Rogue
Rogue is purely an in-game browser that recently arrived in beta. The small company currently focuses on making the browser compatible with massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft and EVE Online. Once the company has those games nailed to the wall, it intends to focus on other popular games. The company has its work cut out for it with only a handful of employees.
Rogue works in World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike: Source. Eight other games we tested crashed to the desktop or completely halted the computer. We're not surprised, as the folks from Rogue essentially said as much. However, when Rogue did work, the performance hit was tremendous. Leaving the browser window up and running nailed performance somewhere in the 70 percent range. We recovered a handful of frames by minimizing the browser, but the hit was still atrocious. Representatives stated that a new build will be released shortly that should improve overall performance. Rogue is worth taking a look at if you play MMORPGs and is probably good to keep an eye on to see how the program progresses.
Xfire
Xfire started life as a gaming-oriented IM program, and it has been evolving ever since. Over the years the program has gained the ability to take screenshots, record videos, organize guilds, and more. Very recently (and by recent we mean February 9, 2009) Xfire got a new feature: an in-game Web browser.
Like Rogue, Xfire seems to be game dependent. We had luck with a few games, such as Left 4 Dead, but support was hit or miss. Enabling the browser seemed to be just as sketchy until we mapped the command to a key combination that didn't interfere with normal game functions. Once it was running, the browser worked like a charm. Much like with the other programs, performance dropped considerably if we left the browser window open during gameplay.
We're pretty far from a clear-cut winner, as none of these programs are perfect at the moment. Heck, half of them jumped onto the scene in the last 30 days. But unlike Alt-Tabbing, compatibility and performance for in-game Web browsers will keep improving. Hopefully that means our steely gazes will stay saliva-free. Depending on what kinds of games you play, the performance hit might be worth the trouble to check out a few of these programs, especially PlayXpert. For the frame rate nuts, it's probably best to keep these at the back of your mind until they're mostly snag-free.
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