Database Users

HTC Desire browser vs. stock Android speed

Has anyone who has tried the Desire browser noticed that the loading speeds are much much much quicker than the stock Android?
I used KingK's Desire2Nexus for 1 day. Now I'm on CM 5.0.4 default. Loading up XDA on CM/default browser seems like there's a hang around the middle of the loading, and also 3/4 of the way there. On KingK, the loading speed was blazing going page to page. There was absolutely no hang at all.
Anyone else notice this?

Is it possible to use this browser without rooting?

whodatfever said:
Is it possible to use this browser without rooting?
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Nope...it's tied into the HTC framework. For what it's worth, the stock browser has improved quite a bit from Android 1.5 even... the Hero browser was way nicer at that time. The difference now is negligible to be honest.

denimjunkie82 said:
Has anyone who has tried the Desire browser noticed that the loading speeds are much much much quicker than the stock Android?
I used KingK's Desire2Nexus for 1 day. Now I'm on CM 5.0.4 default. Loading up XDA on CM/default browser seems like there's a hang around the middle of the loading, and also 3/4 of the way there. On KingK, the loading speed was blazing going page to page. There was absolutely no hang at all.
Anyone else notice this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the exact opposite experience, lol.

I too noticed a big boost in speed with the Desire browsr.

Maybe some of you rooted peeps can post a comparison on Youtube. Just make sure to clear the cache before recording, lol... Don't need another Engadget-type video.

To me it seems faster, also has more features like the long press on any word and it will give u options for copy, translate, Wikipedia, and dictionary.

Can't say I have felt a noticeable difference in speed, though I enjoy the extra features of the HTC browser. Worth noting, though, that it doesn't let you open as many windows as the stock one.

No No No No Noooo LOL
The Desire browser sucks in my testing
Multi touch pinch and zoom is a big let down, it jumps around the screen and is just terrible
Also most pages i normally visit on a day to day basis just stop loading at the http part of the bar :|
Also in my experience is closed itself all the time, just like ended :|
But hey thats just in my experience lol

It doesn't "jump around the screen" as such. The text just gets readjusted to fit into your screen properly the way it does on the stock browser when you double-tap.

I've noticed that I'm less accurate in choosing links on the Desire browser. But it's an alpha, so not that surprising.
My biggest issue with the N1 in general is touchscreen accuracy; I really hope it's gradually fixed in software.

ive noticed it too! Actually ive noticed almost everything to be faster on the desire rom..(im using kings)..and the flash player is awsome..it works for everything but hulu for me..and the pinch zoom works perfect for me too..i remember their use to be a stutter compared to the iphone, but then i went to the apple store yesterday and compared my nexus running on desire rom with the 3gs and the nexus seemed much more fluid

jaggy browser experience?

So I was really looking forward to getting a galaxy tab, primarily for web browsing. Then I saw this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZvCXMARtl0
What is the deal with the stuttering jaggy web browsing experience? Can someone that has a tab let me know if a third party browser can make browsing a little less, bleh?

The Galaxy Tab has Flash running in on the webpage.
Look at 0:08 on the video, you can see on the iPad that there are two bars marked "FLASH" disabled. It's suppose to have the banner for "HTC" on it.

Yeah, flash is SERIOUSLY CPU heavy. In fact that's how apple justifies not using it on any of its mobile devices. On closer inspection, there's more than just two 'FLASH' bars on the iPad, I count at least 4.
If you want it to good THAT fast then turn flash off.
On the other hand, do you look at websites by pinging back and forth on them so fast you can't read the text ? Personally, I scroll slowly down, and only move quickly infrequently when I want to 'go to top' or 'go to bottom'. If you actually read websites, the video doesn't really show off a whole lot. Its not comparing like with like, and its not comparing a real life situation, so it doesn't matter.

