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Android comes with a seriously awesome web browser. It can easily browse regular desktop versions of web pages even over EDGE with no major problems. I'm so glad to leave crippled mobile versions of web pages behind me forever.
EXCEPT
Google, of all places, seems to have some kind of lock preventing the Android browser from gaining access to the desktop versions of their websites. They come up with the mobile versions by default, and even if you click the button to switch it to the desktop version, it doesn't. It takes you to yet another mobile version that is just styled a little closer to the desktop version, but it's by no means identical.
Google built this browser, they know that it can handle desktop webpages, why won't they let us do that with their own sites? I find it really annoying to deal with crippled versions of Google's web pages. In Gmail I can't edit my contacts, in YouTube... I don't know what the hell's going on... all I see is large ugly text, in Google Search I don't have the convenient switch to image search while viewing web results. It's FRUSTRATING.
chefgon said:
Android comes with a seriously awesome web browser. It can easily browse regular desktop versions of web pages even over EDGE with no major problems. I'm so glad to leave crippled mobile versions of web pages behind me forever.
EXCEPT
Google, of all places, seems to have some kind of lock preventing the Android browser from gaining access to the desktop versions of their websites. They come up with the mobile versions by default, and even if you click the button to switch it to the desktop version, it doesn't. It takes you to yet another mobile version that is just styled a little closer to the desktop version, but it's by no means identical.
Google built this browser, they know that it can handle desktop webpages, why won't they let us do that with their own sites? I find it really annoying to deal with crippled versions of Google's web pages. In Gmail I can't edit my contacts, in YouTube... I don't know what the hell's going on... all I see is large ugly text, in Google Search I don't have the convenient switch to image search while viewing web results. It's FRUSTRATING.
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Click to collapse
I really dont know why your browser does that, but I have access to the regular google.com classic view page. I can pic between web, images, local, news.. etc.. I can also log to igoogle.com
I can aswell
Most mobile sites have a link to view the regular site. Google has this.
go to www.google.com then you see on the bottom Mobile is default choice, click on CLASSIC to view the regular website version
Anyone else having an issue with the browser where after a while it no longer renders the pages?
It shows the progress bar filling up and done, but just a blank page.
quedijo said:
Anyone else having an issue with the browser where after a while it no longer renders the pages?
It shows the progress bar filling up and done, but just a blank page.
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Yes I've had that problem as well as not being able to get into market have no clue why. Frustrating!!!
I keep having this problem too. The only thing that seems to solve the problem is a restart. I dont know if it has anything to do with me clearing the cache but it IS verry annoying.
Yeah, even killing the browser process doesn't do it either.
quedijo said:
Anyone else having an issue with the browser where after a while it no longer renders the pages?
It shows the progress bar filling up and done, but just a blank page.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats network issues with thew the 3g when i disable 3g it worked but sometimes it wont
i think it has to do with your cache i wish they come out with a new firmware that lets you save programs to sdcard or cache to sd card
I'm having the same issues. It was working when I first got the phone, but now it only gives me the option for mobile view.
I found a solution to the most annoying, biggest mistake from Google. For those who loved iGoogle and cant find it, here it is:
www.google.com/ig/i?source=mofe
And here is an alternate BETA site from Yahoo as backup:
http://beta.m.yahoo.com/
brooklynite said:
I found a solution to the most annoying, biggest mistake from Google. For those who loved iGoogle and cant find it, here it is:
www.google.com/ig/i?source=mofe
And here is an alternate BETA site from Yahoo as backup:
http://beta.m.yahoo.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess Google found out the shut down the site.
Yahoo's Beta sucks.
I know that there was a way to force the user-agent to display as desktop in other android phones, i.e. go into browser, type "about:debug" in the address bar, go into setting, then UA then select desktop. I tried this on my new Vibrant cause I was sick of it defaulting to the mobile sites and it caused automatic FC in the browser. Had to clear browser data to get it working again. Anybody have other ideas on how to do this?
Not sure how to do it on the stock browser, but I know that Skyfire browser has a toggle button built in for this.
Yeah I guess that most other browsers do. Stock browser = Fail.
I have dolphin browser and skyfire installed so I can open BBC in full.
I see a lot of folks complaining about a poor web browsing experience. Perhaps this will help.......
There is a hidden settings menu that you can access by doing the following:
* type "about:debug" in the URL line and press enter/go
* select the "settings" menu (squiggle lines) top right corner
* select Debug, UA, and Desktop
* back out of this and again type "about:debug" in the URL line
This should tell other websites to display web pages in a non-mobile format. I have not yet tried, Netflix, Hulu, etc... but I believe these sites will work properly thus removing the need for the android apps. Please confirm.
