Another Epic from India..!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving on my way to office, one of my colleagues spoke about the launch of a new browser by an Indian company! Impressive- was my first reaction… but it was all forgotten with the hectic schedules in the office.


It took the patriotism that was in the air as a result of the Independence Day (thanks to the TV Channels) and a news item on a daily, to force me to think on it again. Instantly, I had it installed on my laptop, and that started a whole new story- or rather an Epic! Not of the likes of Ramayan or Mahabharat, but nevertheless it gave the same Indian flavoured feeling that we got when we saw those epics years ago on TV.

Well, that’s what it’s called – “Epic”. The all new browser created by Indians specially for Indian users (as it is promoted on their site). And true to it’s word, when you install and start using it, there is everything Indian associated with it.

Built on Mozilla 3.5.7, this browser is a highly ‘Indianized’ version catering to the browsing habits of Indians. There is a side-bar with a number of handy feeds of frequently used web-services by an Indian browser. There is Orkut, Facebook, Twitter – today’s trendsetters and craze for the Indian (and perhaps other countries as well!) audience. The side bar also includes mail services like Gmail, Yahoo, and other services include YouTube. The primary advantage of this side-bar is you can have your most favourite services running, and still continue to browse on the internet.

There is much more this side-bar offers. One feature worth talking about, is the desi-feature – “Indic”. Tailor-made for Indians, this feature enables typing in Indian languages in the text-boxes of any site. You can even choose from various Indian languages supported, the default being Hindi (Konkani missing in the list!!). What more, you can even save and keep your favourite Hindi or Indian language phrase saved for future use. I tried the Indic feature with Google search, and the result also fetches according to what is typed. When I searched by typing in Hindi, it fetched me sites with Devnagari Hindi scripts, whereas when I searched the same by typing in English, it fetched me a different result altogether! This will really be a great advantage for the indian users who are not-so-conversant with English.

Then there is a “Write” feature, which provides a built-in word-processor (something like Google Docs), with all the features that you would need in a typical word processor. Epic also logs the downloads done by you. India (News feeds), Games, Videos, Jobs are among other RSS-feed based utilities provided by the Epic.

You can also customize the way your Epic Browser appears. A number of skins are available, again all with a heavy desi-flavour. There is Bollywood, Cricket, Religion, Monuments and Public figures and Places across India that you can set as a theme or a wall-paper for your browser. Being a true fan, I set the Sachin Tendulkar theme for my installation (Picture shown). The themes take a bit of a time to load and take effect as it fetches it from the web on every request.
There are many things which are very much akin to Mozilla. Many things will remind you of the good old browser. The download dialog box, the tool bar, and most importantly (Developers, are you reading?) the Javascript error console is a straight lift from the Mozilla.

A feature worth a mention is the “Private Browsing” mode, and the ease of which one can switch between the modes. Private Browsing leaves no history or trails of what you have browsed, and you can switch to this mode just by a click. Similar to the Chrome’s “Incognito Window”, but in case of Epic, you don’t have to open a separate browser window, but continue with the same window as private.

Clearing the browsing history is also easy, and can be done at one click. The browser provides it's own built-in anti-virus. One drawback that could be noticed is, the side-bar at the left lessens the browsing space. A feature to hide / close or an auto-hide of the side-bar would certainly do the trick.

Being an Indian, it feels proud and at home when I browse the net on this Browser. But I would love to see a more international version of the Epic coming in the near future. There are quite a number of Indians across the globe, but if India comes with a browser that is popular across all countries and continents and not just Indians, then nothing like it!

Despite the Mozilla-like feeling at times, the add-ons and the Indianized features that Epic provides are quite praiseworthy. Lots of scope for improvement, but a very good effort to start with. Hoping that this Epic saga prevails and go a long way ahead!