Maxthon Portable

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

User Oufti (thanks!) pointed out that a portable version of Maxthon is available in the offical site. I've downloaded it; the settings are stored in the application folder and it's apparently stealth.
In case that someone can confirm that I think it deserves the main entry (nothing against PortableApps.com version; just to maintain coherence).

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Thu Sep 29, 2011 4:24 am

We're chatting with our Maxthon team in France about switching it over to the PAF version instead. Maxthon's first portable release is a bit clunky to say the least. It's a 7-Zip (instead of a zip or portable installer), so you can't even extract it without first getting 7-Zip Portable. And there's no EXE in the root directory, which can be confusing to some users. Paths break internally for specific settings as everything is stored as full paths, too. For some reason, it's also only English and Simplified Chinese, instead of the full set of languages that Maxthon Portable on PortableApps.com is.

webfork · **Posted:** Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:51 pm

Instructions for natively portable version:

Visit the home page: http://www.maxthon.com/
Download link is on the middle-right side of the screen "Portable Version Download"
Extract using 7-zip to a folder of your choice
Run Bin/Maxathon.exe

---

Old Message:

Not sure how to react: I definitely like when developers put out natively portable software, but this is kind of a mixed bag. Obviously the extract instructions are more complicated than PA, but there's a dramatic size difference.

Compressed: 23.1 megs (PA version is 31 according to their page)
Uncompressed: 76.7 (PA version is 55 according to our page)

JohnTHaller · **Posted:** Thu Sep 29, 2011 5:25 pm

webfork wrote:

Not sure how to react: I definitely like when developers put out natively portable software, but this is kind of a mixed bag. Obviously the extract instructions are more complicated than PA, but there's a dramatic size difference.

We'll help them get it sorted. We've been working with them for a while now. Keep in mind Maxthon actually packages and distributes the PA.c Format version as well, not PortableApps.com. It's just Maxthon France distributes the PAF package as their portable version and Maxthon US distributes this kinda wonky 7-zipped incomplete and less portable version. One is no more natively portable than the other and they use similar methods, it's just that the PAF version is properly portable because it also portablizes paths and things. I'm guessing there was just a communications breakdown.

UPDATE: It was a communications issue. We'll be addressing it and getting things sorted after the Golden Week holiday in China over the next 7 days.

lautrepay · **Joined:** Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:31 am **Posts:** 646

webfork wrote:

Thoughts?

IMHO, when natively portable versions concur with portabilized versions, the last ones should be listed as alternatives, for two reasons:
1) PortableApps.com has its own site. When redirected to there, the concerned user will find all the information that he/she needs, not only about some specific app, but about the whole project and its benefits, as long as other portabilized software taht are not listed in TPFC. (The same aplies to WinPenPack's portabilized software).
2) The installation procedure of PortableApps.com packages is simple and, even more importantly, standardized. Launch the .paf file and follow the instructions, no more than that is needed. When you do it once you are able to easily install every software packed in the PA.c format. (The same aplies to WinPenPack's portabilized software).
On the other hand, there's a wide range of procedures to install a natively portable application, from the simplest (unzip and run) to the more complex (uniextract, create .ini files with x content, rename the executable, etc.).
Taking into account that is not possible to know in advance which one is the correct for each case, and sometimes the information about how to make an application behave natively portable is really difficult to find, becomes natural to dedicate more space to better inform those visitors who are most in need, regardless of the virtues of each portable version (native or portabilized)
So, is not a question of personal preferences, but convenience and to assure a better service.
In this case in particular, since there is an attempt to discard this 7z package version in favour of the PA.c format, I think is better to wait a reasonable lapse to see the results.

webfork · **Posted:** Sun Oct 02, 2011 2:03 pm

If I'm reading your post right, that's the current policy: listing natively portable applications followed by an "alternate" mention with any packaged apps. As to waiting a bit to see if Maxthon switches their official portable version over to PA's version, that seems only fair: right now PA is waiting on a program that's listed by the program devs as the official portable version.

Which reminds me...

Edit: a thread (not the only one) that discusses the what to list first policy.

webfork · **Posted:** Fri Dec 09, 2011 3:04 pm

Old thread update: the Maxthon folks are still listing the 7z as the portable version on their home page.

After some issues with Firefox on my android device, I've been enjoying Maxthon's speed and responsiveness, so I've been following their activity, but does anyone even use this program?

guinness · **Joined:** Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:00 am **Posts:** 3734

I just downloaded this today when I saw >> http://www.ghacks.net/2012/04/16/maxtho ... g-in-town/ Sometimes I use Firefox as they have better HTML5 support for wordpress (I know I'm an Opera fan) but since Maxthon appears speedier and less buggy than Firefox, this will be my new Firefox. Until Opera 12 is released.

freakazoid · **Joined:** Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:45 pm **Posts:** 598

Interesting that Maxthon has better HTML5 support.

I guess their Webkit renderer is more up-to-date than the current release versions of Chromium and Safari.
Would have liked to see a HTML5 comparison of Maxthon and the dev version of Chromium to see if the scores hold up.

Edit: Just gave Maxthon a try and it's really nice! I'm digging the level of customization you can do. Too bad they have their own extension system. Would have liked to see Maxthon use Chrome's extensions.

guinness · **Joined:** Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:00 am **Posts:** 3734

This was posted on Ghacks yesterday >> http://www.ghacks.net/2012/04/16/six-ma ... nd-useful/

webfork · **Posted:** Mon Oct 15, 2012 5:28 pm

This thread is missing a direct link to the entry so...
http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=301

Been using Maxathon a bunch lately and wanted to comment on a few things ...

Good

Love the way it will open up a new session (so you can log into multiple gmail profiles for example) or a new private session. No closing other windows, no messing with profiles. Definitely a feature other browsers should adopt.
Picture quicksave feature is excellent. You hold ctrl and click the image and it saves. Perfect.
The Boss key is great, but one of my window managers also used the CTRL+` key, so I changed it.

Wishlist

Needs an option to include a stronger indicator that the private mode is enabled rather than just a shield icon in the top-right corner. Possibly a red outline around the window. Firefox does this by hiding your active session until you leave private mode, which makes sense but can be annoying.
This program has a ton of features so while you're using it, you get a lot of "notification" of included features. Wish there was a "don't show me these again" button.
Cleaner, simpler interface ... current one has too many buttons
Ability to split screen horrizontally. it makes more sense to have it vertical only if you have a very large screen.
Ability to disable the popups. So when you're in Gmail it will bring up these notifications that you got a gmail message. That's fantastic if you want that but when you don't want that, there doesn't appear to be any way to turn it off. The "popup msgs" option under the advanced options can be unchecked, but has no effect.
Sniffer utility for downloading component that works with YouTube. I coudn't find the file out of a very long list of available files.

SYSTEM · **Posted:** Tue Oct 16, 2012 12:22 am

webfork wrote:

[*]Picture quicksave feature is excellent. You hold ctrl and click the image and it saves. Perfect.

Offtopic: Opera has that feature as well.

guinness · **Joined:** Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:00 am **Posts:** 3734

SYSTEM wrote:

webfork wrote:

[*]Picture quicksave feature is excellent. You hold ctrl and click the image and it saves. Perfect.

Offtopic: Opera has that feature as well.

Neat trick!

Maxthon Portable

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