While Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) still dominates the web-browser market and Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera among others catching up, a new browser is taking shape at a global level (read stable English version) called Sleipnir. This browser originates from Japan, made by Yasuyuki Kashiwagi that leads the company Fenrir Inc. This browser is popular among Japanese technophiles. The browser uses two rendering engines, Trident and Gecko. Trident is that which drives IE while Gecko runs a host of former Netscape-derivatives such as Firefox among others. A small button at the bottom-left corner of the browser window allows user to switch the render-engines since different pages display differently depending on the browser used, a functionality already achieved by Firefox when the popular add-on 'IE-tabs' is installed.

At this point the makers of this browser hope to capture at least 5% of the browser market share which looks steep but since Firefox was written off in the same way, who knows? Just that Firefox was something 'refreshing' when it came about. Following the success of Firefox, several browsers did mushroom before Sleipnir, FoxIe comes to mind, which used IE engine and a Firefox-like interface. Although Sleipnir doesn't have a rendering engine of its own, using Trident and Gecko helps with compatibility. You can visit the official website here.