I have the tab. Some sites with flash will run just fine.
Others will simply cause the browser to be unusable. I have no explanation to this.
I compare a site that is unusable on the tab with my Droid x and on the droidx the site runs just fine with flash enabled.
Maybe. This is a software issue which is unrelated to flash and can be fixed in a future firmware update.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App

clubtech said:
I have the tab. Some sites with flash will run just fine.
Others will simply cause the browser to be unusable. I have no explanation to this.
I compare a site that is unusable on the tab with my Droid x and on the droidx the site runs just fine with flash enabled.
Maybe. This is a software issue which is unrelated to flash and can be fixed in a future firmware update.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using XDA App
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Quote possibly. Samsung have been slow to release Froyo for the galaxy, so maybe the flash thing isn't just the Tab, its the architecture. Maybe they can't get the hummingbird GFX to accelerate properly.

I have a Tab since 1 week and yes...the browsing experience is really awful. it's a pain...it's slow in loading pages and VERY jaggy in scrolling.
If I think that it should be one of the best features on the Tab I'm very sad and I really hope that it will be fixed (ad least improved) soon in future releases!
By now I just can't leave my ipad for internet browsing.

It looks like both the SGS and the Tab are suffering from the same issue with the browser.
Samsung will have no choice but to fix this.

Dolphin and Opera
Yes browsing with stock browser is really slow and jaggy. I've installed Opera mini and Dolphin. I use Opera for casual browsing (ie xda) and it's really smooth. When I need flash, or for "difficult sites" or if I have to download with rapidhare etc I use Dolphin (which is almost smooth).

Thank you all for your honest opinions.

patomas said:
Yes browsing with stock browser is really slow and jaggy. I've installed Opera mini and Dolphin. I use Opera for casual browsing (ie xda) and it's really smooth. When I need flash, or for "difficult sites" or if I have to download with rapidhare etc I use Dolphin (which is almost smooth).
Click to expand...
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Dolphin uses the same core lib as the stock browser so it should run the same as stock in terms of speed.

clubtech said:
Dolphin uses the same core lib as the stock browser so it should run the same as stock in terms of speed.
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Click to collapse
Didnt know. In practice it's really smoother though!

The webkit browser has a really annoying renderer in general. I dont understand why it needs to lower picture quality whenever you move the image around.
Just look at the way opera mini does it - much faster and better looking! Sadly its buggy and lacking in features, which is why im still using webkit.
Dolphin HD is slightly better (if only because it semi-blocks flash content by default), but it has some annoying ui elements like the giant tab bar, which can be removed but at the cost of being able to click on objects along the top edge of the display.
Ive also tried the ARM7 version of the mozilla fennec nighly builds. It just force closed on me, not even a little looksee

For me Dolphin HD is much smoother beside the fact it doesn't show flash banners where stock one does.
Both of them have been a disappointment WRT flash support.
It isn't that great for sites i visit.

If I open a new tap, I need to zoom in and out to get a picture
is this normal?

No, mine loads fine immediatley.

ftgg99 said:
No, mine loads fine immediatley.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
strange maybe this evening I'll do a HR
by the way I open the tabs not in front but in background. If I open it in front it will load

Is it just me, or does the modified stock browser kick ass?

Hey guys,
I have tried MANY browsers, and I have to say that the stock browser is the most reliable and stable on the fascinate.
Here's what I've experienced from other browsers:
Firefox: choppy scrolling, poor image loading
Opera: loads all pages in mobile view, cuts out certain page aspects.
Dolphin: takes very long on 3G
xScope: also takes very long on 3G
Miren: lacks copying capability
Skyfire: interface is too crowded.
Netfront: yahoo is only search engine, WTF.
Maxthon: very buggy at the moment
I run the stock browser from the community rom. It works great, loading pages in a timely fashion with all of the proper features on the page.
So is it just me or does this thing rock? Discuss.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App

I've always felt the stock browser is the best. Only reason I have Dolphin HD installed, is when I need to force the page to be desktop view as I have that set to be that view 100% of time.

I agree. I've tried several different browsers and the stock browser has given me the least amount of problems.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

i always seem to fall back on the stock browser.
i used Dolphin for a bit and it wasn't terrible but it wasn't quite as fast to just look up a random question and be done in 45 seconds either. i tried Skyfire a few days ago and it wasn't for me. Firefox was disappointing overall.
i have been thinking about trying out some different browsers lately but i cant complain about the stock browser at the same time.

