Google Investing in Maxthon Browser?

The popular alternative IE-based browser Maxthon may now be partially owned by Google, if press reports are correct. Silicon Valley insider Michael Arrington said Tuesday that sources are indicating the search giant has invested around $1 million in the company.

While Maxthon has gained traction in the United States by offering tabbed browsing and other features that only arrived in IE7, most of its users are located in China. Searches sent by the browser could amount to 25% of leading Chinese search Baidu's traffic, Arrington said. The investment would include replacing Baidu and Yahoo with Google as the default search provider. Mozilla signed a similar deal with Google for Firefox.