Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

Cosmo00 reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Dec 9, 2011

Now, orca browser has been merged into avant 2012.New version very good

swiggy reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Sep 6, 2011

Good news! Good news! After 3 year years,orca browser finally alive again. It just updated its engine to firefox 7.0, the latest.
Another thing I need to say is that orca browser is no more a separated browser since now,It will exist as a part of Avant browser. What you need to do is just switch the rendering engine to firefox.
One browser means two.Great!

Sheldon reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Dec 29, 2010

Excellent browser,good work.
i used avant one years ,its so amazing .
fast&easy to use,functionality
now ,i used the lastest version ,2010 build 128

beautifulyao reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Nov 2, 2010

Excellent browser,good work.

judejude reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Oct 19, 2010

its amzing
very useful software . i think it will save much time during the downloadint.

elfsun reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Apr 14, 2010

Actually, Orca browser has been around for a while. It only fairly recently began using firefox as a base rather than internet explorer (it switched because firefox is better), and was originally based on my old browser, Avant. So it's not actually a firefox clone, since it was originally a totally different browser with its own set of features (autofills was my favorite before I discovered LastPass), but it saw a good thing in firefox and decided to merge features

vitorsequeira reviewed v1.2 Build 6 on Jan 2, 2010

the best browser, ever!

LiLButterfly reviewed v1.2 Build 5 on Aug 14, 2009

This build seems pretty fast. I like Orca but I will have to give it 4 stars because the mouse gestures dont seem to work that well. If you dont move your mouse far enough you get a popup and it doesnt follow through.

statm1 reviewed v1.2 Build 3 on Aug 13, 2009

"Dohickey", I appoligize for not getting back to you sooner. But, open up the options window, click on miscellaneous on the left towards the bottom and the checkbox for show splash screen is the first one on the list. Uncheck it and you will not see the splash screen anymore.. And yes, turning it off does make it faster, since it has one less thing to load when opening.

Harry Mckenzie reviewed v1.2 Build 2 on Jul 23, 2009

use IE8 or Firefox

DoHickey reviewed v1.2 Build 1 on Jul 15, 2009

Thanks statm1, (notice I spelled your name correctly) but is that in the new build or the old build?
I couldn't find the splash screen option & I looked at everything. 3 or 4 times over.
I did try selecting the Live mail from the (other) option and it wasn't showing up anyplace. After 30 minutes of looking, I just gave up.
This is the last version I'm talking about. Not this new one.
PS: does taking away the show splash screen make it load faster? if not I'm not interested in Orca.

statm1 reviewed v1.2 Build 1 on Jul 15, 2009

DoHicky, you can turn off the splash screen from within Misc in the Options Window. You can also select Windows Live Mail by adding it to the "Other Program" option instead of Outlook Express.

DoHickey reviewed v1.1 Build 7 on Jun 11, 2009

I didn't really have much trouble with this browser.
I don't like and wish we had the option to stop the Orca splash start up. (I also don't like the same thing happening with the Seamonkey browser) It doesn't hide the fact that your browsers take longer to load, so please don't try & fool us with a start up splash.

After the uninstall, I had to manually go into the temp folders and delete the images this browser had saved. I see they didn't fix that problem.

When trying to choose an email option for Orca, it wouldn't let me choose the Windows Live Mail, only outlook express. Windows Live is suppose to be an upgrade from Outlook, or so I thought.
Anyway, it's not bad, just work out the problems & take our suggestions to heart.

Mobster reviewed v1.1 Build 1 on Mar 14, 2009

I think this might be a great browser. Is really fast and does not slow down like Avant or IE.The problems I have found, is copy and paste does not work very well. Clicking on different tabs does not always work. I have to click 2-3 times and then sometimes the page is exited because a double click exits the page.
Sometimes clicking on links does not work, I have to click off of the page, or a different part of the page, then reclick the link. And then today I had a problem getting Adobe Flash to install plugins. Please fix and get the second release out.

Blaxima reviewed v1.1 Build 1 on Mar 2, 2009

I'm just going to copy and paste my review of Avant because while this might have a different engine it seems to have the same problems oddly enough.