That makes me wonder though... what is with all this hype about the other browsers? Does anyone notice that maybe our stock browser is much better than the stock browser of other phones? That seems to me like it's the only explanation..

Well, if you examine it from the desktop side, Chrome is faster and cleaner than any other browsers I've tried. Stands to reason the android browser would be same, as its likely built on much of the same code.
Materialized into existence through the act of observation.

agsded said:
Well, if you examine it from the desktop side, Chrome is faster and cleaner than any other browsers I've tried. Stands to reason the android browser would be same, as its likely built on much of the same code.
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Other than both being based on WebKit (Opera and Firefox being the only two for Android that /aren't/ using WebKit, AFAIK), there isn't a whole lot of similarity between the two.

I would use it if it would let me not have a default browser. When clicking on some links I like to use different browsers for different things, so I don't have a default. That way it will let me choose every time. The stock browser forces me to choose every time it loads a page, usually multiple times per page because it will redirect and things. Like instead of just loading the page it brings up the choose browser popup, and if I tell it to be default it makes itself the default browser for everything, disabling my ability to choose other browsers. So yeah.
Sent from my MIUI SCH-i500

If your only beef with Opera is it loads everthing in Mobile veiw, a quick Google search will tell you how to fix that problem.
Go to "opera:config" in the address bar. go to user agent. Put "Opera/9.80 (linux;en) Prest/2.7.8.1 Version/ 11.00" Or any other user agent you would like.

The stock browser is really nice, but I don't like how it always runs in the background taking up 30 mb of memory since there is no feature, that I know of, to close it within the browser (unless you press the back button 100 times). Dolphin HD has an option to close the browser after using it. If the stock browser had this option it would be the #1 browser for sure.
Just my 2 cents.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

andrew1263 said:
The stock browser is really nice, but I don't like how it always runs in the background taking up 30 mb of memory since there is no feature, that I know of, to close it within the browser (unless you press the back button 100 times). Dolphin HD has an option to close the browser after using it. If the stock browser had this option it would be the #1 browser for sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not really a problem, since Android will automatically close it when it needs that space for another app (that's one of the fundamental components of an app's life cycle on Android). If the phone doesn't need that extra space for another application (say, you shut the screen down and it's sleeping), it won't impact battery life.
I've heard some people claim that empty RAM will be 'powered down'... but in practice I doubt that'll happen even if true: your phone's physical memory will become fragmented over time, resulting in usage spread across physical RAM (both from apps and from the Linux kernel). And it's not like RAM uses all that much energy anyways- if you're looking to optimize battery life and you're looking at RAM, you might wanna rethink your strategy...

Opera mobile with a desktop useragent is the best I've used yet.

sneakysolidbake said:
Opera mobile with a desktop useragent is the best I've used yet.
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+1
10characters

Dolphin HD is by far the best I have used. With that being said, the stock browser is the second best.
I use both the stock and Dolphin HD extensively. I like Opera, Skyfire, and Firefox, but after having used them for a while I still go back to Dolphin HD and Stock.

Stock is the only one with GPU acceleration, hence the speed.
Unfortunately, its handling of tabs, zooming, etc. leaves much to be desired. Dolphin HD is fast enough.

s44 said:
Stock is the only one with GPU acceleration, hence the speed.
Unfortunately, its handling of tabs, zooming, etc. leaves much to be desired. Dolphin HD is fast enough.
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Do you guys have smooth scrolling with stock browser on 2.2 ROMS? I see a big step backwards from 2.1, and assume its from loss of GPU acceleration.

Scrappy1 said:
Do you guys have smooth scrolling with stock browser on 2.2 ROMS? I see a big step backwards from 2.1, and assume its from loss of GPU acceleration.
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It's usually pretty smooth. However, there are times when it can get very choppy; usually when loading pages with lots of images and such. Come to think of it, 2.2 itself can become very choppy at times: something I never noticed on stock 2.1.

gubiguy said:
It's usually pretty smooth. However, there are times when it can get very choppy; usually when loading pages with lots of images and such. Come to think of it, 2.2 itself can become very choppy at times: something I never noticed on stock 2.1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find 2.2 browser scrolling choppy even on simple mobile pages. Good example is mobile ver of news.Google.com. When I test same site on my friends Vibrant or Captivate with 2.2, its silky smooth. Somehow Fascinate code branch lost some goodness, perhaps GPU acceleration. I blame the unholy MS Bing integration keeping Fascinate separate.

