Technology Reviews

Number of times there is a situation where one wishes to open different links in different browser. Also many a times one doesn’t wish to open a link in default browser. BrowserMaster is one of the software which provides an option of choosing between different browsers when you click on a particular link.

BrowserMaster is a free app that registers itself as your system’s default browser and gives you the option to select which browser to use when opening internet links. It works for links which are external to the browser and clicked from outside the browser , like a shortcut or a link in an email or in a webpage or in IM.

One may use different browsers but when using browsermaster , when one clicks on a link , it detects the command of opening a link and provides you with option of choosing a browser by displaying icons of the browsers and one may quickly choose the browser one wishes to use.

Some of the features of  it are :

1. Disable major browser features fast
2. No back button
3. No drag and drop
4. No image toolbar (for I.E. 6)
5. No page print
6. No right click context menu
7. No scrollbars
8. No status bar links (for I.E. 6 +)
9. No text selection
10. No page Cache
11. No robots
12. Priority e-mail support

Some notes :

• Applies to links clicked outside a browser: for example shortcuts on your desktop, in a notes program, in an email notifier app, in an Office or PDF document or an email client, etc. Links clicked inside a browser behave as normal.
• Links: works for HTTP:\ or HTTPS:\ links.
• Default wait time: it gives you 2 seconds to choose your browser before going with the default. This can be changed in the settings file, but has to be done manually using a text editor. The settings file is in “C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\BrowserMaster\BrowserMaster.xml”; find the “delayin seconds” tag and change the value from 2 to something else.
• Other settings: from the settings file mentioned above, you could also enable/disable specific browsers. Find and change (Enabled=”true”) to (Enabled=”false”) for each listed browser.

But this software does lack a few features

• There isn’t an option for setting a default browser
• There could be an option to chose browser for links within a browser too
• Gui interface should be better

There are users who may say they would rather use ‘open with’ command than using this software but there might be situations where the ‘open with’ option is not available.

Overall its a nice software to have if one wants to have an option of choosing between browsers. The users using just one browser may not find this of much use.