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I've been frustrated with Chrome's greed lately and would love an alternative.

Palemoon, Vivaldi, Brave, Waterfox, Maxthon

Well, Maxthon claims to have had 500,000,000 downloads by 2010. Sounds about right, don't you think? I don't have anecdotal evidence to back my claim, but I asked because I remember reading that Maxthon is one of the biggest browsers in China a few years back, and I know it is/was based on IE6.

IIRC Maxthon is just a really fancy skin and plugin system for IE, is it not?

System requirements show it requires an IE6+ installation:
http://www.maxthon.com/support.htm
(you need to allow scripts from Maxthon.com)

It seems to support both IE plugins and ActiveX:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxthon#Features

Yeah, If I were Microsoft, I would provide the following options

amaya
Maxthon
crazy browser
grail

Which makes it perfect and unbloated ;)
If you're looking for features and no FF bloat, check out Maxthon2

IE: http://i37.tinypic.com/a4ne44.png
Safari: http://i35.tinypic.com/m7qdyh.jpg
Firefox: http://i36.tinypic.com/152gwsl.png

No antialiasing/hinting in Firefox; it's harder to read (on an LCD, at least, probably easier on a CRT). Of the three viewed on this LCD screen, IE looks nicest, Safari next, and Firefox last.

As for the freezing issues--I've seen it only on two computers, this laptop (Dell Inspiron E1505) and on a MacBook Pro running Windows. I haven't looked on others. I've been tempted to file a bug report, but since every previous time I've filed a bug against a Mozilla product it was shot down as "works for me" or "not a bug" (despite, you know...not being correct and, in fact, being changed later), to hell with 'em.

And it's noticeably slower than IE7. I use Firefox mostly because it has the extensions I like and because IE7's UI is annoying and weird, but I've been thinking about switching to Maxthon (which I really think Microsoft should buy up, because they actually get how to make a usable browser on the IE core).

This feat was achieved by taking advantage of the way that Internet Explorer (and other browsers) handle active scripting in the Operating System. (emphasis added)

What kind of "active scripting" is this? I can guarantee you that Firefox's JavaScript interpreter doesn't use OS-provided libraries to run the code - that would make cross-platform consistency impossible.

I'm sure that by "other browsers," the author of the article means browsers like Maxthon that are simply wrappers around IE. It's the same thing as saying that a bug in the Gecko rendering engine affects Galeon as well as Firefox. Many people (the article author included, apparently) can't distinguish between completely separate browsers and browsers that share 90% of the same code-base.

I'm pretty sure the maxthon browser is made in China, their website lists some place in Beijing as their mailing address. Not to mention they have pretty pearls of subject-verb agreement hanging around.

If China wants to shut them down, they'll just knock on their front door probably. That or kick it in.

Maxthon can also used the gecko engine too. http://forum.maxthon.com/index.php?showtopic=1367

The problem with OSS is that there are just too many choices.

You're entirely right. Thank god that with closed source, there's only one media player to choose from. And only one web browser. I'm so happy that there's only one closed source mail client too!

I would make my point further, but my comment would be rejected as spam...

http://www.maxthon.com/

-Red

Maxthon is an IE engine based browser with tabs that you could use (better than IE). As for convincing them to change, good luck. I'm not sure what you could do about that.

Did anyone see that Maxthon is actually made in china
9/F Flat D, Tower 1, Sky Tower,
38 Song Wong Toi RD, Kowloon,
Hongkong, China


From --> http://www.maxthon.com/donate.htm

If you go to the Maxthon page link and scroll to the bottom it lists awards that it's won. The first and only one I clicked was the last one on the page, p2btech, because I never heard of it. It's an article that doesn't even mention the Maxthon browser at all. It rates a few different browsers from a long time ago, Firefox 0.8 and Opera 7.5.

Maxthon, a browser made by a tiny Beijing company of the same name, has attracted millions of users in China for functionality that can funnel traffic through a Web proxy and circumvent government controls on information in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Baidu.com and other popular sites or Internet service providers in that country.

Have you ever tried Maxthon? It is easily the best IE replacement on the market, in my mind. I like it better than Firefox, Opera, or anything else I have tried. I have tried Avant as well, but it seems Maxthon is more full featured and less buggy. There's lots of plugins and stuff for it as well, though the only one I really use is a "find" plugin to replace the crappy default IE one (this one works similar to how FF's find works).

