Besides last year's release,
Browzar and this year's release,
Safari, which were far from perfection, Avant Browser tries to be a feasible alternative to the well known Web browsers
Opera,
Internet Explorer 7 and
Firefox.
At a quick look, this browser appears to have lots of tools and options to make your browsing experience as pleasant as it can be: tabbed and very nicely designed interface, fast browsing speed, RSS/ATOM reader, password protected form filler, etc. You should know that after the first installation, the program automatically imports Internet Explorer's favorites.
You can speed up the browsing of Web pages by disabling pictures, Flash animations, videos, sounds, ActiveX controls or Java scripts or applets. The program features also an Ad Blocker and a Popup blocker in order to protect you from unwanted pushy Websites or aggressive marketing methods.
An interesting feature of this program is the Online Profile Storage. This means that you can create an account you can use to store your bookmarks, program configuration, personal passwords, etc. You can define and edit mouse gestures and you can shift from window to full screen by toggling the 'F12' key.
The program's in-built search engine is 'Avant Find' powered by Yahoo!. You can use other search engines but you need to manually enter the URL in the program settings in order to change the default search engine. Of course, you can use the hotkeys to shift between search engines.
Pluses: The Online Profile Storage which can be accessed from anywhere. This gives you access to your bookmarks and personal saved data from any location on the planet. Multilanguage support and a nice skinnable user interface.
Drawbacks / flaws: There's no option for SLL and TLS support, the email client actually is a shortcut to Outlook Express, there's no pause/resume option for downloading content from the Web. In case you choose to use the Internet Explorer addons, you can cause severe system instability.
In conclusion: Although it's not as polished as Opera or Firefox, Avant Browser is a pretty good browser, depending on your demands. Anyway, it's worth giving it a try.
version reviewed: 11.5
Avant Browser Publisher's Description
Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile tabbed web browser, which features with many functions such as Pop-up Stopper and Flash Ads Filter, AutoFills, Online Profile Storage, RSS Reader, Safe Recovery, Integrated Cleaner etc.
Online Profile Storage: Avant Browser can save users' bookmarks, RSS Feeds, configurations or web passwords etc, in Avant online storage. In this way, users can access their personal data from anywhere, office, home or an Internet cafe, and don't need to worry about losing those data when re-install windows.
AutoFills: Help users to memorize web passwords, and fill passwords for users with one click.
Flash Animation Filter: More than 85% of all flash animations on web pages are advertising, and normally take up to 90% of the size of the page you're visiting. With Avant Browser you can save the bandwidth by blocking the download of these flash files with just one easy click.
Built-in AD/Pop-up Blocker: Easily eliminate unwanted AD banners and pop-up pages automatically with just one click.
Built-in RSS/ATOM Reader: Avant Browser has a built-in RSS/ATOM Reader, which allows you to read RSS/ATOM feeds just like browsing web pages. And you can also keep your favorite feeds as bookmarks.
Additional Mouse Functions: If you click a link in the web page with the middle mouse button, the link will be opened in a new window in the background. This feature is extremely useful for opening posts in forums. Avant Browser also comes with customizable Mouse Gestures, with which you can easily navigate the browser by moving the mouse.
Control Your Privacy: With Avant Browser, you can keep your privacy by deleting all browsing traces such as: Typed Addresses, Auto-Complete Passwords, Cookies, History of Visited Web Sites, Temporary Internet Files and Search Keywords.
Safe Recovery: If Avant Browser is closed improperly, all open web pages are saved and will be automatically reopened at next startup.
What`s new in Avant Browser 11.5 build 21:
*Fixed the bug of displaying wrong keywords in Yahoo and Google.
*Fixed the coding error while importing bookmarks from Firefox.
*Fixed the menu display bug under Compact Style.
*Fixed the bug that cannot refresh tabs bar after customizing buttons.
*Fixed the bug that cannot refresh UI after switching from Compact to Standard Style.
*Fixed login window auto-closed bug after registering a new account.
*Added notification page after upgrading to new version.
*Fixed the context menu display bug on IE7.
*Modified the wrong display of the address in the 404 wrong page.
System Requirements Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Vista Internet Explorer 4.01 or higher version
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