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Your favorite browser(s)?
- Thread starter Yumunum
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I keep a copy of Chrome around since it has Flash built-in. That has let me remove Flash from my system, with significant battery life improvements. But I don't trust the browser... they have integrated the search-bar with the URL box, meaning every URL I type gets sent to Google for inspection just-in-case it's a search query. Google knows enough about me, thank you very much.
For everyday browsing, I used to prefer Firefox due to its stability with many tabs and windows open, and some user interface details that I liked. Plus, it's available on several platforms, and I go between different computers every day and found the consistency appealing. But the latest versions have been buggy, and Firefox (and Chrome) doesn't support some of the best features of Lion, such as the double-tap-with-three-fingers which brings up a dictionary and thesaurus for whatever word you're tapping on. That is a flippin' marvelous feature.
So, after Firefox-on-Lion annoyed me one time too many, I started using the Safari browser, which had previously left me cold. But I'm loving it now. The two things that delight me most about it and have made it my everyday browser are (1) the aforementioned integrated dictionary/thesaurus, and (2) READER MODE!
Reader Mode deserves a paragraph of its own. I send a lot of articles around to friends and colleagues. With 90% of these, the little "Reader" button appears to the right of their URL. This means the Reader engine has succeeded in parsing the article's format to differentiate between what's content and what's fluff. Clicking the button brings up a nicely formatted and much more readable version of the article, missing ads and other distractions and formatted to be easy on the eyes. And, most of the time Reader will be able to load in all the pages of articles that would otherwise require clicking "next"... "next"... "next"...
AND the best part is, hover your mouse towards the bottom of the Reader page and up comes a little menu, which includes a mail icon. Click this, and boom: up comes a nicely formatted email with the entire article cut-and-pasted, with a link to source and even the subject line filled-out with the article title and source!
Unbelievably wonderful.
For everyday browsing, I used to prefer Firefox due to its stability with many tabs and windows open, and some user interface details that I liked. Plus, it's available on several platforms, and I go between different computers every day and found the consistency appealing. But the latest versions have been buggy, and Firefox (and Chrome) doesn't support some of the best features of Lion, such as the double-tap-with-three-fingers which brings up a dictionary and thesaurus for whatever word you're tapping on. That is a flippin' marvelous feature.
So, after Firefox-on-Lion annoyed me one time too many, I started using the Safari browser, which had previously left me cold. But I'm loving it now. The two things that delight me most about it and have made it my everyday browser are (1) the aforementioned integrated dictionary/thesaurus, and (2) READER MODE!
Reader Mode deserves a paragraph of its own. I send a lot of articles around to friends and colleagues. With 90% of these, the little "Reader" button appears to the right of their URL. This means the Reader engine has succeeded in parsing the article's format to differentiate between what's content and what's fluff. Clicking the button brings up a nicely formatted and much more readable version of the article, missing ads and other distractions and formatted to be easy on the eyes. And, most of the time Reader will be able to load in all the pages of articles that would otherwise require clicking "next"... "next"... "next"...
AND the best part is, hover your mouse towards the bottom of the Reader page and up comes a little menu, which includes a mail icon. Click this, and boom: up comes a nicely formatted email with the entire article cut-and-pasted, with a link to source and even the subject line filled-out with the article title and source!
Unbelievably wonderful.
Previous to iOS 5 I only used Atmoic, but now I am cool with Safari (now that it has real tabs). As for flash content, I use Photon browser. Works great.
Wow, that was a really long post for being in the wrong forum! Haha, no worries man. Thanks for the input.
So Photon sounds widely used. Was Skyfire not good for you guys?
Photon is the best Flash browser imo, because Flash is only engaged when you want it to be. There is a small lightening bolt at the top right of the screen that reroutes your webpage to their servers, allowing you to see Flash content. You can make adjustments to bandwidth on the fly, to ensure best performance. Having Flash on demand means when you don't need Flash, you are not connected to another server which would unnecessarily slow down your browsing experience. I use Photon to watch UFC fights, when they are shown. I also use it to see some Foxnews content. Works perfectly.
