Author Topic: Maxthon 2 Released (Read 35,507 times)

mouser · « **on:** July 23, 2007, 08:15 PM »

Maxthon is an IE-engine based browser that has developed a very strong following.. Version 2 has been in development for a long time and apparently has just been released to the public at large.

http://www.maxthon.com/

from http://tech.cybernetnews.com/

zridling · « **Reply #1 on:** July 23, 2007, 08:31 PM »

With the complexity that composes any modern browser, I'm surprised we're not charged for them. I'm no longer a Maxthon user because by the time 2.0 final was released today, I'd long moved on. Eager to see how Maxthon fans like it.

masu · « **Reply #2 on:** July 23, 2007, 08:41 PM »

good news
I already trying the new version

Josh · « **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2007, 11:03 PM »

I recently moved from maxthon to firefox and dont think I will look back unless opera opens itself up to third party code.

Curt · « **Reply #4 on:** July 24, 2007, 01:11 AM »

IMO Maxthon 1.6 has been the best Internet browser one can have, so I am very much looking forward to try Maxthon 2.

Maxthon 2.0.2.2961 BETA has just been released.

nudone · « **Reply #5 on:** July 24, 2007, 06:20 AM »

i'll stick with maxthon 1.6.1

lets me use and arrange all the toolbars and buttons that i want. loads in faster than opera and firefox and just seems to have things worked out better. no doubt i could find plugins for firefox that would provide the same functionality (and more) but why bother when it will still load in slower - plus i'll have to spend all that time looking and testing the plugins. (load times are important to me because i do a lot of opening and closing; maybe that's a bad habit.)

okay, my web pages are rendered crap because of the ie engine - but not very often. perhaps i'll give maxthon 2 a try again but the beta didn't do it for me - simply depends on how much i can customise the layout...

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #6 on:** July 24, 2007, 06:25 AM »

I have been testing Maxthon 2's beta releases, and today got the final, and it is a huge step up. I may swap from Firefox to Maxthon, as I really like it now.

No one browser owns my computer, though (yet...)

Nomadin · « **Reply #7 on:** July 24, 2007, 03:15 PM »

The final is a HUGE improvement over the betas. I am thrilled with it. I have move to Maxthon as my main browser, although I still have Opera and Firefox installed. It feels nearly as responsive as Opera and that is a great compliment.

f0dder · « **Reply #8 on:** July 24, 2007, 08:24 PM »

Quote from: "zridling"

With the complexity that composes any modern browser, I'm surprised we're not charged for them.

It uses the IE engine, so it's not as big a task as writing a browser completely from scratch

I used to use the Avant browser back in my IE days, liked it better than Maxthon. But because of the security issues with IE (yes, i was bitten by it, not from any suspicious site but probably a compromised banner ad server, and yes with a fully patched windows), I've been sticking with FireFox ever since (probably as full of security holes as any software, but still not as widely exploited as IE).

Opera? Sure, if it was a bit more stable and rendered more things as intended, and had plugin support.

cnewtonne · « **Reply #9 on:** July 25, 2007, 05:59 AM »

there is something weird about M2 and it may be just me. Normally when you switch pages in a browser, you go from current page to the new one. With M2, there is this annoying blank gray page that appears in the middle. I was browsing Treocentral today and this gray page kept interceding all the time. WHY?

It does not take a lot of usage to see how slow and sluggish M2 is and has been since I tested its first beta. I hate to say this. I'm in no way under-estimating the hundreds of man hours that went into developing it, but I can not help it when I see it performing this bad.

Curt · « **Reply #10 on:** July 26, 2007, 06:18 PM »

I removed Maxthon 2 again and went back to 1.6
- but I expect to try again after the next major update.

Armando · « **Reply #11 on:** July 26, 2007, 07:41 PM »

Quote from: nudone on July 24, 2007, 06:20 AM

i'll stick with maxthon 1.6.1

lets me use and arrange all the toolbars and buttons that i want. loads in faster than opera and firefox and just seems to have things worked out better. no doubt i could find plugins for firefox that would provide the same functionality (and more) but why bother when it will still load in slower - plus i'll have to spend all that time looking and testing the plugins. (load times are important to me because i do a lot of opening and closing; maybe that's a bad habit.)

okay, my web pages are rendered crap because of the ie engine - but not very often. perhaps i'll give maxthon 2 a try again but the beta didn't do it for me - simply depends on how much i can customise the layout...

