Yup, Finally we have it – A web browser with “Made in India” tag, catering primarily to Indian Audience. A Mozilla powered browser – EPIC Browser – specifically made for India claims to be the first web browser with Anti-Virus capabilities.
Ok, I have downloaded this browser and just browsed it for 10 – 15 minutes…
My first impressions ? – Excellent !
When you open the browser for the first time, it will give not give you best of impressions as the default theme is dark and color combinations are bit jarry – Some may like it, but I believe a browser should have more neutral colors, so that the importance goes to what is inside the browser window and not to itself.
But once you get past that and start exploring the features, this browser really stands out – Epic Browser has got loads of nifty features in the left hand horizontal verical bar and claims to have more than 1500 apps for the browser and from little what I tried they work like a charm.
Top Features of Epic Browser
The dark default theme, which incidentally I did not like, could be changed just by clicking on the “skins” button on the left you can choose from plethora of India centric-themes.
India Centric News – If you click on India tab, a nice column opens up giving you feeds of all the latest news from Indian News sites – clicking on them will open up a new browser tab within the window.
Indic Translation – This is an excellent feature. This button will open up a text box and when you type English, it will in real-time translate it to the chosen languages and you have all the major Indian languages in there – Excellent !!
AntiVirus Protection – The browser has an anti-virus built-in to keep your system secure. It not only protects youfrom downloading malicious files, but also scans your entire system – great !
Epic Write – This is another feature that will be quite appealing to many users – Epic Writer – A full fledged WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor, which works really well.
Epic Snippets: Another great in-built feature that allows you to store text / urls / image snippets within the browser itself.
Epic Social Networking Features: Epic is also very Social brwoser with Facebook, Twitter and Orkut all built inside it. Just give your login names and your password and you can see you timeline and post messages and scraps ! wow !
To be honest, there are loads of features that I can go on and on, like the integrated to-do lists, or integrated videos or even the file backup system which is in-built. There are just too many of them to write here. If you do not see a particular app that you need – just search their repository of 1500 apps and you are sure to find one !
There is really plenty to like about Epic browser – Why don’t you just ahead, download it and check it for yourself – I can assure you you will not be disappointed.
I have not checked this browser for speed / stability / crashes etc. as these are early days, but from what I have seen, it sure has the potential to beat the best. I wouldn’t be surprised it is widely adopted in India..
Do give it a spin and let us know what you fell about it.
i really like epic browser,b’coz i can write in 12 different language.but it is very slow
Epic web browser.made in india easy malayalam typing.
i too like the epic browser very much, for it is INDIAN, nice for social networking, inbuilt youtube embed video downloader, we can even create playlist of our favourite videos, fully skinnable, including background, lots of apps, and many more … please try it, you will like something or other in it.
MIND BLOWING…
excellent step is taken by the epic development team the interface is quite good and effective rather than the other browsers available in today.Good step and keep it up…..
i think it is first but huge step….. for us…. means indian……
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Nice initiative by an Indian firm.
Sidebar and antivirus features are great.
I am slightly disappointed with the memory consumption though. Even though I didn’t run any rigorous tests yet a simple task-manager view tell me below memory consumption (running same link on trak.in):
Chrome: 48000K
Epic: 90000K
So in India where PC hardware and net-speed aren’t yet to the International standards, the memory consumption will be critical to Epic’s mass adoption.
The initiative is well-appreciated though!
Sir,
JUST TODAY IN THE NEWSPAPER-M.T. (MARATHI) AND NOW OPENING IT.THE FEATURE MENTIONED AND SEEN ARA VERY NICE.BEST WISHES TO THIS NEWBORN.
Hi Arun,
Thanks for sharing info of Epic – I hadn’t heard about elsewhere. I checked out the site and it looks good. The apps seem quite relevant to an online audience. I have feeling that the unique India-centric features should appeal to the domestic audience as well as NRIs.
What I care most about and noticed about Epic- their homepage claims “No Browsing Reports. We don’t store your browsing or search data. Ever.”. This is a very important concern as a consumer. All browsers (not sure about Firefox) store your viewing history and sell your data to ad agencies, but Epic does not. Kudos to the Epic team. (Just wondering how they monetize their stuff.)
Yes Madhav, well pointed out which I probably forgot to mention in my review – It is a welcome move of not storing users data and that will attract many privacy freaks to this browser for sure..
Nice review, Arun! Epic is an example of a great approach towards making a product – keeping users in mind! Similarity with Firefox would prove the best motivator for trying Epic. Loved its sidebar, it’s so handy. And yes, the Epic Apps are really thought of – in Indian way! Kudos to the Epic team!
Arun, good review and thanks for the heads up. One minor confusion, should it not read “vertical bar” rather than “horizontal bar” on the left?
@brizwhiz – absolutely right and thanks for pointing it out. will update the same immediately !
Arun It would have been interesting as well as helpful to know on which base the browser is based on? if Mozilla as you have mentioned, then which engine.. 2.6 or the 3 or 3.5 or the new 4 beta (unlikely). coz you have not touched the important part of security. OLD Mozilla version browsers wont be as secure as one would prefer.. but definitely worth the mention! 2 things, 1st it looks interesting and second has an Indian hand behind it!
Been trying out for a few days and the social networking sidebar is nothing but the mobile version of these websites. Kudos to the team for having the presence of mind to do that. Another feature I’ve been using a lot is the snippets feature and indic typing (especially while mailing my parents :D ) The collections feature can be useful for people who open a lot of tabs and don’t want to lose it
Excellent article Arun – More than the browser (I still haven’t checked it though), I liked your analysis. Before I used to write over here, this is what had attracted me to this forum – the uniqueness of the topics discussed and writing ability of authors like you, Ankit and Rabi (well, even Sriram from the past list of authors on trakin) :D
Thanks Viral, and not to forget ur posts which came after all of us but now act as a lifeline for trak.in :)!