We all acknowledge the importance of a web browser. It can be associated with WWW's interface. This pretty simple tool is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and all elements included in a web page.
There are lots of web browsers on the market and the majority of them are completely free and so is our subject today. It is called Free Browser and the version it has reached is 1.7.38. The software is absolutely free (as its name so overtly announces).
The installation kit is 1.75MB large and the installation goes smoothly, without posing problems not even to the most inexperienced user. Let's look inside this new Internet utility and see what this “monster” is made of.
The interface is pretty ordinary and reminds me of the now obsolete IE and many other web browsers: the same menu bar and even the same toolbar. But the differences lie deep within the Options menu that can be found under Tools.
The user can make settings for 8 submenus: Address Bar, History, Homepage, Layout, Miscellaneous, Password Lock, Privacy and Progress Bar. For the Address Bar submenu the options are changing the font (both color and style) and the background (address bar and the search bar).
In the History category, the user can enable or disable saving history (most web browsers have this option enabled as it saves a lot of time when visiting the same page over and over again, e.g. E-mail checking); you can also view the history of the visited websites or clear it.
The Homepage section needs no presentation as I am sure that we are all familiar with it. Here you can set the default opening page of the browser. The Layout submenu contains settings related to the aspect of the interface of the software. Thus the user can choose between a number of five themes for the buttons (Bevel, Boxed, Flat w/border, Flat w/o border and Windows Theme).
The most likely to use is the Windows theme, as it is familiar to most of us and fits the general background perfectly. The user can also change the default colors of these themes for the font, highlight fontcolor, backcolor, highlight backcolor, program fontcolor and program backcolor.
In Miscellaneous (abbreviated Misc. in here) the
user can enable or disable showing the statusbar, web search, set the browser to minimize in system tray or set it to suppress script errors and to check for updates at startup so that you will always have a clean, fresh version of Free Browser.
Password Lock is my favorite and I think that everyone will be satisfied by this option. It allows the user to lock the favorites, history, options or email access under a user defined password. It will protect those options and the settings so that only you can make the changes and it will really remain a user customized browser.
The Privacy section covers the popups subject and the user can apply his/her own choices regarding the nagging popups (allow, ask the user, block and alert, block popups, show them in browser and log them). I don't know about most users, but I for one really hate those intrusive elements that interfere with my web browsing.
The last submenu is the Progressbar. Here the user can change the aspect of this little and apparently insignificant item. You can select the rollbar color and type (smooth or standard) and you can also choose to see the web page loading percentage.
The Email button in the toolbar will open the default mail client on your machine so that you can check and send mail on the web.
The GoodThe software is free and easy to use and it takes very little to download.
Free Browser represents an alternative to the more conservative users that cannot part from IE and the non tabbed browsers.
The Password Lock option is great and it dives you into the sense of security we all need.
The BadMost of the web browsers today tend to give the user the option of opening new pages either in new browser windows or in a new tab. Tabs are less “messier” than new windows as they do not require space in the taskbar.
On the producer's site it says that the browser is faster than any other browser. Well, I object: my default web browser and Mozilla Firefox opened the pages quicker and with fewer resources (default browser took 15,5MB of memory, with seven tabs opened versus Free Browser's 44MB of memory).
It does not support the Ctrl+Enter shortcut for the .com websites and the software does not have any kind of Help menu for the user to read and see exactly what it can do. Sometimes, it can be pretty frustrating to discover by yourself the functions and options of a software, especially when we're talking about a web browser.
The software does not allow you to organize your favorite pages.
The TruthThe truth is that I could never get used to this software, now, when it is so comfortable to use a tabbed windowed browser that takes a lot less of your computer's memory usage.
Go ahead and try it if you want to remember the IE times.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
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