I’m always on the lookout for something new – not one to stick with the “norm” or to follow the crowd and do what everyone else is doing. The other day my internet was going extremely slow, and it has been happening off and on for about a week or more now. When I have something that I want to get done, I want to get it done NOW and not have to deal with issues and problems with browsers or internet speed or anything else for that matter. So I went on a hunt for the ‘best’ browser for me to use with our ISP.
I’ve used all of the latest available versions of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer … still having issues. So I went in search of something different. I downloaded Avant, Torch, Opera, Lunascape, Maxthon Cloud Browser and Pale Moon – all browsers ‘off the beaten path’ so to speak.
While they all had their redeeming qualities, my pick is Torch Browser. Simply because it gives me the same look and feel as Chrome (which is what I’m accustomed to) and it runs off the Chromium open source project so all of my add-ons and extensions that I had in Chrome work with it as well – a definite plus. What really got me were two separate things that Torch offers that Chrome does not.
On the left of my screen in Torch is a handy little box that says “drop to share” that means exactly that. No matter what web page I am on, what I am attempting to share or where … all I need to do is drag and drop it to this box and I can share it to a variety of different social media venues such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Google+ and LinkedIn.
On the right side of my screen is another box that simply says, “drop to search.” I’ve only used it once or twice, but it worked as it said it would.
Another absolute must-have, I -will-never-be-able-to-live-without-this-again are the “share” and the “media” buttons in the Torch browser. Click the heart and share … watching a wicked video you love on YouTube or some other video service that you want to download and keep to watch offline? Click the media button and your download begins automatically … and it works for listening to songs online as well according to the developers (although I haven’t tried that particular feature yet). Another plus is that people who do a lot of downloading via Torrents can do so right in their browser window without having to have different programs installed. Torch also comes with a download accelerator, so no worries about downloads taking forever – even on a slow DSL connection like ours with Verizon. (I hope and pray that they bring FIOS to our area soon – this DSL crap is for the birds!)
I love browsers that allow me to surf the internet, listen to my music (without buffering every five seconds), share thoughts and images and ideas that pop into my head at random times without having to go through a whole bunch of clicks and logging in and this and that. That’s where the new pinned sites from Internet Explorer 10 come into play.
I have pinned to my taskbar Bing, SkyDrive, iHeart radio and Facebook via Internet Explorer’s pinned sites. So if I don’t want to have my web browser open to check out what’s going on with my friends on Facebook, I don’t need to. If I want to listen to my favorite radio station without worrying about closing it out accidentally, I can. If I just need to search a particular term or phrase, I can. Need to pull a photo from my SkyDrive? I can do that in its own window and not interfere with anything else I’m doing. I LOVE THAT! I can do this with virtually any web site that I visit frequently – a real plus for someone who bounces around on the Internet like a jackrabbit all day long like me!
Are you tired of the ‘same ole same ole’ when it comes to your web browser? Want to find something that you can customize to your wants and needs? Take a few minutes and check out the options that are available to you. You might be surprised at what you find out there waiting to amaze you!
