Saturday, October 30, 2004

Browser Newcomer, iRider, Beats Firefox Extensions

Robin Good Marjolein Hoekstra, an independent writer who contributes to the Robin Good network says she prefers a new paid-for browser, iRider, over Firefox and its extensions. For a nominal fee of $29 USD, she considers it to be money well spent.

This is not the first time that I have heard this. Andilinks, a member of the Band of Gonzos forum, has tried iRider out already and came to the same conclusion. That conclusion is that it beats Firefox hands down in many departments.

The one feature that both Andi and Marjolein highly acclaimed was the sidebar navigation. Much akin to tabbed-browsing, this has more advanced features that tabbed browsing cannot provide. The sidebar is visually appealing by showing you thumbnail shots of the websites you are visiting. The navigation panel will let you instantly know whether a page is done downloading, whether you have visited a page or not, allows you to "pin" a page for future use (pinned pages are retained from one iRider session onto the next) and at which level the link was opened.

iRider is an Internet Explorer based product. iRider claims that they have plugged several security holes in their browser that currently plague other versions of IE. They also offer highly detailed technical support to secure your browser even further.

With security issues aside however, being an IE-based browser, iRider will accept any IE plugins that you may have grown attached to or just cannot do without. One such plugin, Pluck, which turns your IE into a full fledged newsreader has no comparative extension available in Firefox (Sage does not even come close).

UPDATE: I erroneously reported that Robin Good recommended iRider. The article actually was written by Marjolein Hoekstra, an independent writer who contributes to the Robin Good network.
"While I wholeheartedly respect Marjolein in-depth reporting and viewpoint, I have personally never stated that I would toss USD $29 to have iRider replace my FireFox.

I am a strong supporter of moving away from the IE platform, so while I must bow to iRider useful innovations, I look forward to having those same features without having to depend on IE."
My apologies Robin.

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