Maxthon Browser vs Via Browser
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Maxthon Browser
A mobile web browser designed for a streamlined and personalized experience. It offers a fresh interface, enhanced features like customizable favorites, and tools for privacy and eye comfort.
- New UI design
- Re-planned homepage layout
- Optimized feature layout
- Enhanced favorites with text and images
- Personalized data treasure chest
- Incognito mode
- Night mode
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The world changes every day but our beliefs remain the same. We firmly believe that good interaction is less while good product is neither more nor less, and good experience always comes from the heart. A fresh new Maxthon Browser for iPhone will become the treasure chest for you on mobile Internet. We made great efforts in this revision in a visual sense to get rid of complicated design. According to a large amount of users' feedback, we perfectly combined design and practical features to build a browser that suits you like no one does. Named “The Best Browser” by famous North American and European agencies many times : Download82 2017 Software 5-Star Award DEAL crunch 2017 Editor’s Choice About.com Most Popular Browser Award Share Networks Full-Stars Recommendation Award ...... All Awards can be checked here: http://www.maxthon.com/awards New Features: 【Video Enhancement】Support video speed adjustment, floating pop-up video and background video playback for a better viewing experience. 【Userscript Support】Tampermonkey userscript engine available to customize web pages and unlock more possibilities. 【Webpage Read Aloud】Text-to-speech for web content, free your eyes and listen to articles on the go. 【New design】Global UI interaction、fresh new design style; 【New Homepage】Re-planned page layout from traditional two-stage to three-stage, easily to view. 【New Layout】Optimized on overall features level, which highlighted the often used main features according to users feedback, greatly improved the convenience of operations. 【New Favorites】Breaking the traditional Favorites structure that can only save URL, re-identifying the favorites feature that can conclude pictures and text content. 【Personal Customized】 The new Maxthon Browser will not only be your information access platform, but rather your personal customized treasure chest for data that comes with a powerful edition of notes, password management, and numerous extensions. Others feature: 【Incognito mode】Browsing on the incognito mode will never record your cache, Cookie, history, and download record. 【Night mode】Make adjustments to brightness to reduce the damage to the eyes when browsing at night. More Info: Report Bug: http://www.maxthon.com/mx/bug/post/ Help Center: http://www.maxthon.com/mx5/help/question/ Contact us:contact@maxthon.com Website: http://www.maxthon.com/ Maxthon Community: http://www.maxthon.com/ Facebook:www.facebook.com/maxthon Twitter:www.twitter.com/Maxthon YouTube:www.youtube.com/MaxthonCloudBrowser LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/company/maxthon-international-limited
Via Browser
A minimalist and lightweight web browser designed for speed and minimal memory usage. It offers extensive customization options, ad blocking, and essential browsing features for a clutter-free experience.
- Quiet browsing experience
- Low memory usage
- Minimalist design
- Customizable interface
- Ad blocking
- Night mode
- Request desktop site
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• Quiet Browser Via browser won’t push news and other things to you. No bother to your device. • Mini Browser Via browser use much less memory usage on your device. Keep your device as fast as new. • Lite Browser Via browser is designed for Minimalism. Best choice for geek user and who enjoy lite products. • Customized Browser You can easily customize Via browser. This is your own web browser. • Fast Browser Via browser is smooth for your device. And we optimized a lot for fast browsing. Here are some features of Via browser • iCloud sync • Ad blocking • User-script support • Night mode • Request desktop site • Translate • Find in page • Multi search engine support • Saving webpages • ... Enjoy your time with Via Browser.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Maxthon Browser at every 2 weeks against Via Browser's every 3 months. Maxthon Browser also leads on ratings volume (701 vs 116). Via Browser's advantage is review sentiment (79% vs 71%) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.0). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Maxthon Browser against 4.5 for Via Browser. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Maxthon Browser has 701 ratings behind it against 116, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 71% of Maxthon Browser's written reviews are positive against 79% of Via Browser's.
Maxthon Browser ships an update every 2 weeks, Via Browser every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 20, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Maxthon Browser | Via Browser |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (701 ratings) — better | 4.5 (116 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 70.5% of reviews | 79.2% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 701 — better | 116 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 62 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Maxthon Technology Limited | 亚锋 涂 |
Customer experience
Maxthon Browser
Via Browser
User reviews
Maxthon Browser
From 701 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast and efficient browsing
- 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
- 🔒 Secure and private browsing
- 💡 Useful features like cloud sync and note-taking
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
- 🔋 High battery consumption
- 👎 Cluttered and confusing UI after updates
- 🚫 Forced login/account creation
Via Browser
From 116 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Extremely fast and lightweight browser
- 💾 Minimal storage footprint (4.8MB)
- ⚙️ Advanced customization options (CSS/JS injection, ad-blocking rules)
- 🔒 Strong privacy controls and data management
- 🎯 Clean, minimalist UI design
Room to improve
- ❌ Sync functionality completely broken across devices
- 🐛 Bookmarks disappear after several days of use
- 💾 Excessive cache accumulation (200MB+ after minimal use)
- 🔧 iOS version lacks many Android features
- ⚠️ Website compatibility issues (iCloud, some sites block access)
Bugs and requests
Maxthon Browser
Reported bugs
4 issues- Freezing and unresponsiveness
- Bookmark and history sync issues
- Incompatibility with older devices
- Problems with file downloads and attachments
Requested features
4 requests- Dark mode option
- Improved tab management
- Ability to customize homepage and bookmarks
- Better video/audio playback support
Via Browser
Reported bugs
12 issues- Sync not working between devices
- Bookmarks disappearing after days of use
- Cache not clearing properly, excessive memory usage
- Settings URL field resets on app restart
- Userscripts install but don't execute
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Desktop site request not functioning reliably
- iCloud website compatibility error
- Untitled sleep tabs making navigation difficult
- Text file downloads open instead of saving
- Status bar not appearing consistently
- Meta theme color not respected for dark/light mode
- Memory usage increases dramatically with minimal browsing
Requested features
17 requests- Set as default browser
- Cross-device bookmark synchronization
- Resource sniffer/traffic inspection tool
- QR code scanner functionality
- Userscript/Tampermonkey full support
Show 12 moreShow fewer
- Configuration import/export functionality
- Video download capability
- Background video playback
- Bookmark drag-and-drop reordering
- Floating action buttons and gesture customization
- Search engine switcher in search bar
- iCloud Keychain and passkey support
- Weather and homepage customization widgets
- Zoom functionality
- Russian language support
- JavaScript disable toggle
- Redirect blocking feature
In-app purchases
Maxthon Browser
No in-app purchases
Via Browser
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Maxthon Browser free?
Is Via Browser free?
Which has better reviews, Maxthon Browser or Via Browser?
Do Maxthon Browser or Via Browser have ads?
Which is updated more often, Maxthon Browser or Via Browser?
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