Android's stock browser gets the job done, but there are many
alternatives that get the job done even more effectively. Check out some
of my favorites.
Android's stock browser sets
the bar high for mobile browsers, standardizing features like voice
search, User Agents (optimizing the interface for the screen size),
multi-device syncing, JavaScript support, Adobe Flash if you're running
Android 2.2, and numerous sharing options.
The stock browser gets the job done, but Android users have so many
more options that are even faster, lighter, stronger, smarter—whatever
superlative you seek, really—than the stock browser. Whether you want to
customize a gesture-based command, block mobile ads with a plug-in, or
shrink your bandwidth consumption by 90 percent, there's an alternative
mobile browser for you.
Cult-favorite Dolphin, our
Editors' Choice, continues to lap the others when it comes to innovation
and releasing rapid-fire updates to its Mini and HD browsers. Mozilla
just released its tenth iteration of Firefox for Android, making it
faster than ever. Oslo-based Opera revved up Mobile to version 12 and
Mini to version 7. Meanwhile in the past year Google finally released
mobile Chrome in beta, and we saw a relative newcomer emerge from China,
UC Browser for Android. This list is by no means exhaustive, of course. Regular or Mini? For this roundup, we've
explored seven alternatives to Android's stock browser. The easiest way
to sort these browsers is by cleaving them into two categories:
traditional, full-featured mobile browser (Dolphin Browser HD, Firefox
Mobile, Chrome in beta) or smaller, data-conscious mini browsers.
Full-fledged mobile browsers tend to deliver a more desktop-complete
mobile experience with advanced feature sets and support for embedded
video, whereas their minis prize performance and backward compatibility. Browsers Benchmarked We benchmarked these
browsers wherever possible, and in the case of the mini browsers—not
suited to JavaScript tests—we performed real-world testing. Take a look
at the reviews, performance charts, and slideshows. This list is by no
means complete, lacking cult favorites like SkyFire and Maxthon for
Android, but the following are tried and true alternatives we'd
recommend:
Dolphin Browser HD 7.3 Free
Dolphin retains the Editors' Choice designation among mobile browsers,
for amalgamating the most complete set of thoughtful features—custom
Gestures, Auto-fill searches, and Siri-like voice control, to name a
few—without affecting performance and speed. It's the highest-achiever
of the mobile browsers when it comes to performance, but not the
fastest, according to our JavaScript benchmarks.
Dolphin Mini 2.2 Free
Dolphin Mini is the slimmer, faster version of Dolphin HD, purportedly
taking up far less bandwidth. Plus it only requires Android 1.6 and up
as opposed to Android 2.0.1 and up for its full-fledged sibling. It's a
speed demon too, although Opera Mini (see below) loads non-JavaScript
pages faster. Dolphin Mini also skimps a bit on performance, especially
for Flash content.
Firefox 10 Free
If you're a plug-in junkie, Firefox 10 is unrivaled in options. Some of
our favorite extensions include the LastPass password manager,
Evernote, and Adblock Plus for blocking mobile ads. Unfortunately,
Firefox lacks the multimedia dexterity of its cohorts, proving useless
when it comes to Adobe Flash, but it's still a fast er, fox, of a mobile
browser. In our benchmarks it beats Dolphin HD.
Opera Mobile 12 Free Opera Mobile 12 is the most "future-ready" browser out there. In its
12th iteration released at Mobile World Congress this past February, it
became the most HTML5-ready browser in the app-mosphere, according to a
key benchmark created by the industry association World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). Opera doesn't offer Firefox's add-ons or Firefox's
minimalist interface, but it boasts perhaps the most full-throated
multimedia support of this batch.
Opera Mini 7 Free
Opera Mini 7 offers the same clean interface as Opera Mobile 11, plus
many of the same standard features, like bookmark syncing, Speed Dials,
and search engine options. However it lacks Flash and HTML5 support, and
JavaScript rendering is weak. But boy, is it fast. And light: Opera
claims it reduces data costs by up to 90 percent by compressing Web
pages at its servers before delivering them to your device.
UC Browser Free
Apparently China's most popular is UC Browser, an Firefox lookalike
that's been compressed for the lowest-tier smartphone. There are
versions for iOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Java, even Samsung's bada. UC
Browser is fast and clean, but very buggy. The folks at parent software
company UC Web have assured me that fixes and updates are in the near
future.
Google chrome has recently came out of beta and it's experience is still very sluggish. You can see occasional frame drops and the scrolling isn't very smooth so we need to give time to developers to fix all these.....
Android's stock browser sets
the bar high for mobile browsers, standardizing features like voice
search, User Agents (optimizing the interface for the screen size),
multi-device syncing, JavaScript support, Adobe Flash if you're running
Android 2.2, and numerous sharing options.
Dolphin Mini 2.2
Opera Mobile 12
Opera Mini 7
What about Google Chrome? I dont see it on your list. I find it to be quite convenient as well.
ReplyDeleteGoogle chrome has recently came out of beta and it's experience is still very sluggish. You can see occasional frame drops and the scrolling isn't very smooth so we need to give time to developers to fix all these.....
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