Maxthon, a hybrid web browser from China, has gained a huge crowd of followers in its own homeland and quickly took over the first spot from the Internet Explorer itself. However, when it comes to a global market share, thing are quite different. Microsoft’s IE is still in the lead while Maxthon is miles away from being a “must have” alternative.

Can the upcoming Maxthon 3.2 release change things for good or does it still lack polish and should not compete with the big boys? We go hands on to find out!

About

As we mentioned earlier, Maxthon is a hybrid web browser that combines both Internet Explorer’s Trident and WebKit rendering engines. Therefore, users can switch between two of them without losing the functionality. Furthermore, Maxthon includes one of the fastest JavaScript engines out there, which is Google’s V8.

Review

Look and Feel

Upon web browser launch, Maxthon greets you with a familiar grid of your favorite sites, a feature, which has originated from the Opera and is now used by pretty much every web browser.

Unlike some of its competitors, Maxthon offers a variety of Speed Dial groups for quick and easy access. In addition to that, users can use their own background image or select from pre-installed ones.

On a downside, thew new tab page feels sluggish when comapred to Opera or Google Chrome. A pretty significant con, considering that it’s the most visited area.

After getting to know the web browser, the next natural step is a settings page and that’s where Maxthon truly shines.

As we mentioned in our previous review, the options window UI is well organized and is pretty much flawless.

Tabs are colorful and invite you to explore, every single setting is easy to understand, especially when Maxthon provides you with a detailed description and even some visuals. Everyone single browser should copy the concept.

How can you not love that?

Developer Tools

There is not much new to say about the Maxthon developer tools as it’s pretty much identical to Google’s Chrome or Apple’s Safari Web Inspector

If you would like to learn more about this subject, feel free to check our developer tools comparison.

Search

While other web browsers offer standard features, such as: search engines management and suggestions, Maxthon has gone one step further.

Maxthon’s Multi Search allows you to quickly access frequently visited search engines and their features; it has everything ranging from the MP3 to pictures search.

Don’t like Google Images results? No worries, you can switch to Bing with a single click.

RSS Reader

Maxthon 3 has introduced a neat looking RSS Reader, which does have a lot of potential.

As you can see from the screenshot above, it’s quite a looker and is years ahead its competition. Not only it offers a variety of display modes, but also an ability to zoom in the whole reader by simply pressing CTRL and + keys.

Just like the rest of UI, it’s pretty straightforward and it’s easy to figure things out. There is one major issue though, it doesn’t seem possible to delete a news item of your choice, as “Delete” button does nothing and right click provides little to no functionality.

Having said that, we are eager to try the Final version.

Synchronization

If you are keen on backing up your data or use a couple of PCs, then “MX Cloud Sync” will surely come in handy. After signing up, users will be able to synchronize their data, which includes: Favorites, Ad Filter, Options, Smart Address Bar and Quick Access settings.

Once logged in, Maxthon will fetch your avatar and display it in the top LEFT corner for easy identification.

Download Manager

Back in old days, Opera used to be a king of the hill when it came to download managers. However, the competitors weren’t sleeping and have since then surpassed it.

Maxthon Download Manger offers a simple way to manage downloads, not only you can manually add the URL but also control upload and download speed, which can be useful in certain situations.

Customization

After installing Maxthon, we were disappointed to find out that there were no customization options. Right clicking on the navigation or tool icons offered no option to remove any of them.

Thankfully, that was just a poor UI decision and there is actually an option to customize your UI via main menu.

The result?

Default

Customized

Not too bad, considering that it wasn’t customizable few years ago. However, we would like to see an option to remove the avatar and other elements, such as: search from the Speed Dial, remaining navigation icons and bandwidth meter.

Conclusion

If you ignore the Beta version sluggishness and a lack of polish, you are left with a great web browser that is hard not to love.

It has pretty much everything you would ever need, from features like RSS Reader and Mouse Gestures to Google’s Chrome like performance and superb web sites compatibility. Furthermore, unlike some of the competitors, Maxthon is truly an innovative web browser.

Yes, we loved it and can’t wait to try the Final build.

There is one major issue though. If you enjoy clean and highly customizable user interface, then your only alternative is Opera; and unfortunately for some of us, that’s exactly what we need.

Pros
- Great performance and web sites compatibility
- Rich feature set
- Easy to use

Cons
- “New Tab” page suffers from Internet Explorer like sluggishness
- Lacks polish (Beta)

Download

Software License: Freeware

Operating Systems Support: Microsoft Windows

Download Link: Maxthon 3

Homepage: Maxthon Browser

About

Maxthon 3 is a hybrid web browser that combines both, Internet Explorer’s Trident and WebKit rendering engines. Therefore, users can switch between two of them, in case there are compatibility issues. Furthermore, it includes one of the fastest JavaScript engines, which is Google’s V8.

Although Maxthon 3 is one of the most popular web browsers in China, it failed to gain significant ground everywhere else.

Can version 3 change that? Let’s find out.

Upon the launch, browser greets you with a simple, good looking UI, as well as an introductory page that explains the new features of Maxthon 3.

The Good

As you might expect, browser does indeed feel fast. In fact, I went ahead and deleted cache (no change), just because it loaded non-heavy web pages instantly; but then again, you can achieve pretty much same results with most modern web browsers, such as: Google Chrome.

