Database Users

Fennec?

Anyone else had a chance to play with this yet? It seems to be a really early release and doesn't run all that well but looks really promising. I have installed it on the tp2 with no bad results and had a clean uninstall but it doesn't seem to be for our device and needs a soft reset after install to open up. Runs slowwwwww so be prepared for that. Oh yeah its a web browser from mozilla.
Gonna have to pm me for this one too guys, sorry tried to upload it to media fire but it just keeps freezing at 65.34% and I cant get it to upload all the way.

They keep releasing broken betas. This is not the first beta they had. 'Sounds' promising only.. when one try to use it, it gets totally disappointing.. UI is terrible. Speed is non existent. Keeps crashing on pages..
No offence to the fennec development team.. I love Firefox as a PC browser. I still mainly use Firefox as my default browser.. But on my WM phone? I don't think so.

for me, fennec is great, it starts up slow, ja, similar to firefox in pc....
but all other things, such as menu, features, add inn features, security, etc, is what i needed, it also load the website ina very convinience view compared to others anyway.
try loading this forum using fennec and compare it to others (opera, ie, skyfire) and you'll know what i meant.
the operation is not too smooth, the placement of the menus on the left and rite side also needs improvements (because it is designed for touch pro, why not optimizing for soft menus?)
anyway, its a good start

Nexus One vs HD2: Web Browsing Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmKyti2XEgY
Wow.....!!!
Results aside, that was a really great video, showing off what these phones can do.

Rematch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unrhua1stOg
Skyfire vs N1
Hmmm.....

I love how ill informed these reviewers are and the peons making comments. Android 2.1 supports multi touch, and there are browsers that take advantage of multi touch, even on 1.5/6 ROMs on my G1.
I do think the HD2 is one heck of a sexy phone! Too bad it is running WM, but maybe it will be nice and snappy with the dragon under the skin! I hope I get to test it for work, at the least.
Back on track, I think this matchup is pretty pointless, in the end, though. Both phones are going to surf at about the same speed, and comparing a proxy based browser to a phone based is flawed, to say the least. As well, Skyfire supports flash, which makes it even more flawed of a comparison. Come back in a month or two when Android has Opera Mobile 10, and flash support, then compare! Until then, it is flawed to make any sort of comparison.
Personally, as someone that was on a WM device before Android, both have pros and cons with their web browsing. Personally, the big thing with flash is youtube, and I think the Android youtube app trumps WM's. As well, I would say the overall browsing experience with the Android browser is better, especially when on a mobile network. But I was able to do a little bit more with WM, but it was a result of having 4 browsers to chose from.

Hehe, I guess we saw it differently. To me, the Nexus One absolutely hands down just slaughtered the HD2: Brighter screen, first to load content, first to finish, faster rotating. Hands down won in every category.
To be objective, plusses for the HD2: bigger screen (obviously) and more screen real estate (100% full screen once wepage fully loads), whereas the notification bar stays on screen permanently for Android. What I don't understand is that in Android 2.0, the address bar disappears once you scroll down the page. I wish there was an option to do the same thing with the Notification Bar. So you scroll down, and both the address bar AND the notification bar go away. Perhaps someone will hack this in?
(The skyfire test was kind of useless, since it "finishes" first, but the Nexus One loads content first, so you can actually, like... read stuff. But to be fair again, Skyfire does do flash, so plus for that.)

I agree that the Android browser was better overall in the side by side. But that doesn't change the fact it wasn't a fair comparison, and that with WM you can do more stuff on the internet(not much, but you can do more).

I don't even know why skyfire is even being used as a browser for comparison, since any web page is loaded server side with flash and all.
They should use Opera, with real load times, since its actually being loaded from the phones own power.

~~Tito~~ said:
I don't even know why skyfire is even being used as a browser for comparison, since any web page is loaded server side with flash and all.
They should use Opera, with real load times, since its actually being loaded from the phones own power.
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This. Server-side processing should always always always be faster at the cost of rendering integrity. Also, "winning" in my opinion is how fast content becomes accessible to the user, I can interact with pages while they're loading on the N1 but Skyfire doesn't display until loading is complete.

Nexus one is miles better due to WM on the hd2.. i sold mine

~~Tito~~ said:
They should use Opera, with real load times, since its actually being loaded from the phones own power.
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The first video is using Opera on the HD2. The second (the "rematch") is Skyfire.