Irieone said:
I see a lot of folks complaining about a poor web browsing experience. Perhaps this will help.......
There is a hidden settings menu that you can access by doing the following:
* type "about:debug" in the URL line and press enter/go
* select the "settings" menu (squiggle lines) top right corner
* select Debug, UA, and Desktop
* back out of this and again type "about:debug" in the URL line
This should permanently tell other websites to display web pages in a non-mobile format. I have not yet tried, Netflix, Hulu, etc... but I believe these sites will work properly thus removing the need for the android apps. Please confirm.
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Works fine but we need something that is permanent, have to do this everey time browser has been killed
I know I know....
I just minimize the browser and it holds me until I reboot...
just close the browser
the setting are kept...
I ve done this a while before, and didn't have to change to desktop again after...
but for me that option should be... in setting directly and not in a debug mode
works fine...therenare also options for rendering.."render single cloumn"nsounds interesting
I can't get this to work with Hulu, though. I have the latest flash installed, as well as the latest Adobe Air, and when I go to Hulu, I am still told that my platform is not supported at this time.
Can anyone confirm that it is working with Hulu and the stock browser? How about with Dolphin or even Mozilla?
it just does not work, it always goes to the default page it is not accepting about:debug any ideas??
thx
krachlatte said:
it just does not work, it always goes to the default page it is not accepting about:debug any ideas??
thx
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After you type about:debug nothing will change. Select the menu square in the upper right hand corner of your browser. Select settings. Then select debug. The setting for the ua string are in there.
thx alot mate, looks mich better know.
You can use Dolphin HD. It uses the same rendering engine (which means flash enabled) and can set the user agent to desktop permanently.
VillainousVivi said:
I can't get this to work with Hulu, though. I have the latest flash installed, as well as the latest Adobe Air, and when I go to Hulu, I am still told that my platform is not supported at this time.
Can anyone confirm that it is working with Hulu and the stock browser? How about with Dolphin or even Mozilla?
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Click to collapse
you are correct.... hulu reads that you are using the mobile flash even in desktop ua
I use dolphin HD it has that option in its setttings.
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
Dolphin sucks in a major way. They even acknowledge that they have a known bug with web pages simply not opening.
Can't use Netflix because Silverlight needs to be installed and as far as I know that can only be done on a tab running Windows.
The setting stays in my browser even after boot, thanks for the tip.
The setting stays for me, but I always have to type about:debug to get websites to detect it correctly.
Euclid's Brother said:
The setting stays for me, but I always have to type about:debug to get websites to detect it correctly.
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Click to collapse
I too have to do the same thing. I'm not sure if this will be fixed with 3.1. On my thunderbolt it always works and loads full pages instead of mobile.
Is there away we can use Tasker to set something every time we open a web page.
about:debug did not work for me (stock browser no OTA update).
When I select the settings menu I have additional options for "Dump navigation cache" and "Dump V8 counters" but not a Debug option.
Am I missing something?
UPDATE: Ugh! I just realized I needed to select settings FROM the menu - sorry!
scottw714 said:
Can't use Netflix because Silverlight needs to be installed and as far as I know that can only be done on a tab running Windows.
The setting stays in my browser even after boot, thanks for the tip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe in a browser, but there is an app for that - I have Netflix on my Evo. There's about a half dozen Android devices that can run Netflix and many others are able to trick Netflix by making it think it is a different device.
Ok, I have read literally hundreds of posts concerning desktop vs mobile mode in the browser. I have tried several browsers, and have switched them all into desktop mode via the settings. But, none, including the stock browser and Dolphin seem to work as promised. So, I have several questions:
1. What is it that allows a website to recognize an android phone or tablet and an
ipod touch as a mobile device?
2. Is there any way to permanently change "whatever" so that all websites
recognize my tablet and ipod touch as a desktop?
I'm using opera mobile and all pages works fine on desktop mode
xamilek555 said:
I'm using opera mobile and all pages works fine on desktop mode
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I tried one version of Opera last week and had no luck. Today, I downloaded Opera Mobile as you suggested and it worked just fine. Thanks for the suggestion.
But, the still should be a permanent fix for all Browsers. And, I would still like to know how a website recognizes a mobile device.
I believe they check the OS, not the browser, then redirect accordingly.
Running Honney Vil and stock browser and not seeing that problem, so probably does check the os, don't really know.