What about features?

Maxthon 3 includes Opera’s Speed Dial with drag & drop support, allowing you to quickly access frequently visited web pages.

Additionally, you can synchronize your favorites across difference computers (registration is required, obviously).

One of the more interesting Maxthon 3 features is “Maxthon Multi Search”. Basically, it allows you to quickly seek for information via different search engines. Can be really useful, especially when it comes to images search or news.

Fortunately for web developers, it also includes WebKit Developer Tools (see the following page for comparison). No additional files or add-ons are required, just hit on the icon and you are all set.

Maxthon Magic Fill

Settings page is where Maxthon 3 truly shines. Have you ever found a setting that was not well explained (if explained at all)? Well, worry no more. Thanks to geniuses behind the idea, Maxthon does a pretty good job explaining some of them.

For those who enjoy mouse gestures, there is such feature as well.

The Bad

Although Maxthon 3 includes an integrated ad hunter, when it comes to more “advanced” use, it’s really not that useful. I couldn’t easily block flash ads and browser crashed when I tried to turn this feature off.

ACID3

As you can see from test results, although Maxthon scored 100/100, it has not passed the test.

What happens when you turn on developer tools on such page?

Anything else?

Yes, sometimes browser feels like a mess, it’s hard to find a specific setting or function you want. For example: I was trying to view page source, pressed Alt button to see the menu but nothing happened. Then went to the menu itself but couldn’t find “View Source” item. Tried “page menu” (where you enable Developer Tools, etc.), still no luck..

All I had to do was simply click right mouse button and vuala. Same with search, you can’t find “multi-search” settings in browser “Options…” menu.

Customization

One of the biggest Maxthon 3 downfalls is UI customization, or lack of it. I am not sure if it’s even possible to remove a single design element or button.

It’s like developers saying: here, use it as we tell you to, and don’t you dare to change anything.

Here’s my preferred browser UI: clean and junk free

Also, it looks like RSS Reader is no longer a part of Maxthon, at least we couldn’t find any easy way for subscribing to RSS Feeds. Their landing page does not seem to acknowledge such feature as well.

Conclusion

Maxthon 3 is a well thought out web browser that not only offers great performance and has intuitive user interface, but also, something, what every other browser lacks: exceptionally friendly configuration page for its new users.

Of course, Maxthon 3 still has stability issues and some flaws that require attention, especially when it comes to UI customization. So, if you are not a clean UI junkie, have no need for a RSS reader and just like new things, give it a spin, it’s a browser worth trying.

Software License: Freeware

Operating Systems Support: Microsoft Windows

Download Link: Maxthon 3

Homepage: Maxthon Browser

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Installation…

Not much to say there, it just looks better than the previous ones…

Reminder that it’s a beta?

OK, all finished. Let’s begin.

If I were a newbie, would probably say that this button is a print screen replacement. It just looks like a print screen button and says nothing about it’s real function.

Someone should change it. If you would click “Closed” tabs button, it will look like this:

It just doesn’t fit the current interface. Don’t you think so? Bad color + square…

Menu icons are way too dark, looks pretty much the same, are not attractive and confusing

Now not sure if this is a skin related bug, but Opera cuts half of the text when viewing previous visited pages:

Here is probably one of the worst skin bugs. As you can see, it has a little X in the top right corner

There’s nothing wrong with that. But what happens when you open one more tab? They disappear. This is a feature (same as in Opera 9), maybe limit should be increased a bit? There is still a plenty of space for the X button.

By clicking a small icon in the left corner, you can open panels (bug: when opening them via menu, scrollbar in the bottom appears) which look like this:

Icons issue again, there are no colors, looks the same… I hope they are not experiencing any kind of depression and decided to remove colors for some other reasons. Star could be yellow, little gear blue, etc. There should be some colors so users would find the one they want faster.

Buttons on click effect is burning eyes a bit and should be changed.

Maybe I am nagging too much, but tabs icon looks like an iPhone

One more icons problem. All are the same, makes it hard to find the one user wants. Forced to read all that text.

Just a small tip here: make the following button removable. CTRL+T works fine here.

If you have decided to remove top left icon before the tabs, it will look something like this:

Bit too close, 2-5px spacing would make a difference.

Status bar now has a small gradient, it actually makes the text bit harder to read. Not a big issue.

Same icons problem here:

And finally, transfers bar. Blue progress bar doesn’t match this color scheme anymore and on click effect is kind of odd.

Conclusion?

As for now, previous skin looks much better. Tabs color is too dark compared to the whole interface, (would actually prefer even darker tabs panel background if interface would match it) loaded sites text on tabs are blue (hard to read) and the issues mentioned above. I like their new style though.

7/10

Hope Opera team will also read this, improve their skin design, give me some credit or reveal a “top secret” Opera 10 feature so I can write about it here :-)

What’s your verdict?

Update:

So I went to my mom’s house (really new pc user) and installed Opera 9.5 there. Her first reaction was something like: “huh, what’s that?” After a little explanation she began using it… Instead of opening a new tab, mom typed an address on the same one. Why? Because she couldn’t find anything in the left corner (where new tab icon always was). Had to show tiny plus button in the right.

Now not sure if this has anything to do with the sight, but she haven’t noticed close tabs icon as well (old one was big and this one is very tiny).

As requested, I’m now installing Opera 9.27 there…