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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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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/
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Click to collapse
I guess Google found out the shut down the site.
Yahoo's Beta sucks.
Hi,
one of the most important features for me (which makes me want to buy Honeycmob tablet) is browser.
As far as I know browser in Xoom is sort of a mobile version of Chrome.
So, my questions are:
- how close are they in reality?
- what can be synced?
- what can not be synced?
- what about extensions I use in my desktop chrome (one of them is freshstart to save open tabs! excellent)
- can I have my bookmarks bar in Honeycomb (I use it a lot)
I use three different PC's every single day and I work with browser a lot. All this makes Chrome so much pleasure to use... because I can finish work at one machine and easily continue (exactly where I was) on another machine few minutes later. I was hoping that tablet with Honecomb will fit right in
Will it?
Currently it only syncs bookmarks. All of your bookmarks sync just fine, folder structure is preserved. The only difference is that Bookmarks Bar shows up as the root folder with Other Folders as a subfolder in that. There is not a bookmarks bar, per se, but you can set your homepage to a Chrome-inspired "Most Visited" page which holds 12 pages (unfortunately you can't customize them, they are always your 12 most visited pages).
Chrome-to-phone still works on the Xoom, so you can always send pages from Chrome to the tablet, but you don't get any sort of tab syncing or extensions.
Is there any way to make web sites think it is chrome browser? Once the Flash is on the system it should be able to play all free videos as any other "desktop" browser.
I thought I read somewhere that phones with Android and Flash can do it.
Playon is not a solution. At home I can watch hulu on my desktop/netbook - the whole idea was to access it when I am not at home
galtom said:
Is there any way to make web sites think it is chrome browser? Once the Flash is on the system it should be able to play all free videos as any other "desktop" browser.
I thought I read somewhere that phones with Android and Flash can do it.
Playon is not a solution. At home I can watch hulu on my desktop/netbook - the whole idea was to access it when I am not at home
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Just like on phones, you can set it to use a desktop user agent. But for sites that check the flash version, you'll need to hex edit the plugin (there are other threads about that here if you look around)
At this stage I just need to know if it is doable - there is other thread about it... and I have been told -NO WAY (to do it) -either Hulu Plus or nothing :-(
Which browser is your favorite for your rooted kindle fire and which seems the fastest? Thx
I haven't tried Dolphin but seem to be flipping back and forth between silk and opera. Had some issues with opera loading sites properly (i.e. my google apps mail account?) but the thing I like most about opera is the dynamic resizing of content to fit the screen - makes browsing a dream - no horizontal scrolling required! Silk doesn't do this. Use opera on my other computers also so am able to sync all my bookmarks which is nice. Now only wish they supported LastPass for my passwords.
I haven't noticed any appreciable speed difference between the 2 browsers.
I use Opera Mobile most of the time. I have not tried Dolphin in a long time and never on my Fire.
tried them all
I've tried most browsers and I prefer dolphin, it seems to be the quickest and some nice little extras.
I'm rooted and running CM7.. very smooth with not many issues..
I have to use all 3 depending on the website
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium
Another vote for Dolphin. Maxthon second or Firefox with alot of the add-ons...
My personal preference is dolphin. I use it on all my android devices.
I'd use dolphin if there was a way to keep the tabs on the top
i like dolphin
Support the open web, use Firefox! Besides, you'll be surprised at how fast it is, and since it uses the same codebase as the desktop version there is little difference between the desktpp and mobile web. And having access to all your bookmarks through sync, and the awesome screen really puts all the other browsers to shame. Really the only competition Firefox has is Chrome and the stock Android browser, except Google has a vested interest in not allowing ad-blocking plugins, so I find I spend more time waiting for Chrome to load a page than Firefox because the ads are slowing it down.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk
I use the Firefox Beta because of adblock and sync. (I use Aurora on my desktop but I found the Android version a bit too buggy for my tastes...Nightly as well)
Honestly, I've tried every Android browser that I could find and they all kinda suck even with the user agent set to desktop.
I want to make a (more recent) comparison of web browsers available to us on the ASUS TF101 and TF201 tablets, something that is useful. In my experience we don't have all that many threads that are Really Good on this subject, that don't get bogged down with noise and opinion drowning out the signal after a while.
The browsers, web sites, and procedures I will use for testing are being collected HERE as they are written.
I am open to suggestions of things to test as long as they don't cost me $$$, are legit, and hopefully widely used by communities of people in general. If it has issues with the stock browser in HC/ICS/GB/Froyo in fast/simple usage, like crashy crashy! Then I am more likely to test a suggestion.
Note for mods: this is cross posted in the forum for both tablets.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
One test i would like to see is which browsers you can put into desktop mode and fool HULU with.
Neither. Hulu knows it's an android because you're running an android version of flash.
Joey563 said:
One test i would like to see is which browsers you can put into desktop mode and fool HULU with.
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Yep, its the Flash version that matters.
In the Apps forum there's a hacked Flash plugin that works with Hulu.
@topic
Great idea. Looking forward for the results.
The things that i'd like to see reviewed are the rendering speed and image quality while browsing.
Speed will be noted somehow but I really don't know how to scientifically do image quality, past "Looks ...." to me, lol.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Lifehacker is a good website to test. See if any browser can reproduce the two different scrollable objects properly, like it would be on a browser in Windows or Mac. A lot of browsers will simply choose to lock the two scrollable columns into the page, such that if you try to scroll one, the other follows.
