HydraBrowser: Is it possible to have too many browser tools?

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Freeware, Browser Tips

HydraBrowser: Is it possible to have too many browser tools?

by Brad Linder Apr 14th 2008

We love software that packs a ton of tools and features into a single package. Call it Swiss Army Knife addiction. But it's just possible that HydraBrowser might go too far. At its most basic level, HydraBrowser is a web browser based on Internet Explorer, which means it will user whatever version of Internet Explorer you've got installed on your PC as its rendering engine. But HydraBrowser packs a ton of tools that you won't find in IE7 unless you spend the next week customizing it with add-ons.

Here are just a few of the things that set HydraBrowser apart from Internet Explorer:

Tabbed toolbar navigation that displays a separate set of menu options and icons for Tools, Edit, Favorites & Sidebar, Security & Settings, Tools, and RSS
A web gallery feature which lets you add thumbnailed bookmarks for pages you regularly visit to the navigation toolbar
Integrated translation tools using Google or Babelfish
Easy access to pop-up/ad-blocking settings as well as image, video, and sound blocking
Built in backup utility for saving your HydraBrowser settings.

Overall, HydraBrowser is choc full of useful features. And you can minimize the toolbars and sidebars which take up so much screen real estate in the image above. But overall, we're a little overwhelmed with the application. It suffers from a bit of Flock syndrome, in that there are so many tools you might never need that you kind of wonder why you'd ever want to use this browser instead of IE7 or Firefox.

[via Online Tech Tips]

Tags: hydrabrowser, ie, web-browsers

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Richard said 12:36PM on 4-14-2008

The UI, whilst unpolished, looks better than IE7. I hope Microsoft base their UI design for IE8 on Office 2007.

Quikboy said 7:53AM on 4-15-2008

I don't know. I really like IE7's simple interface. The bare basics don't take up a lot of screen space and I like working with that advantage.

Most other browsers (inc. this) take up a lot of unnecessary screen space. With some things, the bare basics don't need a fancy UI.

Microsoft actually was considering that, but I guess they skipped it for IE8, or they just didn't like it. It's comes from Paul Thurott, a tech enthusiast - http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/ie8_ribbon_proto.jpg

lilpunk1302 said 10:23PM on 4-14-2008

Anyone else see the striking resemblance to Office 07...?(Mainly Word, but that's all i use so don't knwo about the rest of em)

Quikboy said 7:53AM on 4-15-2008

Probably because it's based off of that UI.

Microsoft allows anyone to get a license to use the popular Office 2007 Interface, as long as it doesn't compete directly with Office. I thought it was rather nice of MS, instead of keeping it to themselves : http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/11/21/licensing-the-2007-microsoft-office-user-interface.aspx

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