Topic: New free browser launched

[Clive]

A new browser, Visual Explorer, has been launched by software company BlueG.

Visual Explorer 1.2 is available as a free download and is described by its makers as "exactly what web users have been waiting for".

Claiming to offer better search engine support and privacy protection than other browsers, Visual Explorer will let you right-click on any word within the text of a web page and instantly conduct a search for the term.

Another area in which Visual Explorer 1.2 is better than other browsers is printing web pages, the company claimed.

"With Visual Explorer users can also print web pages precisely as they appear on screen," said Darren Bond of BlueG.

"Visual Explorer captures the 'real' page as viewed by the user and sends this to the printer with the usual print preview facility. No other browser does this," Bond continued.

The browser market has become increasingly crowded in recent months.

Internet Explorer and Firefox are traditionally seen as the main competitors, though Opera and Apple's Safari have a small portion of the market too.

However, Google has recently launched the Chrome browser, a move that took the technology world by surprise.

Though Chrome only has a 0.8 per cent market share, according to statistics from NetApplications, it has already grabbed a user base bigger than that of Opera.


www.visual-explorer.com
www.netapplications.com

[Rik]

Interestingly, HP have been shipping a utility with their printers to handle web page printing...

[chorleydave]

Hmm.  Interesting, but I need a question to be answered before I give it a whirl as my "substitute" browser.

There are references to Internet Explorer.  For example:

Visual Explorer's address bar works intuitively with Internet Explorer's address bar - adding a new URL to Internet Explorer will also be shown in Visual Explorer the next time it is run.

Does this mean that Visual Explorer is just another Avant - an enhanced interface on top of IE?

[chorleydave]

I have found the answer to my question here.

As I already have Avant for those rare occasions when I have to use IE, I don't expect that I'll be bothering downloading another.

[Simon]

Thanks Dave, I haven't had to use IE for as long as I can recall now, so I think I'll give it a miss.