Actually, it may have been 2.2->2.2.1. I remember one of those had GPU acceleration on Samsung and the other didn't. Since the Vibrant and Captivate are still (officially) on 2.2, I guess it's the former.
Wonder if you could swap the apks.

I always come back to stock because I use apps for almost everything. XDA Premium and Tapatalk for forums. Wapedia for wikipedia. News apps for news, my banks own App, etc.
On the phone I'm doing simple web searches. Real research needing multiple tabs, extensions, etc happen on the computer.
Of the 'other' browsers I have spent the most time with Dolphin Mini and I don't see any speed improvement, if anything my impression is that stock is slightly faster.
Simple needs = simple browser.

Slowness..

Is anybody else finding that browsing on the Transformer is painfully slow?
We all know about the browser keyboard lag (really annoying) but finding web pages slow to load, especially if it is more complicated Google+ for example.
Does rooting and using Prime for example make any differences to performance of this device??

it did make a big difference and also u need to tweak it abit on those animation becoz it did improve it ! i just flash to prime 1.6 yesterday with blades's kernel 1.7 OC to 1.6ghz and it open everything in a flash ! it is really fast
but the stock browser is well known laggy if i am not mistaken they it is fine when using opera

dolphin is okay too.. seems like the keyboard lags when typing in forums but is fine in the search bars for me.. :-(?

Thanks, I guess I will root it then.
Yeah, I have found Dolphin better ... not tried Opera yet, might give that a whirl too.

I find that browsing with any browser on the TF is painfully slower than PC or even my iPad.

I'm rooted on prime 1.6 with a 1.6 OC. Performance is notably better than stock.
Agreed - dolphin beats stock browser for speed but not for rendering accuracy in my experience (I have not run dolphin 6.0 against the acid3 test yet.)
All in all - browsing on all my mobile devices (Transformer, iPad, Samsung Galaxy S, HTC HD2) with any browser (Safari, Dolphin, Opera, Stock honey comb etc) just makes me wish I was using Chrome on my PC. It would have to be number one on my wishlist for the next generation of devices. Give me a super fast and easy to use browser and I will forgive any amount of OS/APP/Hardware concerns.

My first tablet was an Archos 101. I can't believe people can call browsing "slow" on the Transformer.

gn9746203 said:
... if i am not mistaken it is fine when using opera
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Click to collapse
NO ... loading times with Opera are horribly slow, but scrolling and typing is lightning fast.
I'm on a stock TF and loading times with the stock browser are only a bit slower than on my Win7 notebook.

I've now rooted and using Prime 1.6r2, much faster ... still a bit laggy in browser but not so much of a problem anymore

eatmold said:
Is anybody else finding that browsing on the Transformer is painfully slow?
We all know about the browser keyboard lag (really annoying) but finding web pages slow to load, especially if it is more complicated Google+ for example.
Does rooting and using Prime for example make any differences to performance of this device??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my stock browser is fast, opera is faster but not as smooth, set flash for on demand, it makes it a bit faster in stock, just click the arrow for flash content in page to view. Google+ is painfully slow on my TF, but the same on the Ipad, god knows why as the full FB web page works fine. Typing lag is my only real dislike in the stock browser, hoping 3.2 will help.

I'm hoping Boat Browser comes out with a Tablet optimized browser. It's blazing fast on my Evo 3D.