Quote from: Curt on July 26, 2007, 06:18 PM

I removed Maxthon 2 again and went back to 1.6
- but I expect to try again after the next major update.

Same thing here.

I honestly don't really see what greatness Maxthon 2 is bringing to the table. yes, it'S cute.

But I like Maxthon 1.6 better, even if uglier:

- fast
- feature full
- very small memory footprint (maybe is just a trick though... but I have never been able to find out how it does it).

I really like Firefox too, and have it installed, but rarely use it (for the same reasons nudone mentioned). Maybe I will, one day, if I install more RAM and I don't care about giving a big chunk of it to Firefox...

Curt · « **Reply #12 on:** July 26, 2007, 09:53 PM »

Quote from: Armando on July 26, 2007, 07:41 PM

i'll stick with maxthon 1.6.1

- very small memory footprint (maybe is just a trick though... but I have never been able to find out how it does it).

- you told it to, at the setup: "Do you want Maxthon to often release memory?"
(or how it was phrased).

Armando · « **Reply #13 on:** July 26, 2007, 11:35 PM »

Quote from: Curt on July 26, 2007, 09:53 PM

- you told it to, at the setup: "Do you want Maxthon to often release memory?"
(or how it was phrased).

yes yes...

But, still, even if it "releases memory", it still is as fast... I don,t see too much I/O activity when I switch tabs. I'm telling you : magic.

Darwin · « **Reply #14 on:** July 31, 2007, 04:42 PM »

I'm still on 1.6. M2 is nice, but I don't find it as easy to use as M1.6. Like Curt, I'll be waiting to see what updates bring...

lanux128 · « **Reply #15 on:** August 01, 2007, 12:38 AM »

Quote from: Darwin on July 31, 2007, 04:42 PM

I'm still on 1.6. M2 is nice, but I don't find it as easy to use as M1.6...

i'm still stuck at 1.5.9 but then i use MyIE2/Maxthon just to view pages that aren't compatible with Firefox..

skywalka · « **Reply #16 on:** August 04, 2007, 10:29 PM »

What I love about M2 is that it disables things like flash for all tabs except the active tab. Very useful for sites like YouTube. You can open a dozen video pages but the video will not play until that tab is activated.

MAXTHON RULES!!!!

Curt · « **Reply #17 on:** August 04, 2007, 11:01 PM »

Quote from: skywalka on August 04, 2007, 10:29 PM

.. disables things like flash for all tabs except the active tab ...

That sounds like a really wise feature, skywalka!

-

But how about consume of open- response- and load- time?
I found it to be too slow - sort of too Firefoxy...

skywalka · « **Reply #18 on:** August 04, 2007, 11:29 PM »

Speed isn't a problem for me but I've had memory issues. I opened nothing but a MySpace page the other day & saw my memory instantly jump by 300MB. Maxthon has a fantastic online forum. I was going to ask about the problem there, however my Windows install is a couple years old & I'm not convinced M2 is the problem. I'm hoping to reinstall Windows in a couple weeks.

It's still the best browser, for me anyhow.

Also, some may be interested to know that you can use the Gecko engine with M1. I don't think this has been implemented with M2, at least not yet.

Mamoun · « **Reply #19 on:** August 09, 2007, 06:05 PM »

Hi all, I'm a moderator from Maxthon's forum, and a big fan of Donations coder and have installed a LOT of your handy applications, I only didn't have the chance to post until now.

Although I really recommend using the forum for your problem and/or question, I would be really glad to answer any question you have, I'm not here to advertise it BTW.

Quote from: nudone on July 24, 2007, 06:20 AM

i'll stick with maxthon 1.6.1

lets me use and arrange all the toolbars and buttons that i want. loads in faster than opera and firefox and just seems to have things worked out better. no doubt i could find plugins for firefox that would provide the same functionality (and more) but why bother when it will still load in slower - plus i'll have to spend all that time looking and testing the plugins. (load times are important to me because i do a lot of opening and closing; maybe that's a bad habit.)

okay, my web pages are rendered crap because of the ie engine - but not very often. perhaps i'll give maxthon 2 a try again but the beta didn't do it for me - simply depends on how much i can customise the layout...