I'd suggest testing a website like Verizonwireless.com, specifically the Explore, Shop, My Verizon, and Support buttons. On a computer, a mouse-over shows a drop-down menu, and a click takes you to the next page. The iPad does this very smart where tapping once on "Shop" for instance will bring down the dropdown menu, tapping it once more will take you to the webpage it links to. So far, the Android browsers I've tried have an awkward execution for this mouse-over effect where you have to hold the button like "Shop" for around half a second and then swipe away your finger to avoid going to the link it points to. See if you can find a browser that works mouse-over in a similar fashion to Safari.
+1 for lifehacker/deadspin/gizmodo sometimes (usually) first load is a blank screen and I have to hit reload. After reload its marginally functional, but not 100%
Also try facebook in desktop or iPad mode... Some stuff works well... Other stuff is total fail, like inviting people to events.
I'll post more as I remember them. I've actually been thinking of making a list like this, but you beat me to it.
Edit: thought of one more: google docs... Word processor, spreadsheets, the whole lot of them...
Spidey,
One thing I find very helpful in web browsing on my Transformer is the ability of a browser to scroll using the scroll wheel on a bluetooth mouse. I've noticed some browsers will scroll with the mouse, and some will not.
If possible, during your testing, you might want to add that as a yes/no feature, it would only take moments to test and include in your results.
Thanks for taking this on, I'm looking forward to your results/conclusions, and the inevitable "discussions" that will follow, either agreeing or disagreeing with your results.
Hi!
Can you test logmein.com as well? In stock and Dolphin it is not working.
I know there is .apk for Android, but it's costly.
@ERamseth gdocs is on my list and whenever possible I'll be testing desktop versions of sites. Can't say that I use Facebook very deeply though so a grain of salt may be needed..
@dm36415 Sorry, don't have any bluetooth mice to test with but great suggestion!] If the Windows box doesn't get pissy maybe I can try yanking my wired one off the desktop, but I can only test that on the TF101 as my Prime won't be getting a dock for a while :-(.
@stenc55 my word that site pissed off the stock browser, just trying to scroll the front page. Not sure how much I can test it but I'll try. Out side of Opera/Firefox, everything will probably barf at it though, and those two might as well lol.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Are you just planning on testing rendering quality/performance, or are you going to sum up some of the other UI features that get mentioned (how tabs work, gesture support, how fluid/laggy scrolling down the page is, is there an incognito mode, etc)
How easy/difficult to import bookmarks from a PC browser, with or without folders.
Most browsers use the same back end as the stock browser, i.e. they do about as much work as Maxthon used to do. So the most use on quality/performance I can give versus the stock, I'm sure will usually be load times and usability. Opera & Firefox are the only two that I know of who bring their own magic for the back end. Unless I get something like native libs in the app data to suggest they included their own rendering engine, I'm marking it as "Stock".
I've been testing the Prime's stock browser, Angel, and Boat for part of the day in between taking care of my mother. Current data that I've recorded:
App name (in launcher, usually), market page, version tested, demographic (mobile, tablet, ...), rendering engine, approximate start time and page load times, exit method (menu, closing last tab, etc), available user agent settings, bookmark storage, sync, and folder support, gesture support, quick control support, plugin support, password remembered, speed dial support, max # of tabs, and "Editorial Remarks" like what I've written for Angel Browser:
My remarks on Angel Browser said:
Has a handy sidebar on the left, similar to what you can do in Opera Desktop; quick controls interfere with sidebar.
You can configure what toolbars are visible.
You can configure by pattern, what app handles what URL.
You can configure by pattern, what UA is given for what URL
You can configure the heck out of what clicking stuff does.
You can configure where most data is stored.
You can configure quick controls, UI, and most everything.
Bookmarks UI can have ads unless you purchase the Angel Browser License app.
Handy scroll down button (by default).
Has "Notes" and "Read Later" features.
Good alternative to the stock browsers UX.
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For websites tested, App/Site/Load Time/Rendering/Date and Editorial remarks are also being made for websites, like this one for the stock ICS browser on the Prime:
Prone to crashing and input lag
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For rendering, it's mostly focused on does it look/work like the desktop site and is it usable? For example, mail.google.com is gitchy in Boat browser and may give you a seizure.
Try editing a document in Google Docs (right now in every browser I tested it's almost impossible and does really strange things).
Note well: I no longer have a TF101 available so tests off TF201 by me are scrapped. People seem to have settled down post Chrome on ICS enough that I may just scrap it totally. If someone would like to pick up on TF101, PM me with your Google Docs address.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Zooming, text reflowing and hardware acceleration.
The most important aspects of a browser, and the only browser that does these properly on mobile, is Opera.
Hi all
I'm having some issues with watching trailers at imdb.com.
I'm using IE10 and have no full screen option.
When using Chrome, there is one.
I've noticed that if I'm going to IE10 dev option (F12) and there I'm changing the user agent to Chrome, I have the full screen option and actually and IE crashes a lot less (I don't understand why, but it does).
Every time I'm closing IE, the option resets the default setting and I have to manually change it to Chrome again.
I'm searching of a way to set the user agent of IE10 (Win8 Pro x64) to be always on "Chrome Mode"
Is there a way to do it?
Thanks
*grumble grumble ****ty web developers sending ****ty code to anything with MSIE in the user agent string and ****ing up the browsing experience of their customers grumble mutter grumble*
I don't know of a way off-hand, although there used to be a way in the registry to set the default IE user-agent string; that *might* still work. Alternatively, you can just never close the browser. I'm serious - it's one of the first things I open when I start the PC, one of the last things I close when rebooting, and I reboot as little as possible. Close extra tabs if you're worried about RAM usage, but if you've got enough RAM even that isn't important. I regularly have 20-30 tabs open for weeks.