New browser speeds up Internet (iRider)

King5 ^ | 5.12.05 | Mike Goldfein

[ambrose]

New browser speeds up Internet

May 12, 2005

Mike Goldfein Tech Files are video reports examining popular topics about technology and the Internet. Links to helpful Web sites are listed. Mike Goldfein reports from the Belo Washington bureau.

STORY

In our digital age, the one thing we all spend way too much time doing is surfing the Web. One reason is that it's fun. But another may be that the most popular browsers are not designed for speed and convenience. Here's one that is.

Here's Mike Goldfein:

For lack of a better analogy, it seems to me that browsers are a bit like racehorses.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is like the old gray nag.

Opera is like a Shetland pony — cute but eccentric.

And Mozilla Firefox reminds me of Mr. Ed — popular but, at times, cranky.

But if you're looking for Secretariat, then this is the way to go.

It is called iRider — check out iRider.com. It does tricks the others can only dream of.

The biggest one is called Surf-Ahead.

While reading a site, right-click on any link. While you continue to read, the next page is loaded and ready.

It shows up on the page list bar. A blue bar shows the page loading. Then just click that thumbnail.

Say you want to sample an entire page full of links, just highlight them all and right-click.

They all load up.

Then you can simply drag the cursor over those thumbnails, and the pages whiz by.

When you're finished, hit "Close All," and they're gone.

If you want to save one, just pin it, and it will stay there indefinitely.

Another nice feature is that iRiders' home page lets you search numerous sites, like Google and Yahoo, at once — returning the results simultaneously.

Now while iRider does turbocharge your ability to cruise the Web, it takes a bit of getting used to — especially dealing with occasional confusion of having opened a ton of pages at the same time.

Unfortunately, iRider isn't free. It costs $29. But you can try it for free for three weeks.

On the Web for Belo Interactive, I'm Mike Goldfein.

LEARN MORE In a related note, two security holes have been identified in the increasingly popular Mozilla Firefox browser. Mozilla says a patch is on the way, but recommends that users disable Java in the meantime.

[Paleo Conservative]

Anything is faster than Internet Exploder 6.

[DB]

I've used iRider for quite awhile now.

For research and Google searches there is nothing better. You can keep all interesting hits without adding them to your favorites and going to all the trouble of managing temporary information (among other things).

[dts32041]

tried dumped still using firefox

[Dubya-M-Dees]

Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later must already be installed on your computer. Version 4.x is compatible, but unsupported. (If you're still using Internet Explorer 4.x or earlier, you probably want to upgrade to a later version for security reasons if nothing else.)

IE Based... bleh. I'll keep my FireFox thank you. ;)

[SolitaryMan]

I use Maxthon, it uses the IE engine, but has tabbed browsing and tons of options and features that most other browsers don't even think of or come close to.

[ambrose]

The only complaint I have with IE is the lack of tabs...

[yevgenie]

Hrmmm... I already have most (almost all) of these features (and more) with my Firefox (with a few extensions).