Maxthon Is Fast, Free, and Just as Good as the Famous Browsers
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by PCWorld's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
-
Generic Company Place Holder Maxthon
Maxthon 3.4 is an alternative Web browser, one of many fighting for the small slice of the pie not claimed by Firefox, IE, and Google Chrome. It's free, has a trendily minimalist interface, and has several features built-in that must be implemented by plugins in other browsers.
There are plenty of good things about Maxthon. There are a number of features built-in which require add-ons in other browsers: An ad blocker, a content scraper/downloader, and a screen splitter, for example. Private browsing occurs by opening a second window, which can then be filled with private tabs. This isn't as convenient as Opera's mixing of private and non-private tabs, but it's better than Firefox's purely modal method. The "Favorites" bar (when did we stop calling them bookmarks?) includes a "Most Favorite" tab and an automatically-filled "Most Visited" tab. Also, there's a "Mute" button, ideal for when a website begins unexpectedly blaring at you.
Some things are less than perfect. Maxthon's video downloader doesn't work currently in YouTube, though the developers claim a fix is forthcoming soon. (The MyDownloader plug-in in Firefox still works fine.) While it may be a minor point, I like a standard, across-the-top menu bar, and there's no option to display one.
Would I use Maxthon as my primary browser? Sure. It gets the job done and it has many small convenience features. The real problem, for Maxthon and many other small browsers, is that while it works fine, so do the "big boys," and they have more options and support. Maxthon is clean, fast, functional, and competent, but it's not extraordinary. The add-on ecosystem is the real issue; if I have the choice, I'm not giving up Firefox extensions Ghostery and Local Website Archive Lite, to name a few.
Maxthon is free, so there's no risk in trying it out. The built-in functionality helps avoid the bloat of add-ins and reduces the chances that the seemingly-daily Firefox version update will undermine a tool you rely on. It's certainly worth a look.
--Ian Harac
Coupon Codes
-
Old Navy Coupon
Jeans for only $12 when you use Gap credit card and this Old Navy coupon
-
Prettylittlething Coupon
Get 60% PrettyLittleThing coupon code with newsletter sign up
-
Eastbay Promo Code
15% off your order of $75+ with Eastbay promo code
-
Express Coupon
15% off for Students | Express coupons
-
eBay Coupon
$5 eBay coupon for any order
-
Forever 21 Coupon
Extra 50% off metallic mini dress with this Forever 21 coupon code