De browser is indeed slow. Especially on sites with javascripts. Seems something wrong with java engine? ! Seen some reports that browser was faster before 3.1 update?! Got mine already with update. Can someone confirm that? If its true this should be fixed hopefully next update?!
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

Ran across a new browser last night shortly after responding to this called Dolphin for Tabs beta and it seemed pretty zippy in both typing and browsing, me likey.

darkonex said:
Ran across a new browser last night shortly after responding to this called Dolphin for Tabs beta and it seemed pretty zippy in both typing and browsing, me likey.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dolphin Pad beta is pretty good but go to www.transformerforums.com and it still lags on typing. Also I could not get gestures to work.

darkonex said:
I find that browsing with any browser on the TF is painfully slower than PC or even my iPad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's because you haven't tried Opera Mobile.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App

Aymara said:
NO ... loading times with Opera are horribly slow, but scrolling and typing is lightning fast.
I'm on a stock TF and loading times with the stock browser are only a bit slower than on my Win7 notebook.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Opera is the fastest browser hands down in every category.
Opera just seems to hang when loading certain pages. For example I just did some speed tests using the same site for the stock android browser vs the Opera browser. The android browser routinely takes 3 seconds or longer to render any web page. The Opera browser will sometimes be displaying all its content but never actually finish loading. It's a glitch.
Don't get me wrong, Opera definitely is the fastest, but it is not without it's faults. You can enter a wall of text into a chat reply box only to have Opera completely delete all of it when you go to send it. NOW THAT is frustrating.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App

Aymara said:
NO ... loading times with Opera are horribly slow, but scrolling and typing is lightning fast.
I'm on a stock TF and loading times with the stock browser are only a bit slower than on my Win7 notebook.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try turning off opera turbo. It makes slow connections faster(compression) but it actually slows down fast connections merely because of the extra step going to the Opera proxy servers.

Laggy browsers

I'm on stock jvs and the browser I'd really laggy when scrolling on some websites. it takes ages to respond. How do I fix it? I've tried stock browser and dolphin
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Have you tried wiping the cache and history... I've found formatting the internal sd after a while helps, obviously you will loose everything on it, but just back up what you need..
If that dont work try some of the tweaks in the stickes

What ROM are you using?
I really enjoy the layout of Opera Mobile, and I find it to have absolutely no lag whatsoever; even while pages are loading, I can freely scroll around as I please. Granted, I'm using CM7 and have a highly tweaked phone. In general, my phone doesn't really lag at all.

seeraj15 said:
I'm on stock jvs and the browser I'd really laggy when scrolling on some websites. it takes ages to respond. How do I fix it? I've tried stock browser and dolphin
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
What websites?

The truth is that every browser lags once a while, we cant help it. Dolphin hd is the best browser without a doubt but it also lags a bit sometimes.
hit thankxx if i helped. sent from my mind through telepathy (ya its possible)!

Browser is laggy when your page is loading, try to wait when it is loaded at full, also when browser loading it is killing apps in background deppending on your page size. Also it is normal that browser laggs with "heavy" pages, there you can do nothing, it will lagg with every browser in this situation.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

Websites such as sky sports and fantasy premier league take ages to respond when I'm trying to scroll.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

seeraj15 said:
Websites such as sky sports and fantasy premier league take ages to respond when I'm trying to scroll.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you can do one thing, use dolphin browser hd its the best and it has kill ad in which can be downloaded from market and then on the side bar of dolphin browser their is a 1 click option to kill background apps which browsing faster.
hit thankxx if i helped. sent from my mind through telepathy (ya its possible)!

No problems with semaphore kern
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

seeraj15 said:
Websites such as sky sports and fantasy premier league take ages to respond when I'm trying to scroll.
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Click to collapse
Both sites work perfectly fine on my phone. I have the complete ability to scroll, zoom in, etc. while the site is loading. No lag whatsoever.

upichie said:
Both sites work perfectly fine on my phone. I have the complete ability to scroll, zoom in, etc. while the site is loading. No lag whatsoever.
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Click to collapse
Pretty much true.
The only exception, and I've seen this on other sites, are the pages that have large rotating images (JavaScript, not Flash) that fade in and out.
Those pages sometimes experience slowdowns... other than that, both sites are completely smooth for me. (Odexed JVR)

seeraj15 said:
I'm on stock jvs and the browser I'd really laggy when scrolling on some websites. it takes ages to respond. How do I fix it? I've tried stock browser and dolphin
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps your rom is deodexed. Most deodexed browsers lag. Try using dolphinn browser or opera mobile. Opera isn't as good as dolphin, but it allows you to download from sites like filesonic.