On Android you can start reading the page within 2-3secs while on both WinMo browsers you'll have to wait till the page is almost fully loaded. Advantage Android for me

Can the N1 browser play internet videos? I get a message like 'can't play on my handset' when I try to in msn, yahoo, etc. Do I need a plugin or something?

galaxys said:
Can the N1 browser play internet videos? I get a message like 'can't play on my handset' when I try to in msn, yahoo, etc. Do I need a plugin or something?
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It does not have flash support at this time.

What's your favorite web browser?

I don't like the sluggishness and jerkiness of the stock browser. Is there a better third party browser that you particularly like? Is there anything that uses multitouch gestures?

eaglesteve said:
I don't like the sluggishness and jerkiness of the stock browser. Is there a better third party browser that you particularly like? Is there anything that uses multitouch gestures?
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I've settled on Skyfire. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've found.

MacGuy2006 said:
I've settled on Skyfire. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've found.
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Will try out everyone that you guys recommend.

Skyfire has at least one advantage over the ****ty native browser - it supports file download other than apk file, whereas the ****ty native browser can't even support file download. I can't believe how crippled it is, and wonder if that **** is from Google or Samsung.

With Astro filemanager the native (google!) Browser is able to do that too.

bayerischbeer said:
With Astro filemanager the native (google!) Browser is able to do that too.
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Thanks for this info bayerishbeer. Will get Astro filemanager right away.

How's opera mobile on the Galaxy S?

drleospaceman said:
How's opera mobile on the Galaxy S?
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Is Opera mobile available for Android? I can't find it in the Market Place.

theres no mobile, only mini, and its not that great, dolphin is pretty good tho

soraxd said:
theres no mobile, only mini, and its not that great, dolphin is pretty good tho
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Have used Opera mini on iPhone. It's really really lousy.
Will try out dolphin. Thanks!
edit: is it Dolphin Browser HD? or Dolphin Browser? What's the difference? I see.... HD is for Froyo.

The browser is bad? I'd always thought the Android browser was one of the best mobile browsers.
I never liked Skyfire on Windows Mobile - it's actually sending you screen grabs from rendering happening on their servers, so it was always laggy and slow to pan and zoom for me. Opera Mini is good if you don't have 3G data, since it's preprocessed and sent in a compressed form, but because the phone is rendering this custom preprocessed data and not the original HTML it doesn't support dynamic features.

Mithent said:
The browser is bad? I'd always thought the Android browser was one of the best mobile browsers.
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By iPhone standard, it is.
Mithent, are you using the stock browser? You've explored most of them I presume?

The stock browser works best for me. I've tried Dolphin, Opera and Skyfire and they all seem sluggish... Steel is good too.

Skyfire is sluggish, stock browser works great, no need to change it and it download all you want just learn how.

No problems with the stock browser here. It flies compared to Skyfire and works just as well as Dolphin.

Opera Mini 5.1 along with "Make it Default Browser"
Why?
- Opera is clearly the fastest in loading/displaying pages. Absolutely no contest
- 90% of the time I'm no under HSDPA coverage or Wifi, so moved megabytes matter
If only Opera Mini would get pinch zoom, then it would be perfect for me.
I don't need Flash or in-browser JS, which Opera Mini lacks.
For those occasions when in-browser JS is required, I use the built-in browser. Much better than Dolphin HD, which is very sluggish.

Try xScope. It works for me and somewhat better than Dophine.

I'll try all of them. So, the new ones that just cropped up are:
- Steel
- xScope
- Opera Mini (I hope it is not like the one on iPhone).
Thank you guys.

eaglesteve said:
I'll try all of them. So, the new ones that just cropped up are:
- Steel
- xScope
- Opera Mini (I hope it is not like the one on iPhone).
Thank you guys.
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I've taken a look at all these, and the one that I like the most is xScope. It is very similar to the Atomic Browser that I use on iPhone. The things I like about this browser are:
- I think it is faster than the stock browser and smoother too.
- One quick gesture to reveal the web address bar, and autotically hide it when page is loaded to give as much real estate as possible to the user
- One stroke gesture to move from tab to tab, exactly like what I was having in iPhone.
- Multitouch zooming, one finger zooming, as well as double tab to zoom in and out.
- Able to download more file types, although still not covering as comprehensively as what the Atomic browser for iPhone could.
- Able to open link in the background by long press. This usually is the way I consistently beat Opera Mini in terms of loading speed. In a forum like this, I open all the links that want to visit first, and buy the time I finish reading the first tab, the others are already fully loaded waiting for me to read. That means zero loading time effectlvely for all the links. Opera Mini can't do that.
- I wish there is a gesture (such as double finger swipe down) to close the current tab like what Atomic browser could do.
- Coupled with the higher resolution and bigger screen size, I feel that it is even more enjoyable surfing on Samsung Galaxy S than my 3GS.
I'm pretty happy with it for now, and would make it my main browser, until better one comes along.
One question: What is the difference between the free and paid version? What additionally benefits are there going to the paid version?

