AOL Readying Stand-Alone Browser

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

As the hubbub of alternative Web browsers keeps growing—from speculation over a so-called "Gbrowser" from search-engine leader Google Inc. to the many advances in the open-source Mozilla project—in the background, America Online Inc. has been quietly testing its own Web browser, dubbed "AOL Browser," for more than a month.

Departing from its past embedded strategy, the company has made the forthcoming AOL Browser a standalone piece of software and it will not need the America Online client software to be running to be used, sources familiar with the software said. In what could be considered a surprising move, AOL Browser is based on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and not on AOL's Netscape browser engine.

Sources said the AOL Browser contains many features missing from the current IE software, such as tabbed browsing and "tear-off tabs," where a tabbed window can be torn off into a new window. For privacy-conscious users, a "clear my footprints" feature allows for fast clearing of browser history, cookies, cache and recent searches. A pop-up blocker is also included.

Read entire story here.

[Umma]

Great !!! More crappy AOL software to really mess up computers!! pfffffffft

[Potato]

I'll stick with Firefox, thanks.

[rainbowdemon]

I'll stick with Firefox, thanks.

Me too!!

:yup:

[slum_goddess]

Umma, potato and rainbowdemon, you said it all. bah...more AO-Hell for users who don't know better not to mess w/AOL in the first place.

[jipper]

dunno about choo, but im so hellah download this.

AOL for the cup.

[Redneck4sure]

No mention of Netscape. Didn't AOL buy Netscape a few yrs ago? Why are they acting like they never had a browser when they own Netscape? (if they do...my flash memory has a few burned out megs.)