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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
On my free time, I downloaded:
- Opera Mobile
- Maxthon
- Dolphin
- Firefox
- Firefox Aurora
I used the PeaceKeeper browser benchmark by FutureMark and tested each one.
The top scoring ones were all very similar: Maxthon, Dolphin, and Stock.
The middle ground browser was Opera.
The really low scores were Firefox and Firefox Aurora.
Maxthon, Dolphin, support more codecs and look pretty Chrome-like.
Is miren browser working for the prime?
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
Nevermind I see it.
Interesting thread..liking forward to the results. Pretty extensive list you have of browsers. I have 5 of them out the list. MAXTHALON, OPERA MOBILE, ICS+, BOAT BROWSER, DOLPHin HD, and stock. The best performing for me are opera mobile, stock, n boat browser. SOMETHING happened after ICS update that drastically improved stock browser performance. It use to be my worst performer. BOAT browser is great also n runs flash very well. Just have to get used to its setup. OPERA mobile of course is always fast n only drawback is flash not working right on Prime version of Opera Mobile.
I've settled on Boat Browser. I've not experienced the lockups or pages not loading that all the other browsers that I've tried. It does take a while to get used to the format but if means no lockups I'll keep using it.
OK, I just ran almost all of the ones you listed through the peacekeeper browser test. The results are below. Each browser was only run 1 time and if its not listed it means the browser was not capable of giving me a score
Xscope - 378
Stock Browser - 361
Maxthon - 343
Boat - 369
ICS browser+ - 369
Opera Mobile - 274
Ninesky - 361
Angel - 375
Sleipner - 376
Dolphin Pad - 376
Firefox - 273
These are not in any particular order and I also only tested one opera and one dolphin, not all of them. Hope this gets the thread started.
Was also going to bench all with browsermark but the stock browser wouldn't get through it without crashing.
Higher score is better?
I've been using BOAT since I heard about it here.
Also, does everyone set their agent preference to desktop?
yes higher is better. Give xscope a try and you will see. I like setting my agent to iPad for some reason things just look good and flash still works unlike on iPad
Maybe we can merge these two together, and keep one good resourceful browser thread. Also, does this forum support multiple people being able to edit a post?
Not that I know of but I've been using the gdocs document for test procedures and a spreadsheet on gdocs for results, and those do support that. I planned ahead, else it'd all be a plain text file I could feed into perl lol.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
OPERA MOBILE just had a huge update today, finally. Supposedly fixes flash in Hc and ICS and compatibility issues with ICS. Going to test it out.
---------- Post added at 09:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 AM ----------
Checked it out, seems they completely removed flash from opera mobile. Now there is no option for flash. Go to websites n it'll tell you flash or Java not installed or something similar.
Took another look at changelog and it says its known Flash has issues on latest version of ICS 4.0.3. Seems like we took a step backwards on opera now..lmao. hopefully next update will add 4.0.3 support SMH
timgt said:
yes higher is better. Give xscope a try and you will see. I like setting my agent to iPad for some reason things just look good and flash still works unlike on iPad
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I never do this, because im sick of companies thinking ipad is the only tablet. I set mine to Android, and happily deal with anything that comes with doing that.
I grabbed X-Scope Pro free on Amazon a few months ago waiting for the chance to use on a tablet and so far I love it. I have been having issues with the stock browser closing randomly while surfing and that hasn't happened once in X-Scope. So far, so good.
They removed the plugins setting from OM as well. Maybe b/c it's really just flash in practice, and adobe isn't making a plugin for Android 9 someday. Or maybe it only applies to Android 4.0.3 devices --- looking at the what's new.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
A good site to test, and I didn't see on your chart, is www.espn3.com. That is their streaming video site and plays live and recorded sporting events. It is super heavy on Flash Video.
I watch it all the time, but it will not load and play in Opera (which we all know has problems with Flash).
I got an alert that Firefox has released a big update. I havent tested the old FF, but i might give it a shot, i liked the screeny they showed in the news article!
By the way guys, it would probably help to distinguish between browsers that are essentially just overlays on the stock browser, using the same HTML rendering engine, versus browsers that use their own HTML renderer.
Browsers like Dolphin, Boat Browser, and ICS Browser have roughly the same performance as the stock browser because they are all using a variation of the Webkit rendering enginer, whereas Opera and Firefox are using their own.
My spreadsheet always notes the rendering engine as possible, and assumes stock when no detail otherwise is found.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Hi guys,
I' m tryng to find the best browser for the s tablet. What can you, suggest me? i m using dolphin but when i browse i see big withe portion of the screen not rendered. It take few second to render them but is hugli...
Thx
Hello!
I'm very satisfied with Maxthon For Pad 1.5. I't fast, it renders very well, and it has a lot of options. I'm using both Maxthon and Dolphin Browser for Pad Beta, so test both and tell me what do you think.
Dolphin is the best imo...
Personally I prefer opera. The rendering is very good. It just doesn't get enough credit. I strongly recommend it.
I can't make my mind up, I tend to wander between Opera and Dolphin HD. I've just had a go on Chrome for Android on my Vega tablet with ICS - beats anything on tablet S - so I can't wait for ICS on this baby !!!!!
