Avant browser is a relatively lesser known competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. But it has quite a few interesting features that make it an attractive alternative to IE 7 and undoubtedly a winner over IE 6.

Why I chose Avant over the XP’s built in IE 6?
Avant offers several significant enhancements over IE6 such as tabbed browsing, integrated search, delete browsing history and temporary interfiles with one click, integrated password manager and several others. Al of these features combined make it a very attractive alternative to IE6. From download.com review:

… options for blocking the download of Flash media, pictures, video, sounds, and ActiveX components, so users can efficiently use their bandwidth and speed up page loading. All opened pages can be stopped, refreshed, closed, or arranged with one click. It also comes with built-in RSS reader.

Why choose Avant over the Vista’s built in IE 7?
Both have tabbed browsing features and pretty similar looks. In fact Avant uses IE’s core - this means under the hood Avant is basically Internet Explorer with a few extras. But the primary reason why I chose Avant is speed. And not just millisecond speeds. Avant takes just an eye blink to open since the time you click on its icon.

Unscientific Experiment
I tested both browsers on a 2 year old Dell machine running XP with a 3GHz processor and 1GB memory. IE took anywhere from 3 to 5 seconds depending on how soon after computer start up I clicked on the shortcut. Avant on the other hand took less than 1.5 seconds - even when I clicked the shortcut directly after computer startup. I understand this is not a scientific test by any measure. But according to CNet statistics downloads for Avant has crossed 18 million mark while Firefox is at 11 million. Obviously I am not the only one noticing an advantage by using this browser.

Features
Avant also has a bunch of other features. I will let the Avant site say it like it is. The several awards received by Avant are displayed on a dedicated page. It has also been featured on Download.com and has a 4.5/5 score.

Top Rated Features of Avant Browser (from Avant’s site)

Online Profile Storage

AutoFills

Flash Animation Filter

Built-in AD/Pop-up Blocker

Built-in RSS/ATOM Reader

Additional Mouse Functions

Multi-Window Browsing

Real Full Screen Mode and Alternative Full Desktop mode

Built-in Search Engine

Full IE Compatibility

Control Your Privacy

Safe Recovery

Customizable Skins

Did you like this article? Subscribe to our full RSS feed or subscribe via email.