Yes - my sister and brother-in-law. They won't read this article here of course, but I've read it and use such things when asked my opinion. They've moved over to Firefox, and they're about 80% convinced to move to OS X too.

Now to the rest of the post:
I challenge anyone to disagree; but with an intelligent argument, not just emotion and flame. (BTW, I don't mean a clever 'flame' argument, a real intellectual one. One with real facts and figures. Tests with defined tests-beds. That sort of thing.)

A good sentiment, but is it one that sits particularly well with phrases such as:

• These things are just fuel for flame wars. That's all they are and that's all they're posted for. Period.
• It is a shell for IE that is like IE and FireFox combined with a huge dose of steroids, that makes both IE and FireFox seem anorexic by comparison. Will anybody here try it? (http://www.maxthon.com/ Well maybe those that use IE perhaps; but FireFox users? Blasphemy!
• Get out the torches! Somebody diss'ed FireFox! This is like a depiction of Muhammad! Burn cars, embassies, everything. The horror, the horror!

I see no facts or figures there. Just opinion and rabble-rousing. Personally, Firefox is my primary browser at work and at home I use Safari. I also gave Opera a try - I'm not religiously wed to a browser. There are useful facts and figures to be found I'll bet. I suggest, however, that your post does not contribute to that.

Cheers,
Ian

Here on Slashdot, this is the same discussion as Microsoft v Apple - very little intellectual discourse and lots of emotion. Might as well discus religion for all the difference there as well.

Yeah, I read a lot of the comments - the 7000+ security problems with FireFox and the test using unpatched machines. (How about a real test showing IE on an unpatched machine v a patched machine?)

Really, what's the use? Is there one single person here that will change their mind over their browser (or Op Sys) due to any of these articles? These things are just fuel for flame wars. That's all they are and that's all they're posted for. Period.

I challenge anyone to disagree; but with an intelligent argument, not just emotion and flame. (BTW, I don't mean a clever 'flame' argument, a real intellectual one. One with real facts and figures. Tests with defined tests-beds. That sort of thing.)

I, personally feel that there is better security with mature products, and not through using obscure ones that feel 'safe' because nobody will bother to attack them. We see the truth behind that now with FireFox and all the attacks it is getting. (Security through maturity, not obscurity.)

I stopped using FireFox for two reasons: It was being attacked, successfully, far too often, especially with browser hijacks. Then I discovered Maxthon. It is a shell for IE that is like IE and FireFox combined with a huge dose of steroids, that makes both IE and FireFox seem anorexic by comparison. Will anybody here try it? (http://www.maxthon.com/ Well maybe those that use IE perhaps; but FireFox users? Blasphemy!

BTW, I have nothing to do with the Maxthon product except that once I tried it (on the advice of a friend) I never used either IE of FireFox again. Well almost never, I still use FireFox to get my Excite Email, because it has low enough security to get me logged in; and I use IE to get Windows patches - I can still cheat with it!

Get out the torches! Somebody diss'ed FireFox! This is like a depiction of Muhammad! Burn cars, embassies, everything. The horror, the horror!

Comments like yours make me thank the Lord there is tabbedhttp://www.mozilla.com/firefox/tabs.html browsing http://www.maxthon.com/.

I just wish I could figure this html thing out, do you suppose it will catch on?

other browser vendors cannot hope to pay the patent licensing fees that Eolas will charge them. Additionally, it will be difficult for other browser vendors to change their software as quickly

If I understand this correctly, the change affects ActiveX. To my knowledge, (almost?) all alternative browsers based on different engines (Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, Safari, etc) are not supporting ActiveX at all. If you're talking about MSIE based browsers, like Maxthon I imagine the changes will be immediately available to them.

Does this story affect any other browser element besides ActiveX? I'm not familiar with the Eolas case.

Hmm... no, I haven't heard of that. To be straight, though, it's not so much the engine that I love as it is, primarily, the Web Developer and similar extensions.

For browsing purposes I use Maxthon because of the gobs of features it has, as well as its speed. For work and developmental purposes I generally keep both Firefox and Maxthon open (Maxthon uses the IE engine).

I would gladly switch, as Firefox has most of the features of Maxthon in some way, shape, or form, but I can't justify it with the memory and slowness problems that I have.

To be fair, though, the slow factor only seems to be a problem after I have had Firefox minimized for a while without using it. The memory problem is pretty consistent, though...

Javascript is an accepted WWW standard. There is no reason for any app developer to not use javascript to his heart's content.

Security? Privacy?