More and more flash heavy sites are causing problems for my Opera browser and since I have used and hate firefox and that terribly buggy maxthon I gave this a go. and now I will promptly give it a quick purge. The very first site I went to (nhl.com) crashed it and Orca

dogbert0360 reviewed v1.1 Beta 3 on Sep 30, 2008

Just finished trying out Orca web browser, and I must say it is nice looking and fast. But there are a few important bugs that need to be ironed out.

1) Not very Fire Fox plugin friendly. Even though its based on the FireFox Gecko 3.0 code, I had some problems installing a couple addons. I mean, I was able to access the site and install them, but when I went to see what I had added, at first they would not show up. But after I had restarted the browser a few times they finally did show. Plus, the addon icons do not appear in the lower screen task bar show I had no idea if they were working.

2) Cut and pasting web links is not working and needs to be fixed.

3) No clear path to where your downloads are located, nor can you change this. I checked the options and this does not appear to be indicated.

Over all, Orca is a decent browser and I will give it another look when it is a stable release.

statm1 reviewed v1.1 Beta 3 on Sep 29, 2008

Firefox themes are not supported in Orca. It uses proprietary skins that you can download from http://forum.avantbrowser.com. There is a list of supported FF extensions as well on that forum.

As for ads there is a black/white list in the settings that you can continually update the list of ads that get or dont get blocked.

DoHickey reviewed v1.1 Beta 1 on Sep 14, 2008

Easy install, easy to set it up the way I like, buttons and so on. I like the IE-6 style floating toolbar that was taken away from IE-7.
First run was nice and fast, after a while of closing and opening the browser by going to my favorites from the start menu, it got a little slower. AD blocker didn't catch all the ads that Maxthon did, But it does alright.
Only 2 things I found that I didn't like. Images from web pages were saved in the temp folder under My Documents and settings/HP_Owner/local settings/temp. (not temp internet files) They didn't clear when I cleared data. I had to go in using windows explorer and delete them. Themes wouldn't install at all.
They would show in the list of add ons (not skins list) It wouldn't change to the new theme.
Back to Maxthon for me.

kiwibank reviewed v1.1 Beta 1 on Sep 12, 2008

very nice for a beta..no probs so far...i agree with the last review..this browser is seriously fast...32MB ram usage on vista ultimate according to taskmanager...

some guy reviewed v1.1 Beta 1 on Sep 12, 2008

so far I'm pretty impressed with this browser.
the add block plus plug in is working.
since my fire fox 3.01 fails to start and Opera dose not listen to the suggestions of what people want this has just become my default browser.

spell check and add block are great must have.
the speed of the browser is pretty impressive

but the memory usage is 82 megs that is unacceptable.

jbird37 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 4 on Aug 29, 2008

Goodbye Opera.....hello Orca!!!

analphatester reviewed v1.1 Alpha 4 on Aug 29, 2008

OS Support: Windows (All)
not running on win9x at all

horsecharles reviewed v1.1 Alpha 4 on Aug 29, 2008

Sorry for this...I like Avant btw.

Running latest Vista SP1 w/ all patches.

I ran the installer, and instead of the browser, the MS Orca Database Table Editor opens instead.

PS are there no trademark issues with that name, anyways?

statm1 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 4 on Aug 28, 2008

This is the first release with Firefox extension support. We know that alot of them will not work due to lack of the ability to change the UI of Orca by adding/changing functionality. Please help us out by trying all your usual extensions and then report back to the Avant Browser forums.

Thanks!

JethroB01 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 23, 2008

To WYAdams,

You have to remember that Orca 1.1 is currently only at alpha 3 stage & there are still a few bugs to iron out so give them some time to fix every thing.

Orca Browser 1.0 RC 3 was the earlier browser & it was a lot better than Firefox & was my browser of choice since 2005. The only problem with it was that the developer pushed it to one side in Dec05 for his further development of Avant browser for Vista use so no further upgrades to Orca were carried out. Orca 1.1 Alpha is a completely different looking browser to Orca 1.0 RC3 and looks identical to Avant at the moment.

The other thing is that the "Release" version of Orca 1.1 is not due out until some time in August so if you don't like the current Alpha release then try back later when Orca 1.1 is officially released.

Cheers,

Jethro.