mate i've been over different roms, and different kernels, overclocking etc. There's just some pages where it has always lagged for me. Most seem to be ok, but some are just impossible.. Usually use stock browser, have tried others but for some sites dont think it really matters, it's going to lag either way.
There's an australian footy site over here which has a bit of flash content etc and it takes ages to load even on wifi and can lag bigtime at times. Would be extremely impressed (and jealous) if anyone doesn't have lag on their phones on it.
www.afl.com.au

Yeah some pages the phone with stock browser (or dolphin hd) just can't handle smoothly. Too much going on, need more power like in the SGS2 to really handle it (opera might be better than stock or dolphin hd but I didn't like the interface when I tried it). IIRC the SGS2 has enough juice to play embedded 720p flash video, where 320p is a stretch for the SGS.

westcoastricho said:
mate i've been over different roms, and different kernels, overclocking etc. There's just some pages where it has always lagged for me. Most seem to be ok, but some are just impossible.. Usually use stock browser, have tried others but for some sites dont think it really matters, it's going to lag either way.
There's an australian footy site over here which has a bit of flash content etc and it takes ages to load even on wifi and can lag bigtime at times. Would be extremely impressed (and jealous) if anyone doesn't have lag on their phones on it.
www.afl.com.au
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Definitely a lot going on at that page. It probably took a solid 10 seconds to fully load it on Wifi, haha. Surprisingly, there were a couple hiccups while it was loading on my phone—but only three very minor hesitations in scrolling in the entire 10 seconds of load time.
Sounds like you guys just need to tweak your phones a little.

With my SGS I get lag in the stock browser, where my Atrix is fine (which I'm guessing has to do with the extra ram).
For any sites on my SGS that lag, (which does include XDA at times) I try to go Opera Mobile whenever possible and that usually is enough for me...
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium

The browser lags on aforementioned websites. I also experience lag on phonearena.com, pocketnow.com and rebtel.com. This might be related to the ram problem.
The sites don't lag on my zte blade which has 512 MB too. But maybe that has more free ram.
Wonder if galaxy S plus suffers from the same problem. Anyone have experience with SGS Plus or have heard anything about this?

upichie said:
Definitely a lot going on at that page. It probably took a solid 10 seconds to fully load it on Wifi, haha. Surprisingly, there were a couple hiccups while it was loading on my phone—but only three very minor hesitations in scrolling in the entire 10 seconds of load time.
Sounds like you guys just need to tweak your phones a little.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeh it's a heavy site, thought there would of been some problems. but seems yours performed still a bit better than mine. hopefully will get it worked out sometime.

Nothing wrong with your phones dudes, more that enough firepower to browse smoothly.
Just poorly optimized coding imo. To prove this you need to try Opera Mobile.
Same phone, same websites, different browser, NO LAG WHATSOEVER.
- no lag scrolling even while loading
- no lag zooming even while loading
- no lag whatsoever anywhere including that site www.afl.com.au (it just takes a while to load cos its huge, but no lag still)
- flash works great (this MAY lag a bit but that's flash for you on this phone, not opera's fault)
Doesn't matter what android version/kernel you're running either. I tried almost every rom/kernel combo out there (2.2.x, 2.3.x, custom, stock, semaphore, darky, talon, etc), makes no difference for this, really.
That said, other developers need to work better on their software. Opera has just proven it's perfectly possible to browse lag-free and it's not the hardware that's lacking. Although, to be fair, i'm not sure what more could i ask from a browser that opera doesn't provide already.

Interesting one of the sites that lagged really bad in dolphin hd, canadacomputers.com, was much smoother in the stock browser. Odd I though they were pretty the same, although I do notice that stock browser does the white/grey checkerboard thing (also the thing where zooming in blurs until it 're-renders') while dolphin does not. I hate how 'tabs' work in the stock browser though, maybe I'll give opera another shot.