AOL Explorer Browser

I was never a fan of AOL. No reason. But I never liked that company. I just happened to download and install its internet browser. Just like that. And I was pleasantly surprised. It has some great features and experience. Firstly it is not radically different or built from scratch like Mozilla based browsers. It based on Microsoft Internet Explorer. More likely it is a skin (with a lot of features) on the plain vanilla IE.

It has tabbed browsing in-built in it, it has some cool skins to go with it, though I felt the default look is the best. It uses the same settings as that of IE so there is one less thing to worry about. Additionally it comes with the AOL spy ware and virus scanner which scans your computer as you start the browser and also does it periodically for free. It also has the search window in the tool bar which it defaults (naturally) to AOL search (which incidentally is powered by Google.

One of the coolest feature included, according to me, is the "Power Browsing". I initially thought of describing each and every menu item there, but I figured it would be more fun to explore it on your own. Go ahead and do it.

One important addition that I think is a first among web browsers is the "Security" menu item. It lets you configure the security and run a spy ware scan among other things. I think Mozilla and Microsoft alike can take a leaf out of this book and add it to their browsers.

The rest are just usual but interestingly placed tools like Favourites, History, Links, Feeds etc.

The only annoyance I found in this is that it defaults to AOL home page as the browser home page in addition to your IE home page which it opens in a new tab. I could get rid of the IE home page, but I was not able to get rid of the AOL home page, yet. If I can get rid of that, it would be great.

Even with that small annoyance, I find AOL Explorer browser a great browser. With such a great browser, who needs IE 7.0!