Five Apps: Free alternative web browsers

By matthewnawrocki September 20, 2013, 7:39 AM PDT

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Five Apps: Free alternative web browsers

Five free alternative web browsers for Windows

Thisrnscreenshot gallery is also available as a TechRepublic article.

Consideringrnthat the World Wide Web is such an important part of our lives, using the rightrnbrowser to service our needs is one of the most important components for usingrnthe Internet. Aside from the standard fare of Internet Explorer, Firefox andrnChrome, there are other alternative web browsers that deserve a fair look. Somernof them are based on pre-existing major browser projects like Chromium, while othersrnstrive for a purist “from scratch” approach. For the Windowsrnplatform, here are five solid alternative choices to the browser scene.

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Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Avant Browser 1

Five Apps

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1. Avant Browser

rnrnThose looking to have itrnall, and then some, need to look no further than the Avant Browser. In addition to therntri-core switchable rendering engine capability, which allows you to switchrnbetween Trident, Gecko, and Webkit rendering engines effortlessly, there simplyrnis no shortage of settings and tweaks at your disposal. You can set URLrncompatibility by browser engine, create mouse gestures for seamless navigation,rnstore passwords in a password protected cache and even upload bookmarks andrnbrowser settings to the cloud for quick restoration later.

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Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Avant Browser 2

Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Maxthon 1

2. Maxthon

rnrnThis Chinese-madernweb-browser has been turning heads in recent years, with its superb attentionrnto detail and useful extras. Three features that stand out the most in Maxthon are the extension sidebar, whichrngrants the user speedy access to installed add-ons, a very polished downloadrnmanager that can upload downloads to a cloud storage area for safe keeping, andrna multi-PC browser sync. Now, thanks to their massive push into the smartphonernand tablet arena, Maxthon will even sync browser data to supported mobilerndevices.

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Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Maxthon 2

Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

SRWare Iron 1

3. SRWare Iron

rnrnSecurity-minded individualsrnthat value their privacy will appreciate what this next choice has on tap.rnGerman software house SRWare has a browserrnbased on Chromium called Iron. It does away with any unique identifyingrninformation that can tie your browser back to you, as well as disabling Omniboxrnauto-complete and other Google-specific code. Yet in spite of all thesernchanges, the browser looks and functions virtually the same to standard GooglernChrome, meaning all your browser extensions will work just fine.

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Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

SRWare Iron 2

Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Midori 1

4. Midori

rnrnSometimes, simple really isrnbetter, and Midori is out to turnrnsimplicity into an art form. Although you won’t be looking to use this browserrnon rather plugin-heavy sites or for a large variety of extensions, Midori isrnquite swift at rendering standard web pages with JavaScript, HTML5, and otherrnstandards-compliant frameworks. Development is still rather young compared tornother browsers, but its capabilities grow each day, and it’s rather impressivernwork coming from a smaller open-source team.

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Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Midori 2

Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Tor Browser 1

5. Tor Browser

rnrnAnd finally, when you needrna browser that makes obfuscating web traffic easy as pie, Tor Browser should be consideredrnheavily. Several notable features are the portable EXE format for easyrntransport on a flash drive, the inclusion of several security conscious pluginsrnlike NoScript and HTTPS Anywhere, and the Vidalia Control Panel, which allowsrnyou to refresh your online “identity” and monitor bandwidth usage onrnthe Tor network quickly and easily.

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Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

Tor Browser 2

Credit: Images byrnMatthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

By matthewnawrocki

An avid technology writer and an IT guru, Matthew is here to help bring the best in software, hardware and the web to the collective consciousness of TechRepublic's readership. In addition to writing for TechRepublic, Matthew currently works as a Cus

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