After wondering why we hadn’t heard from browser preview startup Browster for a while, we have confirmed with a source familiar with the company that it is done. We don’t yet have a response to multiple requests for an official comment from Browster itself.
However, evidence of the company’s demise is publicly available. The site is currently down. The company blog hasn’t been updated since September. Meanwhile, Browster CEO Scott Milener is listed with another company, Vieweo (non-functional website) on LinkedIn.
Alexa reports the site has been up within the last week, but has seen a severe decrease in visitors, with a 60 percent drop in “reach” over the last three months.
Are any of you still using Browster? I wasn’t a big fan of the company’s somewhat clunky browser preview plug-in, and uninstalled it quite a while ago. We’d previously said we were more impressed with competitor Cooliris.
Browster said about a year ago it had raised $5.8 million in first-round funding from Advanced Technology Ventures, Vanguard Ventures, First Round Capital, and individual investors.
13 comments so far
1:33 PM PT
Hard to feel sorry for the Browster boys. It was incredible annoying and a headache to eject from one’s system. Yeech! Good riddance to a stinko product.
Speaking of annoyances, can we please put the kabosh on Snap Preview? It is popping up on many sites. A pox on tools that try to do my thinking for me. Let me read and broswe in peace for heaven’s sake. Widgets be damned!
1:53 PM PT
I agree and have the same problems with SNAP, which is so hideously annoying that i have stopped going to sites that use that stupid script. it somehow snuck into one of my wordpress.com posts and i need to scrape that shit off the site.
2:03 PM PT
Liz,
Interestingly, Vieweo is the domain name owner for browster.com. Sounds like Browster is morphing into Vieweo?
So, what’s Vieweo? Another online Video startup?
2:38 PM PT
Kshitij,
I noticed that too, but am not sure of the parentage between the two companies. We will have to keep an eye out.
Liz
3:42 PM PT
Apparently Viewio will be some sort of HD video provider. If that is true, they will compete with Mark Cuban’s operation.
I had a poor experience with Browster. It was incredibly difficult to uninstall as the code seemed to stick around.
I am amazed at companies like these who somehow raise a sh*t-ton of money. My startup has three people…me for organizing, and business…my programmer for programming and my designer for designing. There is no sense in VC’s these days, applications can be developed for very cheap.
9:11 PM PT
I never went to the trouble of downloading the browster client but I think the idea of web page previews are helpful. So I have to respectfully disagree with Om on those Snap webshots.
A related problem that the webshots solve is that there are so many worthless web pages out there. You can see them in a split second and that saves me time of going to them. So I don’t think the webshots are the problem - the real issue is Google Adsense. It is the money funding the web spam. But prominent bloggers wont say that, they are on that adsense gravy train.
4:29 PM PT
Browster had it’s problems for sure, but the last version I managed to install (2.0.3) was a big improvement over previous versions, not the least due to the full support for Firefox 2.x. I hope that someone else takes it up and keeps working on improving it, because it is promising, and great when it works.
7:40 PM PT
Browster, no business model, annoying application, bubble company. Last round for a First Round Capital Company. More to come…
2:26 AM PT
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Browster Is Gone, But Are Web Previews Here To Stay?…
Written by Alex Iskold and edited by Richard MacManus Last week it was reported that Browster, one of the first companies to deliver previews of web pages, is done. Browster drew a lot of attention in 2005 and was backed…
8:57 PM PT
[...] week it was reported that Browster, one of the first companies to deliver previews of web pages, is done. Browster drew [...]
5:12 PM PT
Looks like another one of Wendell’s “eo” company. The last two were Helpeo and Teleo. Atleast Teleo was bought by MS.
2:06 PM PT
[...] who all offered similar preview features. Perhaps it’s a good thing that startup Browster has now shut down. Their whole business was based around this exact concept, so you’d have to imagine they were [...]
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