Runner

The main way to go for a ride on the information superhighway is to use a web browser. Several industry giants have managed to make a name for themselves, but alternatives are not to be completely disconsidered. To prove this, Runner comes with all necessary means that let you connect to the Internet in a jiffy, at the cost of little system resources.

A first look at the application and you already know hot to handle each button, menu or text field. The design is clean, with a compact upper toolbar fitted with navigation buttons, URL field, as well as an implemented search engine to quickly find info of interest. The rest of the space is the preview area, while maximizing the window cleverly covers your whole screen for an enhanced experience.

More comfort is provided by the clever tab support. You can open up as many as you like, at the cost of some system resources, depending on the page content. Sadly, these cannot be arranged, making navigation a little difficult when a lot are active.

Sticking to multiple pages, there's an integrated favorites manager so you can later on access pages of interest a lot easier. By default, Internet Explorer items are imported, but you can add your own. However, ease of access is not really provided because you need to access the manager each time you want to open a saved page.

You can set a custom homepage to greet you each time you run the application. The implemented search engine comes with a few choices, with options to pick what service to retrieve results, such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing.

There's no considerable difference between Runner and others of its kind in terms of loading speed, although you can disable various features and elements for more power. Not a lot of system resources are used, but these count as a lot considering the variety of features at your disposal.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Runner is not the best of its kind, but it sure is on the right track. Visual design is simple and intuitive, but it's a pity you can't enhance your toolbar with favorite items. System resources used don't put too much pressure on your machine. Overall, it's worth a try if you're looking for a simple alternative that offers a fully-featured browsing experience.