CoolNovo (formerly known as ChromePlus) was a third-party, freeware web browser based on the open-source Chromium project, originally developed by the Chinese company Maple Studio. Introduced in July 2009, it was designed to be a direct replacement for Google Chrome, offering all of Chrome’s core features while natively integrating several tools that Chrome lacked at the time.
The project has since been discontinued and is no longer maintained. Key Features
CoolNovo gained popularity in the early 2010s by packing power-user features straight out of the box, eliminating the need to install third-party extensions:
IE Tab Mode: This allowed the browser to render older, poorly optimized web pages using Internet Explorer’s layout engine directly inside a tab. It was highly useful for accessing legacy business portals and banking sites.
Mouse Gestures: Users could hold the right mouse button and draw specific shapes to trigger browser commands, such as closing a tab, refreshing, or moving backward and forward through history.
Super Drag (Drag to Search): Dragging a link and dropping it would automatically open it in a new background tab. Dragging a block of text and dropping it would instantly run a search for that text on a default search engine.
Double-Click to Close: Users could double-click anywhere on a tab’s surface to close it instantly, bypassing the need to click the tiny “X” button.
The “Boss Key”: A customizable keyboard shortcut that instantly hid the entire browser interface and minimized it to the system tray, masking all browsing activity from view.
Enhanced Privacy Tools: Features that automatically wiped history, tracking cookies, cache, and passwords the moment the browser window was closed. Current Status
CoolNovo is completely defunct. Maple Studio rolled out its last notable updates around 2012. Because it relies on a highly outdated version of the Chromium engine, attempting to use it today poses severe security risks, and it will fail to load the majority of modern websites.
If you are looking for modern browsers that capture the same spirit of out-of-the-box customization and power-user features, you might want to explore alternatives like Vivaldi or Brave.
Are you researching CoolNovo for historical software purposes, or Coolnovo a web browser similar to google chrome
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