Maxthon Cloud Browser, a popular freeware web browser for Windows, Mac and mobile devices, is coming to Linux.
The Beijing-based company behind the app announced plans for a port on their ‘Community’ forum, calling it the ‘begin[ning of] a new journey’.
No timeframe for release has yet been given.
Maxthon began life on Windows back in 2002 as a wrapper for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Mobile versions for Android and iOS followed in 2012, and a Mac version was also published in the same year.
What Makes Maxthon Different?
For a browser you’ve likely never heard of you might think that Maxthon is nothing more than an identikit clone of other, more popular web browsers.
But it has a few unique features of its own that many of its fans have come to love it for.
‘Cloud Push’, for example, allows anyone with a Maxthon account to send web content from one device to another. For example, a desktop Maxthon browser can ‘push’ snippets of text, images, and websites to Maxthon on the iPad.
This feature can also be used to “push” content to another person’s device using e-mail or SMS. The recipient doesn’t need to be have Maxthon installed to see the snippet sent – something that potentially makes the browser a great collaboration tool.
‘Cloud Download’ is another tool unique to the browser. It’s not quite like a traditional back up service; it’s a super-focused storage service that makes a cloud backup of downloads made in Maxthon so that you can access them from another device.
Is that creepy or helpful? It probably lies somewhere between the two. Maxthon boast that their ‘C4 Cloud Engine’ that powers the above-mentioned features sports robust data encryption and a ‘distributed architecture’ for storage.
Other features include:
- Syncing of tabs, bookmarks, history and settings
- Night-mode & brightness controls
- Gestures controls
- Compatible with Chrome extensions
User Base
The company behind the family of browsers claim to have more than 100 million users in over 120 countries. While this is still far off reaching the dizzying heights of Google Chrome or Firefox, it’s a respectable number of a browser few have heard of.
Adding Linux support to their menagerie can only see that user base swell.
- Source: Maxthon Forum, Via Robert L.