world of Browsers. TheWorld needs to identify a segment and introduce features targeting the chosen segment. Despite its tiny size and equally tiny installed folder size, TheWorld needs to make a mark for itself, to survive amongst today's Browsers.

With at least 11 other Browsers in the field (we exclude Netscape Navigator, since it is now dead), TheWorld would do better to identify its segment, rather than try outdoing Firefox or Internet Explorer!

The link below displays current Browser trends worldwide.

Here is the link that tracks Browser usage and publishes Browser Statistics:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp