The IE-based Maxthon browser released a much anticipated version 2 today. This comes just 3-months after Google invested an astounding $1 million into the browser, and that raised a lot of eyebrows because of the close relationship Google has with Firefox.

Mozilla has definitely made a name for themselves with Firefox, and have done such a great job of developing the browser that other people want to create their own browsers based on Firefox. To create their own browsers...they use Gecko, Firefox’s rendering engine as the core of the browsers that they create.

There’s no doubt that Google has a focus on making their presence known around the Globe. Their latest move of investing money into the Maxthon Web Browser could be part of this effort, and really comes as no surprise.

New Web browsers seem to popping up left and right lately. Internet Explorer 7 is on the home stretch which means all of the IE-based Web browsers need to beef things up to make sure they don't get outdone by the Microsoft team. A few weeks ago we took a glimpse at the upcoming Avant Browser 11 and now Maxthon seems to be quietly working on version 2.

Maxthon is apparently becoming a very popular browser in China says CNet. It is available as a free download and will use proxies to prevent users from receiving filtered content from search engines like Google and Yahoo. Here are the statistics that CNet has received: So far, about 60 million people have downloaded the browser since its launch in 2003.

Maxthon has released the next version of its web browser, version 1.5.1 which is the only update over the past two months. They fixed many of the internal bugs, along with adding better pop-up blocking. Also, they redesigned the home page so that it will be better for the user's needs.