Wyzo The Media Browser

If your like me, a browser fanatic, then today is a great day. That's because Mac and Windows users (Linux soon) have a new browser to play with.

This new browser, still in the beta stage, is called Wyzo and it is described as being a "media browser", a browser that they claim can supercharge your downloading by as much as 10x faster than FireFox, on which it is based!

Wyzo describes five main new features, which are as follows:

- Supercharged Downloads: Your downloads just got quicker! Wyzo incorporates multi-source downloading wherever possible to dramatically accelerate your web downloads - supercharge those downloads!

- BitTorrent Integration: Downloading BitTorrent files has never been easier - Wyzo lets you browse and download torrents right from within your surfing environment - thats right, no other software required!

- CoolIris - Cinematic Web: Transform your browser into a lightning fast, cinematic way to discover the web. Watch your favorite movies, TV shows, YouTube and music videos right within your web browser!

- Quick Switch Tabs: Quick switching makes it that much easier for you to switch between your active tabs. Now, simply pressing Ctrl+Tab presents you with a highly visual, intuitive tab switching format.

- Mouse Gestures: With mouse gestures, now you can execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Drag, scroll and click your way around the web with ease!





As stated earlier, Wyzo is built on the same Mozilla technologies that FireFox is built and, as such, it's fast, secure and reliable, and something that I can attest too in the brief time that I have been using it. Even though Wyzo is based on Mozillia's FireFox, it's creator's, the British firm Radical Software, lists the following major modifications:

* FireDownload accelerates regular http downloads up to 10x!

* A Bittorrent plug-in called FireTorrent. It places the torrent downloads in the same Window as normal downloads. Torrents with a single click!

* Wyzo's user-friendly new skin

* A new startpage, which lets you search a large amount of search engines.

* A variety of other extensions that enhance the user's browsing experience, including CoolIris, Ctrl-tab and FireGestures.




Well, there you go, a new browser with some pretty nifty new features. Even though I have only been using it for a very brief time, I must say that thus far -- me is liking it and me is liking it a lot, except that when I did a test download of a 42.9 mbyte file using their Firedownload accelerator, it didn't seem that much faster than without that featured checked! With the Firedownload checked, it took 1:04 minutes, compared to 1:19 minutes with the accelerator turned off. Of course, I've only been playing with Wyzo for about a half hour, and at the time, my internet was running a tad bit slower than normal. I will have to play with it a little more before I can make a final judgment.

Overall, I really like Wyzo, and I'm sure that after it leaves it's beta stage, and as I become more accustomed to it, I will probably even like it a lot more. In the meantime remember: it's still beta and your mileage is bound to vary. None-the-less, if your a browser fanatic like myself, and if your up for something new, something a little different and a little refreshing, than by all means download Wyzo for yourself and take this new media browser out for a spin.


And that's my 2 cents 4 this Friday, May 01, 2009
Illustrations via: Wyo