Multiple sources are confirming that the Chinese/Israeli startup behind the Maxthon Browser has sold a minority stake to Google. The total investment size is rumored to be around $1 million. We are also hearing that this investment is part of a “much larger strategic deal” between the two companies.
Maxthon has had over 80 million downloads of its browser, and over half of its users are in China. Maxthon-originated searches may account for up to 25% of total Baidu traffic, according to one source. At the very least we expect the strategic deal to involve replacing the default search option in the browser from the Baidu search engine in China and Yahoo in other countries with Google search. The deal may also go beyond search and involve integration with other Google services directly into the browser. Maxthon would then be promoted on Google as a preferred browser. The deal was apparently done at least two months ago, but the companies have delayed releasing the news. We’ve contacted Netanel Jacobsson at Maxthon about this story, but he has declined to comment. We also have an email into Google PR for comment.
Maxthon has had over 80 million downloads of its browser, and over half of its users are in China. Maxthon-originated searches may account for up to 25% of total Baidu traffic, according to one source. At the very least we expect the strategic deal to involve replacing the default search option in the browser from the Baidu search engine in China and Yahoo in other countries with Google search. The deal may also go beyond search and involve integration with other Google services directly into the browser. Maxthon would then be promoted on Google as a preferred browser. The deal was apparently done at least two months ago, but the companies have delayed releasing the news. We’ve contacted Netanel Jacobsson at Maxthon about this story, but he has declined to comment. We also have an email into Google PR for comment.
Maxthon has raised less than $6 million prior to this investment. Seed financing came from Morten Lund and WI Harper in March 2005, and CRV invested around $5 million in the company in March 2006.
News source: TechCrunch
And Firefox (and other browsers) is designed to be light on features, it isn't a flaw, if you want everything and the kitchen sink then that's what Seamonkey's for (as well as Opera, Maxthon, etc.)
Mayb some google branding... Mayb in the future we'll see Google Ads come up somewhere in the corner.. But considering google is "THE" good guy, it doesnt seem like they r gonna hijack ur PC!!
Google would be better off investing that million and more in making their own fork of Firefox with Google branding and features.
Google would be better off investing that million and more in making their own fork of Firefox with Google branding and features.
Maxthon uses the IE Engine, Firefox uses the gecko engine, so if you want to hold this true, then no browser is a real browser except for opera which uses its own engine.
p.s. you would make a crap business man.
Google would be better off investing that million and more in making their own fork of Firefox with Google branding and features.
Maxthon uses the IE Engine, Firefox uses the gecko engine, so if you want to hold this true, then no browser is a real browser except for opera which uses its own engine.
p.s. you would make a crap business man.
You would make an even crapper debater, because clearly, IE is a real browser according to his logic (IE uses its own engine too)
Google would be better off investing that million and more in making their own fork of Firefox with Google branding and features.
Maxthon uses the IE Engine, Firefox uses the gecko engine, so if you want to hold this true, then no browser is a real browser except for opera which uses its own engine.
p.s. you would make a crap business man.
You would make an even crapper debater, because clearly, IE is a real browser according to his logic (IE uses its own engine too)
Pardon? The Gecko engine is being developed for FireFox?
they have themselves as default search in firefox, opera and now maxthon, thats what they really want
(Google is still included in the list of search engines; it's still set as default in the upper right search box.)
It annoys me when so many people just crap all over browsers and say that Mozilla/Firefox is the best there is. To be honest with you, I originally started using Crazy Browser, then MyIE2, and then Maxthon. I have tried a total of 4 times in the past few years to migrate over to Mozilla/Firefox and I just never liked it. Maxthon provides just the right amount of integrated things such as tabs, customizable search syntax, mouse gestures, etc. And yes, I know Firefox can do this too to some extent but I hated downloading extensions that ended up not working right or the way I wanted them to. Not to mention the other problems such as the memory leak that the first version had.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people should stop acting all high and mighty about a web browser. People should just try the many that are out there and use the one they like and not criticize others for using that particular browser... the world would be a happier place!
You can say this about other software, OS's, CPU's, Motherboards, Graphic Cards, etc..... People need to get a grip on other people's chioices. It is their choice not yours. Use what you want and quit b%$tching about what everyone else does.
I for one love Maxthon. I've been using it for years. Does what I want and how I want. I also have Google set up as my default search engine. Again, have for years.
DLW
Last edited by solardog on 11 Apr 2007 - 18:45
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