This alone is enough to make upgrading a serious option, but it could be the ‘Power Browsing’ features that swing it for less experienced users. Accessed through a right-click menu, they let you highlight URLs and distinguish between internal and external links, increase the contrast, zoom in and out, and generally enhance the page all manner of ways to improve legibility and overcome visual impairments. Other features (AOL calls them Bookmarklets) focus on security, giving you access to Whois lookups and switching the descriptive text of each link for the physical address of the pages they reference. This might sound like a backwards step, but it does let you see whether a link to your online bank really does go where you expect, and not to a phishing imitation.

About the only thing counting against AOL Browser is the fact it doesn’t use the Gecko engine that underpins Firefox and its ilk. For IE die-hards, though, this looks like it’s going to be an essential browsing experience.
Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.