Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

There’s no doubt that Google has a focus on making their presence known around the Globe. Their latest move of investing money into the Maxthon Web Browser could be part of this effort, and really comes as no surprise.

Earlier today, TechCrunch reported that the Maxthon Browser has sold a stake to Google worth $1 million dollars.  They’re also reporting that it’s a smaller part to the bigger picture between them. 

We’ve covered Maxthon before – it’s a web browser based upon the Internet Explorer platform that has tabbed browsing and lots of customization. It’s a cross between Firefox and Internet Explorer.Their developers are based in Beijing, as well as a good portion of their users.

Half of all Maxthon users at this point are Chinese, and in fact, 17% of the Chinese web population uses the browser for web search.

Read/Write Web points out how Firefox may feel some jealousy towards this deal.  Afterall, they’ve been Google’s #1 side kick in terms of web browsers go.  However, I don’t think Firefox really has much reason to worry.  If anything, Google is getting involved with Maxthon in hopes of making a bigger presence in China.

Another possible motive behind this is that Baidu is currently the default search for the Maxthon browser in China, and Yahoo is the default search engine elsewhere.  With this deal, one would probably expect that those default searches would change to Google all around. Smart move Google.

Maxthon (Stable Version 1.5.9) – download

Maxthon Beta 2 – download

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

Though Maxthon launched its Android browser three years ago, it might not be the go-to app most users have when they get their brand new smartphone. That might change soon however, thanks to a recently announced partnership between the software company and RollTech, the value-added services arm of MediaTek, one of the world’s largest mobile chipset suppliers. As a result of the collaboration, the Maxthon mobile browser will be pre-installed in more than 100 million MediaTek-based smartphones in 2014. Though we don’t know yet just which devices will have the software on board, a partially released list does include manufacturers like LG, ZTE and Lenovo. It appears that the phones will likely be targeted at emerging markets, with a focus on those in Brazil, Russia, China, India and Indonesia. Combine that with features like cloud syncing and LAN file transfer, and Maxthon might just gain marketshare over that other popular Android browser.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

Comments

Maxthon has long since escaped the days when it was chiefly a customized version of Internet Explorer on the desktop, and nowhere is that more apparent than its just-launched version of the normally WebKit-based browser for the iPhone and iPod touch. All the core features of the app carry over from earlier Android and iPad versions, such as an Opera-like grid of favorite pages, a download manager and a unified address bar, but it’s arguably more useful than the iPad edition: conventional browser tabs aren’t coming to smaller-screened iOS devices in a future mobile Safari build anytime soon. Bookmark syncing and an optimized reading mode also persist to reduce the chance that Maxthon users drift back towards the official Apple browser, even after iOS 6 rolls around. With that all-important “free” price tag, there’s every reason to give it a try — let others know in the comments if Maxthon is enough to take precedence over comparable iOS alternatives like Chrome.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Maxthon web browser arrives in bite-sized form for iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  App Store  | Email this | Comments