If you think of Avant Browser as just another web-browser, you’re wrong. If you think of it as a spruced up Internet Explorer, then you’re on the right track. And if you think of it as IE reloaded, then you’re bang on target! That’s because many of the features of Avant browser are sure to be incorporated in the next release of Internet Explorer.
Thanks to the browser wars of the early 2000s, we’ve come a long way since choosing between IE and Netscape. Along the way, many new browsers were developed on the IE and Netscape/Mozilla models, with many features that were unique to them. Avant was also born the same way.
Much of Avant’s success can be attributed to the fact that it works more like an enhanced version of the IE browsing engine. But that can also act as a downside as it incorporates the loopholes that already exist in Internet Explorer. Additionally, there are many advantages when compared to the traditional, simple IE. In this respect, it has nothing short of the current versions of Opera and Firefox. Let’s look at some of its features now.
Avant has a built-in pop-up blocker, which is quite effective. It even has a built-in ad-blocker, which I did not find very effective. When browsing sites like Indiatimes and Cricinfo, which contain a lot of ads, I found this browser showing a list of images that it was blocking, but on the face of it, there was not much of difference between the usual lookup of these sites. I had to use other ad-blocking tools like 4google2 to block ads in it.
It supports tabbed browsing, making your browsing experience all the more refreshing. You can cycle through the open tabs using the ctrl+tab key combination. This feature gives it a look of Opera browser. A very useful feature that I found in this browser is that it supports some of the plug-ins of Internet Explorer. For instance, I use the Google toolbar with my IE and I found that the same toolbar could be inherited in the Avant browser as well. I then tested it and found that the toolbar was working in much the same way in Avant as it works in IE. The catch? If you disable the browser’s pop-up blocking function, and try to use the toolbar’s pop-up blocker, it won’t work.
It has support for skins which can be downloaded from their website, although it comes preloaded with 6 different skins. I found their skins collection to be not as impressive as that of Firefox and Opera. Like most modern day browsers, it also has support for RSS feeds. But Opera takes the cake in this department as it has a built-in RSS function that can activate the RSS downloader from the address bar itself. Microsoft has said that they will incorporate this function in the next release of IE.
Coming back to Avant, you will no longer see the dreaded Page cannot be displayed. Instead, whenever it fails to open any webpage, it will show you a custom page from where you can use Avant’s website to search the Internet. Again, a similar feature is available in Opera 8.
You can also disable web features like java applets, flash animations, scripts, sound and images as well as ActiveX components from being downloaded. The use of ActiveX has turned out to be of disadvantage to IE users as it has been used by spy ware systems to target personal information but it cannot be disabled in IE. However, you can disable this function altogether in Avant, thus saving yourself from the pain of downloading alternate browsers and familiarizing yourself with them.
In spite of all these advantages, its biggest drawback is that it works on the IE engine. Internet Explorer has its own vulnerabilities and these too are inherited by Avant browser. You will need to constantly download security patches for IE whenever they are made available by Microsoft.
I would still recommend Avant browser, as its setup file is less than 1.4MB and can be easily downloaded within minutes even on a slow connection. Overall, it is a big thumb up from me, as I use it almost all the time now ever since I downloaded it. The info I found about it courtesy Google is that it is the best browser available that is based on the Internet Explorer engine. Go for it folks! Ratings and comments most eagerly awaited!