The days of dial-up net connections are all but a distant memory, yet despite the relentless surge in broadband speed, the web doesn’t appear to get any faster. Part of that is down to poorly optimised websites, but it’s also down to your web browser in part.

SlimBrowser claims to be the best browser for Windows "in terms of time savings" – that’s because not only is it optimised to launch faster and retrieve web pages quicker, it’s also configured in such a way as to try and speed up the way you use it. That means built-in apps like form filler and password manager, multi-threaded download manager, one-click Facebook integration and automatic optimisation of photos before uploading.

You can also save a number of related sites as groups, so opening them all with a single click. URL Alias allows you to speed up data entry for favourite websites while you can even configure SlimBrowser to automatically refresh pages at set intervals. There’s also a built-in ad blocker to further streamline the page loading process.

This version of SlimBrowser uses the built-in IE Trident engine for rendering pages, so it’s important you update to the latest version of IE your OS supports – that’s version 11 in Windows 7 or later, IE9 in Vista and IE8 in XP. That also means that not all IE plugins will work with SlimBrowser, which could be a deal-breaker if you're wedded to certain add-ons it won't support.

There's certainly a lot of potential here, but the biggest drawbacks are the fact certain time-saving features - like the download manager - aren't enabled by default. You'll need to spend a good 10 minutes going through the extensive list of options before you can feel confident SlimBrowser will genuinely help to speed up the way you use the web.