Other people have mentioned Puffin browser to watch Flash content, but I don't like it when my web browser is constantly connected to another web server. Slows down the process.
iCab is my favorite browser. I love that I can not only download but also upload (even if only to some websites), that I can swipe left and right with one finger to switch between tabs, that it can create a file server for importing and exporting files, and that I can backup my bookmarks to Dropbox.
I use Atomic for most, Puffin for flash. And Meteoric for big downloads since atomic won't do them in the background.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en_US) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)
I'm using Dolphin right now, but Safari isn't bad now with the iOS 5 tabs
I'm using Dolphin right now, but Safari isn't bad now with the iOS 5 tabs
I alternate from Safari to Atomic free - because I haven't really needed any of the paid-version's features.
I haven't much tried any of the other browsers because I haven't had a strong inclination to go through paid versions just to see which is the best. Everything works fine as-is. Maybe I'll try Photon sometime soon if I want to test out Flash.
I haven't much tried any of the other browsers because I haven't had a strong inclination to go through paid versions just to see which is the best. Everything works fine as-is. Maybe I'll try Photon sometime soon if I want to test out Flash.
When I went non-Safari I used iCab for a long time. Such an intuitive and elegant interface. The way it works just makes sense.
Played with Atomic on both iPad and iPhone. Went back to iCab. Then decided to test both Atomic and iCab extensively on e iPad. Just recently decided that iCab just agrees with me so much. I'd say the interface is far more intuitive than that of the alternate browsers. Safari is very well implement on the iPad, but iCab works too well for me and the tab management really does it for me. I noticed that with iCab everything is also positioned more conveniently.
Still, I'm quite impressed with Atomic. It would be my #2. However, if Safari had a full screen option plus tab previews I'd probably never leave it. For me, tab previews win over desktop style tabs every time. Tab previews just work better on tablets, IMHO. It would be nice to see tab previews implemented as nicely as Opera Mobile does them. Very slick. Unfortunately, in virtually every other area Opera Mobile is junk.
In any event, it's iCab all the way for me.
When I want to do Flash - very, very rarely - I use Puffin.
Played with Atomic on both iPad and iPhone. Went back to iCab. Then decided to test both Atomic and iCab extensively on e iPad. Just recently decided that iCab just agrees with me so much. I'd say the interface is far more intuitive than that of the alternate browsers. Safari is very well implement on the iPad, but iCab works too well for me and the tab management really does it for me. I noticed that with iCab everything is also positioned more conveniently.
Still, I'm quite impressed with Atomic. It would be my #2. However, if Safari had a full screen option plus tab previews I'd probably never leave it. For me, tab previews win over desktop style tabs every time. Tab previews just work better on tablets, IMHO. It would be nice to see tab previews implemented as nicely as Opera Mobile does them. Very slick. Unfortunately, in virtually every other area Opera Mobile is junk.
In any event, it's iCab all the way for me.
When I want to do Flash - very, very rarely - I use Puffin.
Could someone say if the iCab browser has the option for a multitouch gesture to go into fullscreen mode, like Atomic's three-finger touch? I think that I might try out iCab, but the easy fullscreen in-and-out is one of my favorite things about Atomic.
Ooops!
Surprisingly, much of what I wrote applies to iDevices as well. There's a nifty dictionary feature, and Reader mode works as I described-- including auto-composing emails with the full text of the article, a link, and subject-line all filled out.
Dolphin is great until you have a site with horizontal finger scrolling. Then the swipe left/right areas in the browser interfere with the site design.
AFAIK dictionary is a system-wide feature and reader mode use readability engine, so you can use a readability bookmarklet in 3rd party browser to achieve the same thing.
Yes. It doesn't by default (by default a three finger tap brings up the extremely useful scrollpad), but multitouch gestures are fully customizable in iCab.
Mind if I ask why Safari?
I tend to find Safari's non-fullscreen layout very good. If only it had tab previews . . .