Maxthon Cloud Browser: A Completely Different Browsing Experience

Maxthon has come a very long way since originally dubbing themselves as a mere replacement to Internet Explorer. As MyIE Browser, it boasted features like tabbed browsing and mouse gestures. Today, it’s much more.

You and I have both witnessed browsers like Rockmelt come and go without even denting the browser market. While Maxthon currently has no significant presence beside names like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE, it’s still worth your attention. I’ve seen competing browsers take an approach to cloud browsing and do it much less effectively.

Let’s check out what new developments have come to the latest version of Maxthon and go over what makes this application interesting.

Maxthon

If you used Maxthon more than a year ago, I’m not doubting you if you say that you weren’t impressed. Maxthon offered absolutely nothing new to the world of web browsing and, at the very best, it came across as the next best browser to Internet Explorer (wherever that may reside in the rankings).

The browser climate has now completely evolved, and everything is now up in the cloud. The Maxthon team deserves great credit for how quickly they revved up to speed and followed what’s current.

As MUO’s keeper of portable applications, I love that Maxthon offers an official portable version of their browser. Too many browsers dismiss portability and rely on third-party developers to pick up the slack for them. Maxthon has excelled in this area.

The Maxthon web browser has also been made fully available on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android platforms. Reaching such a broad audience on every platform is another way to see your browser succeed. A wide range of compatibility works perfectly with the in-cloud nature of the browser.

Cloud Features

Signing up for a Maxthon Passport opens you up to a wide range of awesome cloud features.

Cloud Push is the most significant integration. After registering for Maxthon Passport, feel free to right-click any image, link, block of text, or tab and select Cloud Push to…. From there, you’ll be prompted to log into your account.

You’ll then be met with the Choose a device prompt that will allow you to push this content directly to any other device that you have (assuming Maxthon has been connected). As you can see in the above screenshot, I’ve got no other devices connected through Maxthon but you’re still able to push content to your cloud storage.

Another very useful feature is Cloud Download. When prompted to download any file through the Maxthon browser, you can tick a box that will additionally send that download straight to your cloud.

Cloud Tabs is a feature that is coming up commonly in mobile versions of some of our other favorite browsers, where your open tabs will synchronize across Mac, Android, and iOS devices. Cloud Sync is becoming just as common in browsers like Firefox and Opera, where all of your favorites, settings, and form data can be saved to the cloud so that you never lose that important information.

Other Features

Magic Fill is like a localized version of LastPass. You’re able to save identities and login information within your browser and sync it to the cloud (as aforementioned). Most browsers today support this functionality, but not all of them support the cloud.

Ad Hunter is Maxthon’s integrated solution to blocking pesky advertisements and pop-ups. Be advised that not all advertisements are blocked by Ad Hunter (which I completely support), but you’re given a point-and-click option that will allow you to add rules to your list of blocked ads. It’s a great feature.

My favorite new functionality may be Resource Sniffer, which is an all-in-one way to rip video, audio, and images from a website. No more third-party image scrapers and no more YouTube-to-video converters. Just use this.

Additional features includes neat perks like New Session, allowing you to create two instances of the same website for multiple logins, SkyNote, allowing you to create and access notes within the browser, and Maxthon Snap, an integrated way to take beautiful webpage screenshots.

Do you guys think the new Maxthon web browser is worth a try? I gave the browser a spin and was very impressed by all of the new features. Let me know what you think in the comments.

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