This is all based on what your browser "broadcasts" to the web server. I remember way back in the day, some custom ROMs had an option in the settings menu, even on the native browser, to set your browser type to one of many options, including "Android OS", "BlackBerry", "IE", "FireFox" etc... Most web sites are the ones in control of which page to display to you based on what browser it detects hitting the page. Below is an example of one of my web site's access log
Code:
[IP Masked} - - [24/Aug/2011:14:55:57 -0400] "GET /forums/viewtopic.php?p=28441 HTTP/1.1" 200 11347 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)"
[IP Masked] - - [24/Aug/2011:14:56:09 -0400] "POST /forums/posting.php?mode=reply&f=11&t=2900 HTTP/1.1" 200 3144 "http://[URL Masked]/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&f=11&t=2900" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-us; DROID X2 Build/4.5.1A-DTN-117-15) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1"
It's from those logs where it says things like "Android 2.3.3" that tells a server which site to load. Unfortunately, most developers have hard coded anything as "Android" to be shown the mobile browser. Other browsers, like Dolphin and Opera, are either broadcasting a different type of browser, or give the option to.
I have the settings in the stock browser set to viewing mode:desktop (under the advanced tab of the browser settings) and have not come accross any pages that get redirected to mobile. I'm running stock 3.1
Right, you send USER_AGENT info when you connect to a site and based on that - typically what the OS is - the site can redirect.
With 3.0.1 you had to type about:debug in the browser to get the debug menu in settings and there you could change the user agent string. In 3.1 we have that in the advanced menu but I still prefer the old way;-). Don't forget to clear the cache after you do that because the browser might have cached the redirect to the mobile site.
Thanks for all the info. I have the stock browser, Dolphin and Opera Mobile. I have the user agent configured to Desktop in all 3 browsers. All 3 work on most, but not all sites. Only Opera works on all sites that I have tried. It is very disconcerting for sure as I really prefer the stock browser.
jostarr said:
Thanks for all the info. I have the stock browser, Dolphin and Opera Mobile. I have the user agent configured to Desktop in all 3 browsers. All 3 work on most, but not all sites. Only Opera works on all sites that I have tried. It is very disconcerting for sure as I really prefer the stock browser.
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Well, then it goes back to what I posted about the web sites themselves properly delivering the right site based on the user agent (thanks for reminding me of the name user agent gammaRascal!). The web designer has to write code to account for all the various user agents.
There are some other differences too. Try this website in the stock browser,
dolphin and Opera: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=nyy
With the stock browser, the standings right below the picture on the left, is not complete.
with Dolphin, all looks like as on my PC.
with Opera, the page does not fit the screen.
How can I get my Iconia to display Huffington Post in the normal way and Not the Blackberry view. I can type in the adderss ---.com and it adds /Blaackberry.
thanks
Secular
Most browsers have a setting where it "declares" itself as a mobile or a desktop version. Some sites show a different page depending on what the browser says. For me, I have set my Dolphin browser to say it's a desktop, and problem solved. I can't help you with the default one though, I have removed it some time ago.
Go to Settings -> Advanced and change Viewing mode to Desktop. Should help you with most of the sites, but there are still ones that recognize it as a mobile device. My Desire HD opens the desktop version but the Iconia is still recognized as a mobile device
EDIT: Just tried it with the site you want to open - unfortunately it's the mobile version again.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
Most sites now also have a link, usually in the header or footer of the content, to switch to "Full view" or something similar...
Edit: huff post has a View Desktop option at the bottom, click it. Enjoy.
And if that don't work, try http://www.huffingtonpost.com/?m=false
dont work
Nothing youve suggested works. Always goes to /Blackberry.
There is no desktop toggle at the bottom, nor a relative setting. I am set to desktop though.
Didnt used to have this problem.
Even the direct link with /?m=false ....??? No idea then
Did you try clearing your cache, etc. The tablet may have some residual info of the site and loads it that way to optimize the load time.
If you clear the cache, and navigate directly to the desktop site, you might be ok.
dhruvmp said:
Did you try clearing your cache, etc. The tablet may have some residual info of the site and loads it that way to optimize the load time.
If you clear the cache, and navigate directly to the desktop site, you might be ok.
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I doubt it would work because I have never opened the site the OP wants in desktop mode and still got the mobile version.
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App
Really?!?
An entire thread dedicated to user agent at the Huffington Post?!?
To the OP. Write an email to them telling their webmaster to get off his dead azz and find an up to date script that detects user agent correctly instead of the ancient one he's using.
That's the only way you're going to be able to see the site the way you'd like to.
If any of y'all want to see something funny, go to:
http://whatsmyuseragent.com/
Try at least two different browsers, and see how most sites detect your OS, and browser. You'll be surprised!