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Maxthon and Maxthon Classic are Earth-2, alternate-reality versions of the Internet Explorer engine, topped with customization features that more closely resemble Firefox. Especially popular in China, it's one of the most popular browsers around. It renders pages fast and comes loaded with features--as if Firefox came with 90 percent of its most popular plug-ins.

The differences between the two versions are not readily apparent. Maxthon 2 features loads more customization ability, but sacrifices a bit of stability for the privilege. Its design is stylish compared to the old version, and its new approach to accessing functions makes it more … Read more

Me.dium is a free social networking tool for Firefox and Internet Explorer with a twist. It lets you browse the Internet alongside your friends, and even make new ones.

The interface is modern without being obnoxious. A sidebar and a toolbar appear in your browser window. The top panel of the sidebar is a map that lets you view what sites your friends are visiting. The bottom panel of the sidebar lets you view your friends profiles and send messages. Me.dium will definitely appeal to Facebook users because you can send messages directly to your Facebook friends from … Read more

Think that every conceivable useful feature not included in Firefox has been created? Not likely. At least now, though, we can take attachment drag-and-drop off the list with dragdropupload.

The add-on works with most major Web mail services and message board systems. Once installed, simply go to your Gmail, for example, and "compose" a new message. Hit the "add attachment" button, and instead of browsing through your complex file tree from there, you can grab the file from Windows Explorer and drag it over the file location box in the page. The plug-in supports multiple files, … Read more

This is one of the best Firefox extensions around and makes tabbed browsing even better than it already is. Tab Mix Plus can change the close button on each tab feature, control the rows of tabs when you exceed the width of the browser window, and almost everything else associated with tabs. Use your scrollwheel to browse tabs, or control tab switching via mouse gestures. You can specify where Web pages will open--in the background or the foreground, in a new tab or the current one--based on how they were created: by clicking a link, typing an address, or using … Read more

With Toyota's announcement that it's testing plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHVs) in the U.K., it seems like the Brits are getting all of the plug-in love these days. The announcement comes with the news that Toyota is partnering with EDF Energy to make the PHVs part of EDF's company fleet. The vehicles will be driven by EDF Energy employees and evaluated in real-world conditions. Electric company employees have all of the fun.

The PHVs, which is essentially a modified Toyota Prius, can be charged at a standard electrical outlet or any of the 40 charging posts in … Read more

Web site The Car Connection on Tuesday managed to get its digital hands on photos of the what is said to be the production version of the Chevy Volt, the much-ballyhooed plug-in hybrid from General Motors.

The photos were made available on GM's media Web site unintentionally, a company representative told The Detroit News. They were quickly taken down from GM's site after The Car Connection posted them.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the photos, besides the fact that the product managers feature prominently in many of them, is that there is a significantly different look between … Read more

Joost on Friday finally took an important step forward by announcing that its desktop software would be getting phased out to make way for a Web watching experience. The only problem is that special software is in fact still required--and we're not talking Adobe Flash.

Whether you're on a Mac or a Windows machine, you'll still need to install an executable file on your computer to view videos. The new plug-in sits on your desktop taskbar even when you're not viewing the site, and apparently only begins to pipe data back and forth to other users when you're watching Joost videos.

The new version of the site will be available for beta testers in about two weeks time, although I've had the chance to nose around and watch a few videos on it today. Despite the need for software, it's impressive. Videos start playing in just a few seconds and when toggled for full-screen, the quality scales up nicely.

Like before, there are pre-roll ads, although I found them less intrusive and disjointed than Hulu's experience. The only anti-user ad interference I stumbled across was when a pre-roll ad kept me from being able to scroll through content on a playlist. I had to wait about five seconds for the ad to run before I could get back to finding something to watch. Not cool.

The biggest thing missing from the new Joost is the feeling of immersion. The Joost application, for all it's faults, took you away from your desktop and everything else you were doing. Like up and comer Boxee, which runs off the core of Xbox Media Center, it's something that had personality and a really marvelous UI. The new version feels a tad sterile, although when it comes to browsing through episodes and series, there's noticeably less lag, and hey, you can continue to get work done on your computer at the same time.

Noticeably gone from the new Joost (at least for now) is the user chat. You can still comment on a video and favorite it, but the feeling of a real-time experience has gone out the door. There's also a feature called "shout it out" that lets you flag the video with various pop culture acronyms like LOL, HOT, PUKE, and the generally useful WTF. Clicking on any of these will play a canned sound clip and alert you of your flag, although it has no noticeable effect.

Ultimately the Joost experience comes down to the content and the various ways to dig through it to find something good. While the existing playlists are very good for this, when you're searching by TV network or content provider it's still difficult to simply browse by shows. For instance, clicking on MTV took me to a player that randomly began playing Laguna Beach. Ideally, it would jump me to a list of shows where I could drill down a little deeper--like what was available before.

Software aside, I'm excited to see Joost hop onto the Web. There's a lot of good content on there that you can't find elsewhere, and experiencing it in your browser will seem like second nature for newcomers--that is as long as they're willing to jump through a software hoop.

More screens after the jump.… Read more

I had a funny moment earlier this week when I showed Google's Chrome to one of my friends. She was floored that one of the top nine most visited sites featured on the browser's start page was Woot.com. Given how much browsing I do as part of this job I suppose it was surprising even to me, but it's also a hint of how intriguing your browsing history can be to others.

A service called Timelope is banking on that idea, letting users share their browsing history (or at least selected parts of it) with the … Read more

This Firefox extension takes a stab at solving a common Web problem: finding again that which you had found before. WebMynd adds two very useful functions to your browsing: site-by-site recording of where you've been, and integrating your history and Delicious bookmarks into specific Google searches. It's the Back button with brains.

The site-by-site recording creates a timeline view of your browsing and a photo browser-like display. Want the site you found Friday after lunch? Rewind using the Reel view. Looking for the site with the purple logo thing? The Grid view is good for your visual memory. … Read more