I browse with Javascript turned off by default (Maxthon makes this really easy; it's two clicks to enable it for the current tab), and I thus don't see any pop-ups, rarely get asked for cookies (most sites seem to use Javascript for this!) and thus my computer can theoretically only get compromised if there's a bug in the HTML parser. (as opposed to this week's script-related exploit that makes it possible to, say, access the user's filesystem through some obscure object)

Javascript-less browsing isn't dead. It's both painless (less ads) and occasionally frustrating (you wouldn't believe how many forms use Javascript for stuff that doesn't need it, like submitting the damn form!), but it's overall better than browsing with scripting enabled.

Anyone who was on the verge of switching before now have virtually no reason not to

Yeah. I was debating -- I'm really glad to see an alternative to Firefox, which after a year or so of heavy use I'm not that happy with. (Memory leaks/hogs and horribly sluggish UI response were the two main reasons). Going back to Maxthon after that Firefox year was like a breath of fresh air, and it has most of the extensions available (minus, I guess, some of the webdevel stuff). Maxthon is based on the IE core (although you can switch it to use Gecko for rendering).

I'm quite happy with Maxthon, actually, so the more I think about it, the more Opera would need to offer something pretty impressive to get my vote. I suppose I'll check out what it's got.

Try Maxthon -- the speed of IE and better features then Firefox. http://www.maxthon.com/

Am I the only one that wonders why everybody thinks Tabs make the Firefox UI the seeming pinacle of modern GUI design and innovation?

Is there anybody else who doesn't give a rip about tabs. I really don't give a flying crap about them.

In fact there are several IE based browsers that have had the tab capability for a long time.
http://www.avantbrowser.com/
http://www.mybrowser.web4net.net/en/
http://www.maxthon.com/
. . .and MANY more

IE has been there for a long time people. Get off the tab fetish. If the IE people cared they would already be using one of the many IE tabbed browsers available since way before Firefox.

The funny thing is that Firefox zealots think tabs are innovation?!?!?!?!? Tabs have been around since the beginning of GUI-time.

--- BTW, I use Opera, Firefox and IE for my development testing. I really have no browser-bias. I just think tabs are quite mundane. Talk about browser security or something else worthwhile. Just please get off the tab thing.

You could also try Maxthon. IE with most of the FF features.

Maxthon (formerly MyIE) does most of, if not all of those things and it's been around for years now. Link: http://www.maxthon.com/

Not even heard of Maxthon (by the makers of MyIE2 apparently) - I've just tried it for a good hour or so and its actually quite slick.

Supports multiple proxies, autorefresh (these are available as addons to firefox), and has tabs (inc undo), switchable disable of activex, download and ad managers.

Took me a while to find the Gecko engine, but there's details at their forums. Unfortuately its a bloody ActiveX plugin with the Gecko engine in, and its huge!

I'm impressed - Its certainly better than IE - and suitable as a replacement for it, and very quick. Surprisingly, it actually runs WindowsUpdate faster than IE6 does on my PC [after Disabling Windows Advantage, naturally] :)

There's some faults that let it down but working with IE, its probably the best they could do :) - and its good! [although theres no close button the right, which confused me somewhat :)]

Having said that and having used it, I'm still going to stick with Firefox!

Though I am going to keep it installed along with OffByOne - [thanks to Artifakt who i saw mentioned it yesterday] not many features (no iframes, even!) but small enough to run on a floppy! Comes in very useful occassionally!

Duguk

Not even heard of Maxthon (by the makers of MyIE2 apparently) - I've just tried it for a good hour or so and its actually quite slick.

Supports multiple proxies, autorefresh (these are available as addons to firefox), and has tabs (inc undo), switchable disable of activex, download and ad managers.

Took me a while to find the Gecko engine, but there's details at their forums. Unfortuately its a bloody ActiveX plugin with the Gecko engine in, and its huge!

I'm impressed - Its certainly better than IE - and suitable as a replacement for it, and very quick. Surprisingly, it actually runs WindowsUpdate faster than IE6 does on my PC [after Disabling Windows Advantage, naturally] :)

There's some faults that let it down but working with IE, its probably the best they could do :) - and its good! [although theres no close button the right, which confused me somewhat :)]

Having said that and having used it, I'm still going to stick with Firefox!

Though I am going to keep it installed along with OffByOne - [thanks to Artifakt who i saw mentioned it yesterday] not many features (no iframes, even!) but small enough to run on a floppy! Comes in very useful occassionally!

