Thunder

Thunder is a reliable and user-friendly web browser that comes bundled with a suite of handy components, especially a built-in talking piece of software, designed to offer a simple and efficient way to help people that are visually impaired to easily browse the web, get the latest news and listen to radio stations. It reads any selected or written text using an integrated voice.

Once the installation process is finished a small panel is displayed, where you can configure the voice, punctuation, hotkeys, input and speaking options. If you wish to set them later, a separate icon is pinned to the desktop beside the app's one.

The program provides an accessible and interactive interface that comes with a large and standard navigational toolbar and which displays the information as you would read a document, enabling you to surf the Internet without all the unnecessary images and ads. It includes all the essential functions, such as navigational controls, history viewer, and bookmark bar.

The homepage can be easily changed from the settings, and often visited sites can be added to a favorites list for a quicker access or removed if not needed anymore. From the "View" menu, you can switch between the text and website mode, crop the page, open the RSS newsfeed and shrink or magnify the page content.

Plus, the large navigational buttons come in handy for those with bad eyesight to quickly go through sites and enable the heading. It stores all accessed URLs in a history tab, where you can search for particular ones, as well as delete them. HTML, HTM, PDF and CHM file formats can be opened and run in the app.

From the "Options" tab you can disable general and advanced properties, such as quick keys, fetch PDFs from Google, language interface, allow pop-up windows, messages and Ajax. You can activate the option to show images and enable sounds, along with font layout and colors.

To sum it up, Thunder is a comprehensive and intuitive application designed to provide a simple method to browse webpages, fill in forms, do e-commerce, as well as chat with friends, in text-only or full-web modes while a digital voice reads the displayed text.