MaxthonGuy Yells ‘First!’
Posted on February 10th, 2009 | 7 Comments »
I always get a kick out of reading the Maxthon Blog because some of the claims made about either Maxthon or its competitor web browsers are so outlandish. This time around, a press release was posted claiming the following:
Maxthon’s engineers redesigned the browser’s framework so that each tab associated with a Web site works independent of each other. With that new architecture, if a tab becomes unresponsive for any reason, the other tabs and the browser are unaffected. The computer user can continue to browse normally and can refresh, reopen, or close the tab that is creating problems.
“Basically, our technology separates the tab and the browser,” said Jeff Chen, CEO of Maxthon. “That [sic] why the tab’s problem will not affect the browser’s performance, and so the browser can be a better environment to run Web application in tabs.
“As far as I know, no other major browser has such a feature,” Chen said.
I can understand making a claim like that last one in a press release, since you’re trying to set yourself apart from the competition. Plus, Jeff Chen said “as far as I know,” which at least keeps the claim from being matter-of-fact. However, I think it’s pretty inexcusable to make such matter-of-fact claims directly on your product’s blog when common knowledge suggests the opposite.
Before posting the aforelinked press release, the following was posted to the Maxthon Blog:
“…other browsers without [Maxthon's new feature] The Isolator – which would be, let’s see…. All of them. – can’t protect their tabs the way Max does.”
When an astute (or at least, non-delusional) commenter mentioned Google Chrome as a browser already supporting this feature, MaxthonGuy, the persona behind the madness that is Maxthon Blog, had this to say:
“Chrome does have a feature, Crash Control, that has a purpose similar to that of The Isolator. But the two technologies work differently, and Crash Control can’t save you from the Flash-inspired crashes that The Isolator blocks.”
So I guess if a feature has been implemented differently, then it doesn’t actually exist in any other browser. Using that logic, I suppose Internet Explorer was the first web browser to support tabbed browsing. But don’t worry, Firefox and Safari fans, your browsers were, too – despite what Opera or NetCaptor might have to say about it!
I just had to get this absurdity out of the way before I post a more in-depth look at multi-process architectures in web browsers.
Tags: Architecture, Chrome, Crash Control, Features, History, Maxthon, Maxthon Blog, MaxthonGuy, Multi-process, NetCaptor, Tabs, The Isolator
7 Responses
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[...] the nonsense aside, now that it seems like multi-process architectures are beginning to surface in the world of [...]
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Hi, BrowersphereGuy…
As one Guy to another, I’m sure you want your blog to be as accurate as my Maxthon Blog (http://blog.maxthon.com/). So here are a couple of minor corrections.
First, I didn’t write the piece “A Farewell to Freeze Headaches.” It was written by a Maxthon developer, the talented Jin Jiang.
Second, the official press release that went to editors, did include this paragraph immediately after Jeff Chen’s comment that he didn’t know of a browser with the same feature as The Isolator: “Google’s Chrome has a Crash Control feature that has a purpose similar to The Isolator, but uses a different technology. It cannot stop freezes cause by Flash programs, which Maxthon’s Isolator can prevent.”
The copy of the press release in the blog was from an earlier draft and posted accidentally. Thanks for the catch. I’ll correct the blog entry.
Now I’m curious. Is there something basic you don’t like about Maxthon–besides me? I notice you post the sites and regular information for the other five major browsers. But it can’t have escaped your attention that–depsite pollsters’ insistance on hiding the number of surfers using Max within the statistics for Internet Explorer—Maxthon has gathered a large, enthusiast number of users. Have you tried Maxthon? A lot of people who do think it’s a hoot.
Finally, a special thanks for conferring on me the title of “the persona behind the madness that is Maxthon Blog.” I am honored.
MaxthonGuy
a.k.a. The Persona Behind the Madness that is Maxthon Blog
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Thanks for dropping by and for taking the time to comment, MaxthonGuy. Just to be clear, I’m pretty sure I didn’t credit the “A Farewell to Freeze Headaches” piece to you. However, it’s now after 2am where I am, and my mind just may be playing tricks on me.
I have nothing against Maxthon, and feel that I’ve given it some pretty decent coverage here at Browsersphere in the past.
I do have a preference for tactful and honest blogging, though, so when I see outlandish claims being made or the truth being twisted to benefit one party over another, I tend to try and call it out.
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m of course a victim of my own biases, but I do my best not to let them show too much here.
I’ll leave the determination of whether or not I’m succeeding as an exercise to the reader.
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Hi, Bernie…
Good reply. Actually, I consider Browersphere, along with WebProNews, to be one of the two best sites for browser information. That’s one reason I’d really like to see Maxthon.com included in your listing of browser sites. Not too much to ask, is it?
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Careful with the compliments, MaxthonGuy, or I may start taking it easier on you.
But no, that’s not too much to ask, so I’ve added a link to Maxthon to the site’s sidebar.
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personally, I don’t care who created a new underlying concept or technology first, I only care who make it actually work in real daily usage first. In that sense, I agree with the Maxthon blog in that Maxthon is the first to do it, or rather the first to make it actually work.
Sure, the multi-process thing was started by IE8 and Chrome, but in IE8 it doesn’t work at all, at least to the end-users The whole browser still frequently freezes up, becomes unresponsive, just because one tab has loaded something it doesn’t like. And then when you shut down that problematic tab process with Task Manager, it automatically reopens and reloads the same content and easily freezes up again.
Chrome is much better here, but still many times the main browser process becomes unresponsive just because of one bad tab process, and then there’s the plugin problem (and usually Flash content is the reason behind a tab freeze up 90% of the time). So Chrome is better than IE8, but still not really good for practical use.
Now Maxthon is the first browser that actually implemented this feature/idea in a way that it actually works most of the time. And if I’m not wrong, it’s the first tabbed browser that one modal pop-up dialog (javascript alert for example) in one tab doesn’t locks up the whole browser before you close the pop-up. So you can have a modal pop-up dialog in one tab, and still choose to close the tab or switch to another tab without closing the pop-up first. So to the end-users, Maxthon IS the first browser that gives them the browsing experience where each tab is truly isolated from each other.
I think what really counts is not who first comes up an idea that says “I want to make tabs stable and isolated from each other”, but who first successfully implemented this idea to make it actually work.