Duguk

This is nothing new... Maxthon (formerly known as myIE2) has been doing everything but the "firewall" for years. It uses the IE engine, but behaves like a separate browser.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Maxthon yet. It does all of the things that Opera does, but it has IE running in the background and can handle all of the rendering of non-standards compliant websites. With plugins I can get RSS, check the weather, upload files without having to login to websites, enable right-click, and on and on ...

Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Maxthon.

Frontend for IE core that can also use the Gecko engine for rendering. I don't know too much about how these things work, but I'm a heavy web browser who's used Firefox extensively and I prefer Maxthon. Much faster UI response, doesn't crash/freeze for [me and group] as much as FF, and comes with all the basic important extensions built in. I hate proselytizing, so this is hard for me -- I just want to make people aware of it. Reject it at your leisure.

You should use a browser that does precisely what you want, and ignore all else. If Maxthon's not it, don't use it. But it does what I want, and I figure what I want isn't different from a lot of people.

Maxthon.

I use it, lots of other people I know use it, you can get it to do the end-user stuff firefox can do, the UI response is waaaaay faster, it works in the real world, and I've never had security problems.

I've switched back and forth, using Firefox for better parts of a year (I only use my computer for web browsing, IM, movies, and as a terminal to *nix machines, really). I prefer Maxthon.

And there are some of us who are hardcore browsers and programmers who, for whatever reason, use IE. Or at least a version of it. For whom those nags are an irritating slap in the face. It's amazing how much irritation a false pretentious accusation can engender. Saying "sorry, you're not good enough to get in here" is not the solution, even if the other guys did it first.

Here's the usual plug for Maxthon, the alternate IE-based browser I (and many friends) use. It uses the IE core (I actually really get kinda annoyed by Gecko in practice, so I'm okay with the rendering), it actually has fast UI response (which is a breath of fresh air after months of Firefox's dozens-of-ms delay before pulling up tabs), it's compatible, blah blah blah, other stuff I'm too tired to talk about now. I don't wanna proselytize; use whatever works for you. I just want to say I've used Firefox extensively with full extensions setting it up precisely how I want, as have friends on various computing levels, and a lot have gone back to Maxthon.

I feel terrible that I'm reported to sites as using IE, but that's how it is. I'm sorry, everyone.

click on the M instead.

In fact, I've found that I like it best when I have only a single toolbar. Here's how I configure it:

If I type a URL and hit 'enter' it loads the URL.
If I type a non-URL and hit 'enter' it does an 'I'm feeling lucky' search.
If I type anything and hit shift-enter it does a Google search on the text
If I type anything and hit ctrl-enter it surrounds the text with www.[text].com and tries to load the URL.

I'm frugal with my screen space. I have a single wide strip on top with the current URL and no other text box. It doesn't really need to be that wide, but I have really grown to like this added simplicity to my interface. I only ever go one place to type things.

(Not to evangalize, but I use Maxthon. Though I first started using this setup when I had Firefox.)

I've got several links for you:

Kick Firefox to the curb
Kick Opera to the curb
Kick Maxthon to the curb

How could I not know of Firefox and have it installed when I post on Slashdot (Firefox usage up .03% vs IE!)? Really now... I was just using IE at the time, and found it hilarious that Slashdot would link to a site that would attempt to install malware on a user's computer.

(Besides, with SP2, Mouse gestures and program grouping on Windows XP, and privoxy for blocking in-line ads, IE is useable)

-Tezkah
(Posting A/C for O/T)

They link to http://maxthon.com/images_screens/full.png as a screenshot.

Too bad if you're using IE, you won't be able to see it, because IE can't handle PNGs.

I really hope IE7 adds better PNG support. I got used to using PNGs after using Firefox and Safair for so long, I totally forgot about IE not knowing how to handle them.

Instead of being able to just throw a bunch of PNGs in a directory and link to them, I ended up making a bunch of html pages that consisted of a single img src tag, because I guess IE knows how to handle embedded PNGs, but not those which are standalone.

Anyways, that's it for the rant, your link just made me think of IE's shitty PNG support.

That's nice, but I think I've had IE7 for a few months now...

http://maxthon.com/

I know you haven's specifically said anything about IE ... but the biggest problem users seem to have with IE, is (the lack of) popup blocking and tabbed browsing. However, you can still use IE and have both these features ... http://www.maxthon.com/

It's called Maxthon and it has tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, ad blocking and the ability to turn off Jscript, ActiveX, Java, etc. on a per-tab basis. I surf with those usually off and it's amazing how many sites need JScript or ActiveX!