P.S. I'm only giving the current Orca 1.1 Alpha 3 a 3 star rating as it is still only an Alpha release but I can see the potential of the browser if they get it working as good as their previous Orca 1.0 RC 3 version then my rating will jump to 5 stars.

WYAdams reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 23, 2008

One of the WORST browsers I have ever used. The setup was royal pain in the a**.

I had to fight with the browser to force it to accept my home page and the extra two tabs that I normally open on startup. The browser kept reverting to the default Yahoo page. It took five attempts to force my settings.

I did not notice any change in page loading speeds. In fact, the browser did not correctly load my homepage until I did a reload. In addition, it did not load Google advanced search until I did seven reloads.

Frankly, I think that Orca should be hunted to extinction! I will not be using this piece of junk in the future and plan to uninstall it as soon as I finish writing this review.

I only wish the ratings had something lower than one, such as zero or even negative numbers.

sps reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 17, 2008

Wow! Very fast!

shjding reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 17, 2008

I am so impressed by this browser although I have used only for a few days.My friend recommended to me.It works better than Firefox and any browser else.I can't browsing without it in the future!

dsjfc reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 17, 2008

I truly thanks the author very much for this great web browser!Although a free software,but the loading of the webpages is so quick and it is so compatible in my OS.I have found any bugs yet,maybe I can uninstall Firefox and make Orca my default browser in a few days!

swordding reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 17, 2008

I was surprised on my first look at Orca browser,it seems just another Avant browser,it works so smooth and the loading of the webpage is fast.I have ever used Flock,but it seems just another Firefox. Orca is so splendid that it makes Firefox easier to use,such as Online Storage and Mouse guesture.It will be perfect if it can support FF addons in the future!Thanks for the author!

cltx99 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 17, 2008

So far, I'm surprised at how fast and stable it is. I'm finding all kinds of bugs with FF3. Page rendering is very good. We'll see what the future brings.

Tao2005 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 17, 2008

Looks nice, a good atractive browser. Strikes my intrest, but seen how slow they are on the turn out. That's where it looses my intrest. Would have got it, but Alpha, and Beta programs, remain buggy. Intrest lost. To bad guys, looked very promising, however due to your lack of turn outs. I'm afraid you be making more enimies, then friends. See there are millions of people out there like me, who don't mess with Alpha, or Beta Products. IE, Netscape, Opera, Firefox, and etc. are not this slow, releasing their final products.

Hall9000 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 16, 2008

When Orca first came out I was surprised how good it was even if it was in its infancy, so to speak. I suspect that, in the next few months, this browser will make a lot of noise as one of the best browsers around. And, at least it will make all the people that were bashing Avant for using the IE engine shut up!

statm1 reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 16, 2008

Orca is here to stay this time..

As for firefox extensions, to my knowledge Orca only uses Avant addons. Since Orca wasn't made to be another Firefox clone. It is a Avant clone using the Gecko engine.

coover reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 16, 2008

Anderson,

What a surprise. It's been almost 2 years since you gave us a new version of this browser. It looks very good at this point. I just hope that it doesn't take another 2 years for the Alpha to go to Beta. Keep up the good work on this one and on Avant, too. Both are superior Browsers ... though most people do not know it.

MikeTechno reviewed v1.1 Alpha 3 on Jul 16, 2008

Seems to work fine on my system, and I like it so far. However, I am a little bit confused about one thing: Add-Ons. Can this browser work with FireFox Extensions the way a regular FireFox 3.0 browser can? It seems to have the ability to do that but when I try to install the Colorful Tabs add-on for example, it downloads and intalls just fine but then never shows up in the add-on list after that. Is there something I am overlooking here?

Mastertech reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Sep 22, 2006

Crashed on various pages and would not work right.

saadsaleem reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on May 26, 2006

I think, it is simply the excellent browser available. You get the compatibility of Mozilla browser on websites and at the same time you get a neat and light interface of Avant browser. I would rather enjoy it more when they will release it final version. Waiting anxiously ;)

sam8988378 reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Apr 4, 2006

relatively easy to get rid of unwanted tooltips (something which may not matter to many people, but those who find them irritating and distracting usually have no recourse). Orca also does fast downloads, faster than Avant or Internet Explorer. Connecting to sites is also fast.