eaglesteve said:
Mithent, are you using the stock browser? You've explored most of them I presume?
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I've not had much personal experience with it - I still have a Windows Mobile phone at the moment, but will be getting a Galaxy S soon (will be as a carrier upgrade next month). The opinion I had of the stock browser was what I've seen of it when compared to the iPhone's Safari and Opera Mobile on WM (IE isn't worth thinking about), so was just a little surprised and wondered if it wasn't so great in real-life use. I didn't know you had to go through hoops to download things with it.
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with other options for Android, but I've tried Opera Mini and Skyfire on Windows Mobile. Given the nature of those applications, I doubt they're very different on Android.

[Q] Will we ever get the full Opera Mobile for android?

I don't mean the opera mini available in the market, but the full Opera Mobile like the one we have in winmo. It runs circles around the android webkit browser, like a Ferrari vs a schoolbus
Only news I've found was last December when they released it to oems, but I haven't seen any phone that has it yet. I wouldn't even care if it comes in 40mb package like firefox, just as long as I get it.
Anyone has any new info or insights?

opera10 doesnt support flash like webkit does though...although, it was very responsive and fast.
id rather use opera mini for fast browsin w/out flash content. and den use webkit for flash contents.

Well actually after 2 months of repair I switched from winmob ro android and Im missing the tab function - imho I dont surf so often on websites with flash on my HD2. Greetings
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Yeah flash is not a big deal to me either. It's nice to occasionally open a video, but it's much smoother to load it in a youtube app.
I understand the hold up is probably because Opera doesn't want to use the android native code for their browser, just hope they come up with something soon.

Go to Android Market, install Adobe Flash, then install Dolphin Browser. It doesn't get any better than this! Tabs, pinch to zoom, gestures, it has everything I need and it is blazing fast.
I do like Opera Mini, other than the fact that it does not support Flash. As far as Opera Mobile goes, I don't know when we will see a version of it for Android, I have been waiting too, just like everyone here.
HTR

like someone suggested. try dolphin or dolphin hd browser for tab functions.

[Q] opinion on browsers

Just wanted to ask the people:
What is your browser of choice and why?

Stock Honeycomb - Fast, stable, good for most websites, allows setting UA.
Stock ICS - Fast, stable, great for most websites. For better functionality, get ICS Browser+ addon (UA and gestures)
Opera Mobile - Not too bad. Best choice for file sharing sites which require captcha's to download.
Dolphin HD - Great for phones, but the UI doesn't really work well for tablets
Dolphin for Tablets Beta - Works pretty good, but lacks in features. Also, it hasn't been updated since the initial release.
Firefox - Unique UI, but not in a good way (tabs should be on the top, not side). Also missing Flash support
Chrome beta - Great so far, but still lacking some features. Has potential to become the best after some updates. No Flash support, but HTML5 is superb!
I've tried several other browsers, but ditched them right away because they either had a terrible UI, they were slow, unstable, or didn't allow setting UA string. Of course, when it comes right down to it, just try every browser you can find and decide which works best for you! Everyone will have their own opinion, and these are just my own. Good luck

Stock browser cuz it has Quick Controls.
I will use Firefox when i will be able to sync it with my BB Firefox. Mozilla has already added sync feature to the mobile version but I failed to get it working.

xScope - just suits my needs better than the rest
Firefox was my main browser but seems to be getting 'clunky' and slow. Still use it for 1 site though as is the only browser that will load said site (Adblocker / hosts issue)

I run Maxthon. For some reason it seems to load everything just a little better for me. Its not perfect, but none of the browsers are. I watch lots of flash content on my tablet and it seems to work the best for me.

Opera Mobile because its fast, stable, has speed dials, and because I can sync my Phone and Tab browser. I like to use a desktop UA when I'm on my tab and I've found that Opera Mobile is the fastest for this.
But make sure you turn the "Opera Turbo" feature off.

Win 7 : Chrome
Kubuntu (Linux) : Chrome
Acer Iconia A500 : Dolphin HD for Tablets
I havent tried Chrome beta on Android ,but I will

love Dolphin HD, would love opera, love the style but does not render CSS on websites that well, fixed divs do not display correctly for example., also love that maxthon, love the themes, just dolphin is better quality. Want to try chrome when we get ICS.