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An IE-Based Tabbed Browser from China

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the adversity-breeds-strength dept.

wannabgeek writes "CNET reports that a new browser, Maxthon is gaining wide popularity in China. 14 percent of Chinese websurfers have used it ... Part of the reason, it has features that help in circumventing the Chinese government censors. CNET says it was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this year, and is slowly gaining foothold in Europe as well as the U.S."

8 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Re:them pesky dogs by Devil's+BSD · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one (as a Chinese person) welcome our new Shinese puppy overlords...

    --
    I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
  2. Engrish? by thoughtlover · · Score: 5, Funny

    "...features that help in circumventing the Shinese government censors."

    Hrm. It almost sounds like one of our Engrish-reading friends submitted this story from behind the Great Firewall of Shina.

    --
    No sig for you! Come back one year!
  3. New browser? by transwarp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maxthon hasn't been new for a long time. In fact, the only thing in the article I hadn't heard a million times already was that it's made by a Chinese company. And this "parallels" feature they're working on--sounds like MDI.

  4. A new browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maxthon's been around for years. It used to be called MyIE.

  5. Shape & Color? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Browsers are very much like a car," said Jacobsson. "Most people don't care what engine is inside, (they) choose which type fits, with the right shape and color."

    Yes, I use Opera because it's round & red.

  6. Re:Wait until PETA hears about *this*... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Funny
    Perhaps China will start using Slashdot editors to proofread the English versions of official propaganda for spelling and grammar! That's almost like trained dogs!

    OTOH, there is a major difference; you can probably train dogs to actually catch such errors...

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Maxthon can use Gecko as well? by aymanh · · Score: 5, Informative
    It looks like Maxthon isn't entirely IE-based, its Wikipedia entry suggests that it can use the Gecko engine as well (which is the same rendering engine used by Firefox):
    Maxthon (formerly MyIE2) (pronounced "max-ton") is a freeware browser. It uses Trident, the same layout engine used by Internet Explorer as its default layout engine, but can use the Gecko technology used in Mozilla Firefox as well.
    --
    python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
  8. Re:Maxthon, Not New by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mod parent oxymoronic.

    And no, I'm not trolling. Most of IE's problems are due to its engine.

    While it's true that third-party browsers using Trident are vulnerable to the same security flaws as IE (and, of course, share the same CSS and other rendering bugs), there are a number of flaws in IE that are corrected by third-party browsers.

    Because third-party browsers don't support IE toolbars, they aren't as affected by spyware. Third-party browsers generally have search boxes, tabs, and other features that IE lack.

    And, quite frankly, saying that IE "sucks" ignores the reality of the situation.

    From a developer's perspective, IE "sucks" because it means that I have to bend over backwards to support IE's broken CSS implementation (although, to be honest, the CSS standard sucks in many ways anyway). But even if IE stopped "sucking" in this regard tomorrow, it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me - as a user, IE's crappy CSS support doesn't really affect me (because developers work around it), and as a developer, I'm still going to have to develop for IE6 because it will represent a significant portion of my users for years to come.

    But from a user's perspective, IE isn't really that bad. From a security perspective, it's subpar, but IE has greatly improved in that regard since SP2. Users neither know nor care whether their browser has decent CSS2 support.