Tabbed browsing for IE has been around for a long time (2002). Maxthon is a shell for IE. I used to like it better than Firefox.

You can do that with Maxthon (http://www.maxthon.com/ and it has been out for years. It uses the IE engine and its tabbed browsing options are the most granular I've seen. (You may have heard of it under its previous name: MyIE2.)

Don't forget Maxthon. It's not cross-platform, but it's much better on the easy-to-use and comes-full-featured counts. It's the one I use, and I've tried Firefox for long periods of time with extensive extensioning.

(I hear Opera doesn't block ads, so I'm not really interested. Is this correct?)

Why don't they just give up on the old user interface and talk to the Maxthon people to steal^H^H^H^H^Hbuy their stuff? --
Warning: Opera user

Bad news for Firefox, obviously, because it seems to be popular only because IE sucks so badly in comparison. My girlfriend and I tried out Firefox for a few months for average-style-but-heavy browsing, getting it decked out exactly as I wanted it, and then we switched back to Maxthon because the Firefox UI/tab-switching was so sluggish, Gecko hurt our eyes, it rendered some pages pretty strangely, the ad blocker was hard to access, and on her computer, it drew far more processor/memory resources than Maxthon does.

Whether these are good issues or not -- I'm not an expert on Firefox -- the point is that with IE getting tabs, one of the major reasons I push FF and Maxthon with people is gone. Now it's just mouse gestures and security (in that order, heh). And if IE gets mouse gestures, though I personally demand a browser with more functionality, I will no longer tell people they should check out Firefox for a better browsing experience.

Too bad. It was really gaining momentum.

http://www.maxthon.com/

Really makes the switch from browsing at home to work alot smoother, even if it isn't a perfect solution. What it really makes me think though - if these guys can get tabbed browsing and whatnot into the current IE, why is MS not doing the same thing to slow lost market share to more usable/secure browsers???

I had to download Firefox three times today because the first two times the files were 56K and corrupted. After uninstalling the old version (no automatic upgrade will help push up the download count) I dumped the old log and config files and fired up InCtrl5 for the install. I chose just the browser option. I was politely asked if I wanted extra shortcuts - then after I declined they were created anyway. I was given the option of using the Firefox 'start' page as my home page - once again I declined to no avail. The installer kindly put a 'View in Firefox' button on my IE toolbar, no notice required. None of those things are a big deal, and obviously less intrusive than many big name installations (what the hell is with Adobe?). Still, for what's billed as the 'alternative' browser it sure resembles the 'same old, same old'.

Before I get told to "rot in hell" I want to point out that I cut my teeth on Navigator and used it exclusively until the REAL evil empire (AOL) got hold of it. After that it went downhill fast. Then I went to Opera, which in all ways was superior to IE. I PAID for Opera, partly because I was in an early stage of learning to defang Windows and would have slapped Bill Gates if I could have got a hold of him. I was naive and no longer feel that way, to keep the record straight. I also bought Red Hat Linux - I still have the box and all - but frankly, I'm a laptop kind of guy, and Linux in those days was a far cry from the functional, working option it is now. I was disappointed with Opera 7 and tried everything from K-Meleon to Lynx. I finally found MyIE2 which is now Maxthon. Maxthon is an IE based shell that features tabs, enhanced security, and built in RSS as well as ad, pop-up, and active-x filters. It also has built in mouse gestures, sidebars, and supports skins and plug-ins. It has a huge array of customization options, runs fast and lean, and there's an active user community. It has been downloaded just under 26 Million times. I tried Firefox, but I like Maxthon better. It even has an experimental mode that runs the gecko engine.

The point of all that is that I don't have a hidden agenda or receive a damn thing from MS. I just believe that any real long-lasting answers to the problems facing the internet and IT in general can only be resolved in positive ways if they are based on the best estimate of the truth possible. Every sincere person's viewpoint adds value to our shared understanding. We live in a complex world without clear boundaries between good and bad. Most things are are somewhere in the middle, with good and bad characteristics dependent largely on the observer's point of view. Anything less than an open minded evaluation of the truth is a disservice to ourselves, our community, and our future. Fud is fud, no matter the source. Don't let ANYONE use your beliefs to cloud your vision. If it comes out of their mouths and it sounds like bull shit, it probably is.

billy - no fud here...please read the warning at page bottom

How about using Maxthon? It's IE with tabs, adhunter and a few extra addons.