Android users: what's your favorite web browser?

[aysiu]

So I've had an Android phone for the last four months, and I have yet to find a truly good web browser. Each web browser I've tried has had a few good points and then at least one super-stinky point. I've tried the default Browser, Better Browser, Steel, Opera Mini, Coco, Infinity, and Dolphin.

Any others to try? Which is your favorite and why?

By the way, the browsers on the phone are slow. At first I thought it was just the speed of my connection (phones seem to be more like dial-up than broadband, even on 3G... and this is true of both my MyTouch 3G and my wife's iPhone 3G). But now I'm using the wifi tether app to browse the web through my netbook, and it is a super-speedy connection. What is up with that? Is it just the processor speed and RAM of the phone, as opposed to the netbook?

Well, any light folks can shed here will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[AICollector]

I'm in favour of the Dolphin...but it does have one issue for me;

1. It can't link to apps;

Using the Google Listen tool for podcasts, it requires me to go and find the URL in the brower (where Listen comes up as a context-sensitve action)

I agree, the browsers are slow...but I still think the default browser is faster.


A particually useful feature exists in the FeedR RSS Reader; it allows you to 'mobilize' the article, setting you to the webpage without any images or banners...just text.

Still trying to find a browser that can do that by default, though :/

[gnomeuser]

I just got my HTC Hero but I have to admit I am rather fond of the default browser so far.

[squilookle]

I use the default browser. Sometimes, if I cant be bothered to get the laptop out but I want to go on the Internet, I use the phone on my wireless network at home, and it goes much faster than it does on 3g: almost as fast as the laptop. No complaints there.

I have the tmobile g1

[aysiu]

Not a lot of Android users here, eh?

Yeah, I just keep going back to the default browser. The only thing I don't like about it is that it reloads the page every time I go back to it. Seems to be a big with no real fix on the way:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2171

Thanks to the few who responded.

[blur xc]

Not an android user, but I've browsed online a tiny bit with my Samsung A727 and it's horribly slow, even on 3g. But- I tethered it to my laptop via. bluetooth, and I browsed on my laptop pretty quickly, kind of like a slow-ish broadband connection. I don't understand why it is that way... My understanding is that bluetooth is a pretty slow transfer protocol- which I'm witnessed when transferring files between my computer and my phone on it.

BM

[pwnst*r]

Not a lot of Android users here, eh?



yeah - kind of funny in the previous threads were almost everyone was saying "OMG i'm getting <insert latest Android phone here> as soon as it's released!!".

[drascus]

I think it's just a problem with the speedyness of the phone trying to run a fully featured browser. I don't have any proof of that but it seems to make sense. I find once the browser is going though it works pretty well. I mean its a phone not a laptop so I am not overly surprised that it's a little slow.

[aysiu]

I think it's just a problem with the speedyness of the phone trying to run a fully featured browser. I don't have any proof of that but it seems to make sense. I find once the browser is going though it works pretty well. I mean its a phone not a laptop so I am not overly surprised that it's a little slow.
That seems to be the best explanation. I think my phone has a 384 MHz processor (not sure how much RAM... can't imagine it's that much), and even though my netbook has a low-performance and generally underclocked Atom processor, it's a 1.6 GHz processor with 2 GB of RAM.

[amitabhishek]

Stock browser is good but Dolphin is better. Love its gesture features.

[Georgia boy]

Mind me asking what's the going rate for the androids and what's entailed with them? A friend and I was discussing him getting one and he was trying to figure out what he would be looking at for costs. He mentioned something about tethering? Sorry about a stupid question like this but was just wondering about what he would be looking at for things.

Tom

[amitabhishek]

Mind me asking what's the going rate for the androids and what's entailed with them? A friend and I was discussing him getting one and he was trying to figure out what he would be looking at for costs. He mentioned something about tethering? Sorry about a stupid question like this but was just wondering about what he would be looking at for things.

Tom

In here an entry level Android phone such as HTC Tattoo (http://www.htc.com/www/product/tattoo/overview.html) costs around $360.

Unless you flash; by default you can't tether using an Android phone (am not so sure about Droid).

[Queue29]

I have a Dev1. I use Opera Mini. It's faster. Clunky interface, but that's a small price to pay for the speed gains.

[aysiu]

I just tried out Opera Mini beta 5, and it's pretty good. I have a few minor gripes with it, but my main gripe is that it can't be made the default browser. If I clear the defaults and then try to launch a link off the home screen, my only two options are Steel and Browser (not Opera).

Any ideas?

My other minor gripes are it takes an extra few seconds to launch up the browser, and scrolling takes an extra effort (as if the page is tied to the ground). Also font rendering is terrible (pixelated, not smooth at all). And you have to tap twice to do anything with a non-focused window. Tap once to focus its thumbnail. Tap a second time to select it or close it.

Speed of loading pages is super-fast, though. And it's a lot more touchscreen-friendly than Opera Mini 4.2 was.

[diablo75]

I have a Nexus One and use the default browser. Works fine for me. I haven't tried Opera 5 beta yet, but the big thing for Opera is the fact that they proxy your web browsing requests through their servers so they can compress the data and you get a website displayed faster, allegedly. The thing for me is, 90% of the time I'm even browsing the web I'm at home, on my own wireless network. And even if I were away from home, I have unlimited data to access via 3G (when the T-Mobile coverage gods are smiling on me).

[Mehall]

In here an entry level Android phone such as HTC Tattoo (http://www.htc.com/www/product/tattoo/overview.html) costs around $360.

Unless you flash; by default you can't tether using an Android phone (am not so sure about Droid).

Also, in the UK and certain other EU countries, the T-Mobile Pulse is available. prices around £149.99 on pay as you go. (obviously, you need an internet plan for it too, ask a network rep what you can get)


I'm typing this from my Pulse. Not too disappointed by Browser yet, other than the previously mentioned bug, so not tried anything else.

[JoshuaRL]

I just got an HTC Droid Eris from Verizon, which is basically a Hero 2.0 but on Verizon instead of Sprint. It seems to me to be like the little sister of the Nexus One (even has a prox sensor to turn the screen off during calls) and I love it. It was free with a new contract, and I pay $30/mo for unlimited data. Don't know if they're still doing it, but they were giving a free Eris away if you got one. I didn't have anyone else on my plan to give one to though.

As far as the browser, I tend to just use the default one so far. Dolphin is nice, but I just want something simple. I use Chromium daily builds on my laptop and don't use too many extentions, so simplicity and speed are my top concerns. I don't see too much slowdown, but I think my phone is a little faster than yours. I'm trying out Opera 5 beta right now, we'll see how it goes.

[chucky chuckaluck]

I'm trying steel right now. It's kind of fun out of the gate and has good instructions. I tried the opera mini beta 5.0, but I just don't like (didn't like the previous version either).

[groupmsl]

I am also fond of the default browser, but I have got Android 2.1 on my Nexus, its now got Multitouch and the interface is less clunky than anything else I have tried... and there are no ads, and I can change the homepage!

[chucky chuckaluck]

Woooooo! Xscope-lite!

[JoshuaRL]

Woooooo! Xscope-lite!

Dude, totally. I had to go find this on Marketplace and install it. Completely rocks. It's probably as quick as Opera and very minimalistic. The tab layout works and looks a lot like Chrome/ium and it seems to be more full-featured than the default browser. My only problem is that it doesn't support pinch-to-zoom which is enabled on my Eris/Hero. But that isn't enough to stop me from using it as my primary browser now.

[Kenny_Strawn]

You know, "Dolphin" was also the name of KDE's file manager. Maybe the Dolphin Web browser is a fork of it...