The Underlooked Browser: Maxthon

For the past few months I've been hooked on a new browser: Maxthon.  It's actually been around a while but has been underappreciated.  It used to be known as MyIE2 and from what I gather it has more popularity overseas than it does here in America.

I had been hooked on Firefox for the past year, but I became increasingly frustrated that Firefox didn't render pages the same as IE.  Now, the W3C purists will tell me that's because Microsoft doesn't stick to standards.  But a lot of what they offer is very appealing to consumers and developers, so why should they stick to standards that don't allow the innovation to continue at a rapid pace? 

In any event, that's a debate for another day. 

The nice thing about Maxthon is that it actually uses the IE engine to render pages, which means you'll have a pleasant user experience on most sites.  It handles tabs very nicely and even offers to restore the content of tabs when you re-open the browser (say when some silly HP printer software forces you to reboot). 

I have tried the IE7 beta and it just doesn't deal with tabs the way that Firefox and Maxthon do.  Specifically, when I open a link from Outlook (which I do constantly throughout the day), IE7 opens a new browser.  I want a new tab, just as Firefox and Maxthon do.  Unfortunately, I have found no way to do this.

So if you want IE quality rendering with efficient tab handling, check out Maxthon.

Comments

[Bruce Morgan]

The problem with Outlook (and other Office apps) ignoring the tab settings and opening in a new window is a known bug with IE7 Beta 2. It's been fixed in the upcoming IE7 Beta 3.

[Chip Griffin]

Thanks for the update. I'll give the next beta another shot.