Actually M2 is milles away fromm M1 in terms of customizabl-ity (If that was even a word

), M2 uses a framework similar to Office 2003's interface, You can basically drag anything to anywhere, make new buttons from menus, customizing their look...etc

Also toolbars can be dragged to all directions, also they dock to any side of the screen.

Although I agree on the memory usage, Pretty high comparing to M1, But keep in mind that M1 took almost 4 years (may be even more) to become what it is now, while M2 is pretty young.

nudone · « **Reply #20 on:** August 09, 2007, 07:18 PM »

thanks for being here, Mamoun.

i have tried to arrange the toolbar and buttons around in maxthon 2 and i really can't get the same layout i'm happy with when using the older version of maxthon.

here's a screen shot of what i use.
[attach=#]

it might seem trivial but this is what i'm used to and i find the position of the 'go' and 'back' button to be just how i want them, i.e. in the center of the toolbar.

i tried to set the maxthon 2 toolbar and menus the same but i couldn't do it. i will try again just to be sure.

Curt · « **Reply #21 on:** August 09, 2007, 07:29 PM »

Customizability is a good thing, but cannot be the goal itself, can it. If M2 stays as slow as Firefox, but doesn't have the same endless list of extensions as the fox, it may need further raison d'ˆtre. I keep using Max 1.6 for the speed, not for the number of extensions or the customizing. Don't get me wrong; I would love to have all the same extensions for Maxthon as I have for my Firefox, but because of the lack of speed I only use Firefox when I need a feature from one of the addons. If Firefox was as fast as Maxthon 1.6 I would always use Firefox! On the other hand, if Maxthon had the same useful addons as Firefox I would never use Mozilla!

M2 is still a baby, and a lovely baby that is! Now, please concentrate on speed and addons!

Edit: I too want the navigation buttons (go + back) to be in the center of the toolbar.

Darwin · « **Reply #22 on:** August 09, 2007, 07:41 PM »

Yup, I'm with Curt on this one. Another biggie for me is that a number of IE plugins that I like and use under 1.6.1 aren't supported under M2 and/or aren't as nice to use under M2 (Roboform, for example. Netsnippets is on that I simply cannot get to work. Period.). These are deal breakers for me, for now. M2 is installed but I am not using it, still defaulting to M 1.6.1

Mamoun · « **Reply #23 on:** August 09, 2007, 08:17 PM »

Quote from: nudone on August 09, 2007, 07:18 PM

thanks for being here, Mamoun.

i have tried to arrange the toolbar and buttons around in maxthon 2 and i really can't get the same layout i'm happy with when using the older version of maxthon.

here's a screen shot of what i use.

**snipped**

it might seem trivial but this is what i'm used to and i find the position of the 'go' and 'back' button to be just how i want them, i.e. in the center of the toolbar.

i tried to set the maxthon 2 toolbar and menus the same but i couldn't do it. i will try again just to be sure.

I have done the customizations for you, download the attachment then extract it to your Maxthon folder / Your e-mail account in case you are using a personal account, or the folder shared account in case of a shared account (Duh!

) / config /

Replace the UI.xml while Maxthon is closed.

Of course some buttons or menu items are not available, But it's only an example to how to change the interface the way you like, I'm not trying to convince you to try it, just showing something you might have missed.

Quote from: Darwin on August 09, 2007, 07:41 PM

Yup, I'm with Curt on this one. Another biggie for me is that a number of IE plugins that I like and use under 1.6.1 aren't supported under M2 and/or aren't as nice to use under M2 (Roboform, for example. Netsnippets is on that I simply cannot get to work. Period.). These are deal breakers for me, for now. M2 is installed but I am not using it, still defaulting to M 1.6.1

Yeah, IE plugins don't work (at least until now), but roboform's lower toolbar works, only the native support is not available, Use the system tray icon of roboform to attach it to Maxthon's windows...

Darwin · « **Reply #24 on:** August 09, 2007, 09:46 PM »

Quote

Yeah, IE plugins don't work (at least until now), but roboform's lower toolbar works, only the native support is not available, Use the system tray icon of roboform to attach it to Maxthon's windows...

Yeah, I'm aware of the workaround, but I hate running the Roboform sys tray icon (hogs precious resources and if I'm running M2 there are even more resources drifting away!). Yes, I know - I'm high maintenance! I'm confident that these issues will be resolved over time and comtent to bide my time.