If there is any problem it's that I've had the browser freeze once or twice (after a couple hours of heavy usage). but then again, I can't remember a browser where this never happened. Now if robo form could be added, this would be perfect.

jp122182 reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Feb 28, 2006

fastest browser I've ever used and I've tried lot's of them

robmanic44 reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Jan 7, 2006

I'll give it a try, but right now Seamonkey is the best browser I've ever used.

Hellcat_M reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Jan 4, 2006

Its an ok browser it has a few problems though. The major one is it takes up so much memory, just like Avant browser, it could take up 130k when Maxthon only takes up 15k with the same ammount of windows open. Also I had problems with some websites not working properly. If they fix these two problems then it would be a good browser. Right now Maxthon is still my favorite.

bunghole reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Jan 3, 2006

This is a great browser considering it's early alpha staus.

It has all of the greatness of Avant + Gecko without the crap and slowness of Firefox. Mr. Che is an excellent (if busy) coder so I've no doubt that Orca will be great in the future.

This is something that could truly give Firefox (not to mention IE) a run for its money.

magdiwang reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Jan 1, 2006

good alternative for i.e., when do we expect the final version release. im waiting for it.
thanks!

sanawar reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 30, 2005

Here are the things that Dr. Orca needs to be able to compete with and become a viable alternative to Maxthon:

1. True Super Drag & Drop as in Avant and Maxthon.
2. Web search from the address bar itself.
3. Roboform integration.
4. Direct Scroll as in Maxthon (Scroll while holding down the right mouse button)
5. Full compatibility with video and audio files.

Notwithstanding the above deficiencies, I have given it a 5 as it is the first browser to actually give us a Avant Interface with underlying Gecko engine.

reburn reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 30, 2005

i love it

now i don't use any more maxthon that use i.e render , this is my default broswer

niti reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 30, 2005

Really perfect...

zeus_hunt reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 30, 2005

It certainly gets a 10 out of 5 from me..
I am very impressed with this browser..
This is the fastest browser I have seen.
The memory usage is on the higher side around 40Mb but found no system slowdown..nothing at all.

And by the way snazhound plz post the findings (love numbers)
anyone reading this try this browser for sure

snazhound reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 29, 2005

Interesting note for the reviewer who said that the Orca browser did not respect the setting for the default browser setting. Since I have been use the beta's and have had no problems to date including bloat, resource over-use and of course the one I started with, the default browser setting. So I tried it, and I verified this within the registry. I verified this with Orca 1.0 RC3, Mozilla Firefox 1.5, Internet Explorer 6.02.2900 and Opera 8.51.7712. I logged and traced the default web browser registry key and guess what - no changes unless I explicitly changed it in all the browser.

I also did a resource trace and did not have any loss of system resources, lockups or slowdowns. Also, Orca used 64% less memory than Mozilla 1.5, so in terms of bloat, who can I point the bloat fingers at. By the looks here once again, the team has done a lean and mean, wickedly fast browser that kicks that the stuffing out of the so called competition. Go ahead and use what you want, but this is a fine product! I just don't have a clue as to how you really tested this, if you wish I will post the results for EVERYONE to verify.

sn1p34 reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 29, 2005

Well Dr. Orca has two of the things you mentioned bellow, you can search through the address bary by typeing g for google then what you want to search for. ex g search, and Dr. Orca does work with roboform.

coover reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 29, 2005

Anderson Che does it again.

This is a wonderful browser and much, much better than it's brother Firefox. At this point in time, Firefox 1.5 has a major memory leak. Mozilla has known this for quite a while, but, so far, has done nothing to correct this. People are finding that after running Firefox for 30 minutes or more of active browsing, memory use has becomes excessive and CPU resources are taken. Orca has no such problem.

orizng reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 29, 2005

I would think most adware and virus is targetting IE, which is also the majority user's view.
For this one. the problems are:
1.too bloated, slow and takes too much system resources.
2. always sets IE to default browser after you use this one, even if u uninstall Orca, I dont understand why it can not respect my own setting

-steve* reviewed v1.0 Release Candidate 3 on Dec 29, 2005

You know what this browser is'nt that bad. I use the regular IE Explorer because Firefox is too overated and all adaware that you get from cookies and such are all targeted for firefox. But this one seems like it runs smooth.