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February 09, 2006
Review: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, And Other Browsers In Four-Way Shootout Maxthon 1.5
The first rule of Maxthon is, "Don't talk about Maxthon." If Firefox and Opera are underground favorites among Web surfers, then Maxthon must be the double-dog double-secret browser. Over the last four years, Maxthon has quietly developed a base of devoted — and tight-lipped — users who make the Illuminati seem like exhibitionists. How obscure is Maxthon? It's so obscure that, despite more than 46 million downloads, even Google barely knows about it. When I did a search for Firefox, Google yielded some 412 million hits, while a search for Maxthon returned a scant 4 million. I can get more hits than that off my own name. (Of course, it helps if you share a name with a well-known comedian.)
Usually such obscurity is well deserved. But in the case of Maxthon, it's as though Jack Nicholson never made it out of B horror flicks. Maxthon is simply the most powerful, and yet the simplest, browser to be used anywhere, anytime, by anyone. Assessing The Competition Then I discovered Maxthon. At that time it was named MyIE2 — until 2004, (when, most likely, Microsoft's trademark lawyers called). Whatever the name, my browsing for a browser was done. Of course (as the other writers in this roundup will tell you), Firefox and Opera have their good points — mainly, they're not Microsoft. Until lately, when Firefox and Opera began to spring their own security leaks, the two browsers could claim better security than the hole-ridden Internet Explorer. Just as importantly, not being Microsoft made their adoption, particularly by open-source adherents, an ideological issue and marketing ploy as much as a technology choice. Maxthon, on the other hand, maintains an alliance with the Dark Side by using Microsoft's Internet Explorer engine. By outfitting the engine with new APIs, Maxthon creates new features that run on the basic browsing engine, and new ways to use old features. What sets Maxthon apart is pure brawn. To say it browses is misleading. It blitzes the Internet like a cybertank wrapped in armor plate and studded with heavy-duty weaponry. To be sure, some of the same battlements are available with Firefox and Opera — although they require a lot more assembly than the ready-to-serve Maxthon. They even have features Maxthon lacks, such as Opera's gee-whiz voice commands. But despite their niftier features, the two together can't come up with an arsenal like that of Maxthon. |
