14 DAY TRIAL // No matter what people will say, I must agree that Internet Explorer is the browser with the greatest compatibility out there. I am not an IE fan at all, but I must admit that. I am also aware that its last final version, 6, has a lot of security issues and misses tabbed browsing. These facts led to the development of front ends that added tabbed browsing, enhanced popup blocking and other useful features.
Probably most of you already know about Maxthon, AMBrowser or Avant Browser. Today's target is another program of their family, and its name is GreenBrowser.
As most programs from its family, GreenBrowser has a very small installation kit, less than 1MB in size. The program comes packed into a ZIP file and all you have to do is unpack it to a folder on your hard drive and run it.
When you run the program for the first time you will be asked to choose your language. If you want to change this later, you can do it from the View menu, using the item called Select Language.
Let's talk a bit about the program's interface. First of all, it can use skins, but unfortunately comes with only two of them. The good part is that you can find over 20 skins ready to download on the official site.
What comes with a program, in order to extend its functionality, just like skins do it with its looks? You're right, it's the plugin. Not only one, but a lot of them. The program comes with five plugins, and installing the additional ones is very easy to do: just unpack them into the Plugins folder.
Everybody knows what a Web browser is and what it can (or should) do, so now I will point out GreenBrowser's highlights.
Every decent browser today has tabbed browsing, and GreenBrowser makes no exception. Quickly closing open tabs is done just like in Maxthon, with a double click.
Mouse gestures? Opera and Maxthon have them, so why not? Assigning actions to mouse gestures is very easy to do, can be fun and also a great time saver.
GreenBrowser can translate pages using World Lingo, all you have to do is choose the source and destination languages from the drop down menu attached to the Web/Translate Proxy button from the toolbar and then click Translate.
Customization is one of the greatest problems with today's software. In order to get the highest possible number of users, a program should be able to change according to each one's preferences. Toolbars can be customized as you like, you can add, edit and remove keyboard shortcuts for every possible operation and more.
Search engines? GreenBrowser has some search engines built in already and you can always add new ones easily.
The View Page plugin is awesome, allowing you to see the code, images, flash files, links or media files from a page and, of course, save them.
For me, this browser felt like home since I put my hands on it. I can only tell you to get it, explore (there's a lot more than what I just told you about it) and maybe, love it. From now on, I have added another name to my "favorite browsers" list: GreenBrowser.
The Good
GreenBrowser is fast, easy to use, highly customizable and can use additional skins and plugins. I can't ask much more from it.
The Bad
The only available Help system is a Web page from your hard drive that opens in the browsing window. I would like to see a nicely done Help file in the future, with all functions explained and full with screenshots (and there's a lot to write about, believe me!). The default popup filter settings won't block certain ads, but once you set the Auto Filtering level to Strict, there's no problem.
The Truth
For those wandering in the search of a better browser, this is the pick of the day. For the others, it's just as good as our current favorite, maybe even better. The truth is that if somebody didn't have the chance to use GreenBrowser so far, should do it now. Small, free, easy to use and with fast programs. So don't wait any longer!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
