14 DAY TRIAL // "I browse, you browse, she browses", the truth about the Internet is that this new world wonder also known as "the World Wide Web" became such an usual thing in everyone's life that we only get to appreciate it the right way when we have connection problems...
Just like all the other human activities, like driving a car, sailing or reading, we don't use the same tools and each one of us has his own tastes, because no matter how would some or others try to say that some people are the same, we are unique. When it comes to browsing the Web, we can't have a web browser for each user surfing the Internet, but the reason for the existence of so many programs built for this purpose is that we have different needs, different tastes, and different interests when going online.
The web browsers sharing over 99 percent of the global market share are only five in number - Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Netscape, and Opera, ordered using their popularity as a criterion. I am sure that most of you heard countless stories about them, you also probably had the chance to use at least the four ones available for the Windows platform, and this makes the game even more interesting, because I had the surprise of finding excellent Web browsers lurking in the dark, and today the time has come to reveal another software application that stands in the shadow. About the "excellent" part, that what we should decide while using it...
The program I found today has a name that is rather amusing to me, since we've been living in an "iWorld" lately - iPod, iPhone and all the other "iThings" are so easy to encounter once you start your web browser and jump into the matrix, that if somebody asks you about your occupation at that time, you won't answer "I browse", but "iBrowse", and this is a really fortunate coincidence, because "iBrowse Web Explorer" is the name of the program I keep trying to reveal here.
Once upon a time, there was a Web browser for the AmigaOS called IBrowse, a follow-up to the Amiga Mosaic, one of the first programs built to serve this purpose on the Amiga platform, and although the last version of that one was released shortly before last year's end, the Windows program called iBrowse Web Explorer doesn't have any obvious relation with that one.
The last version of this program is labeled as 2.0 by its producer, and I must admit that I was shocked at first sight - I got to discover a good looking web browser that made it to the second full version and I never heard of it before! Well, you can discover it by yourselves too really quick, since the setup package has a size only a little larger than 1MB, and the install process is nothing to be scared about, even if you just landed from Mars in front of your computer, but before you do that, let me share with you my experience...
Once I finished installing iBrowse Web Explorer and I started it for the first time, I thought this program may prove to be the gem of the day, and I was hardly waiting to discover the interface themes/layouts available, as well as the additional tools that may be packed inside its interface, but the unfortunate truth that I came to discover is that what I found is nothing more than an IE-based browser that seems to have less features than Microsoft's browser.
Despite the fact that similar programs I got used to, such as Maxthon, AMBrowser or Avant don't take up all your available resources, iBrowse tries to do that, because with only two tabs open, iBrowse ate 80MB of my system's memory, and I must say that this is way too much for me.
Now, if you want to know about this program's interface, you can look at the attached pictures, but you can only draw the conclusions once you get to feel it. Let's take an easy operation that you do day by day, such as resizing. Usually, you should place your mouse's cursor at the edge of the program's window, hold the left mouse button pressed and just drag to resize, but - guess what? - it doesn't work here! Unfortunately, you can only resize the application window by pressing the blue round button located in the lower right corner and dragging, and despite the fact that this prevents accidental resizing, I didn't enjoy it at all.
The Favorites feature has a really basic implementation, and despite the fact that it can help you get the job done faster, I expected much more, and the most disappointing fact is that I tried to add a favorite link to the root favorites folder and it simply didn't work...
Getting a step further into "confusion land", the tabs management is really bad, and you will feel like trying to perform headshots in a fast first person shooter game with a mouse that has a will of its own and moves exactly as it shouldn't.
As I expected, all the settings available in the Tools menu are the Windows Internet Settings that you get to change from Internet Explorer too, so there's nothing special on this side, unfortunately.
At last, I should also notice a positive aspect - the 2PANE mode allows you to have two sites open side by side, making it much easier to copy and paste data from a web location to another, as well as comparing various sites. Unfortunately, a single leaf can't cover your nakedness...
The Good
iBrowse Web Explorer comes with its (more or less) original side-by-side browsing approach, and its looks are pretty good, at first glance... Other than these, if you don't ask too much, you may find it to be a pretty useful companion.
The Bad
The really bad part about iBrowse is that once you start using tabs, you'll discover that managing them can be a nightmare, while the various bugs of this program start popping up their heads as you keep using it, taking away all the pleasure of surfing the Web.
The Truth
As in real life, each apprentice is expected to exceed its master. I must admit that Internet Explorer 7 is a really good product, although I was never crazy about it, but this is one more reason for IE-based browsers to be much better than before. Unfortunately, iBrowse fails this trial of fire, so if you got Internet Explorer 7 and you're happy with it, don't waste your time with this. On the other hand, everyone deserves its chance, so if you have enough iTime to iWaste, try your iLuck with iBrowse!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