I can't wait for ICS and Chrome for Android Beta, but at the moment, I'm actually using the Stock Browser. I love the Quick Controls Lab option for a properly fullscreen experience, although I previously liked Miren Browser (which is disappointingly phone-oriented, but still nice)
If it helps I prefer Dolphin HD myself. Just like how it works.
I've been using Boat, its pretty good, might give Opera a go see what all the fuss is about.
I too like the fullscreen stock browser as well
So don't take this as a complaint thread, I love my Prime! I was searching on the forums for why there is a lag with pdfs. I am only talking about that 1 or 2 second lag while scrolling though a pdf. In no way does it make the tablet unusable for reading pdfs. I was just wondering what do you think is stopping it from being like a computer, I can scroll though a pdf on my computer w/o ever seeing it render. Is it a processor, ram, programming, or storage read time problem?
Processor, I dunno too much about this area. I feel it should be fine.
Ram, maybe the computer is loading the pdf in ram and with the prime w/ only a gig is a little under? If that was true then computers back in the xp days would have lagged.
Programming, far far outside my knowledge. One of the reasons for the post, but you would think that someone would have done this by now.
storage, should be g2g too. I would guess....
I have tried ezpdf (love it but some of my pdfs do not have a font embeded and the rendering is ok, but others do it better), Adobe (current winner for me), Foxit (very nice), apv pdf viewer (was unuseable due to speed and render issues), Areader, Quickoffice, and Documentstogo. I have not tried Repligo but i hear good things.
Searching I read a lot about people having problems with pdfs, or a dicussion on which pdf reader to use, most choose ezpdf, adobe, or foxit. I just want to know whats holding it back from being a completely smooth experience.
Also I have never looked at a pdf less than 20meg most pdfs I read are in the 80-120meg range. Text with graphics.
Thanks for reading!
Repligo is a lot better (the best I've tried so far on Android) but still not as good as reading it on the iPad with iBooks. In my opinion, it's just the apps aren't optimised for the transformer prime hardware. Repligo is getting close to iPad iBooks (looks the same too LOL) but still not as smooth. I would to see someone release a pdf reader that is as smooth as Google's very old Play Books app or one that is as smooth and same animation as the ICS App Drawer (That would be amazing and would pay up to $10 to get something like that).
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using XDA Premium HD app
EDIT: Maybe we should open a bounty thread for a tegra3 optimised pdf reader? LOL
Just went and tried it, suffers from the render issues with fonts not being embedded. That's a deal breaker for me, try adobe read and let me know what you think. I just don't like the default fond it renders with.
I feel it was just as fast as adobe for ezpdf.
Thanks for the response!
*EDIT
Also tried the pdfs on my wife's ipad, the experience is a little smoother; just a little but noticeable.
For a living, I pretty much have to read PDF research papers all the time. Unfortunately, when I had the TFP, the PDF-reading, annotating, and research paper/organizing/citation experience was sub-par.
It will only get better over time as more Android tablet optimized apps come out.
But it beats me as to why PDF scrolling and zooming was never really that smooth.
Trying going to developer options in your android settings and force GPU rendering and turn both animations off see if that helps....
But the bottle neck is its using the CPU or ninja core to render it to save power
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk
Ok, just tried:
Forcing gpu render : on
* animation: off
* transition : 1
Forcing gpu render: on
* animation: 1
* transition: off
Forcing gpu render: on
* animation: off
* transition: off
Forcing gpu render: off
* animation: off
* transition: off
No real diffrence, side note I did root my prime (did it for adbock, host file) and saw the over clock app, easy over clock app. I am assume we can link threads that are already inside the forum, if not let me know and I will remove it. The 1.6 oc is nice, but still not a solve.
@tbns what did you end up using if you don't mind me asking.
I just use Mantano, it works perfect for reading PDFs. There is no page rendering(although, I read relatively small PDFs) and it allows me to scale the PDF to fit the screen. Best of all, it stays scaled after I flip the page. I have never used it to make notes within the PDF, but I believe there is a function for it.
iJoey said:
I just use Mantano, it works perfect for reading PDFs. There is no page rendering(although, I read relatively small PDFs) and it allows me to scale the PDF to fit the screen.
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Thanks, I just tried Mantano and it seems great -- by far the fastest PDF reader I've tried. I wouldn't say there is no rendering though -- I find if I zoom in and scroll around within a page, there is still a split-second delay before text becomes clear. It is not a problem at all, and infinitely better than the other solutions I've tried. If you just flip between pages instead of zooming around within a page, the text instantly appears crystal clear.
Having moved from an iPad to a TP I struggled for a while to find an app that could display PDFs without a lag. The best one, oddly, that I've find so far is the comic viewer Perfect Viewer with the PDF plug-in installed!
Sorry if this is a repost. Found some of the results interesting, especially when compared to others.
Seems HTML5 and Chrome work well together.....
http://html5test.com/
I scored a 352 with 11 bonus points on latest version of Opera Mobile. comparing on tablet side, Opera Mobile is by far the best and has the highest scores. ill test my other browsers n see. then update this post.
Edit: ICS+ scored horribly a 273 with 3 bonus points.
STOCK browser did even worse with a 256 score and 3 bonus points.
Boat browser scored 268 w/3 bonus points.
OVERSKREEN browser got 273 w/3 bonus points.
demandarin said:
I scores a 352 with 11 bonus points on latest version of Opera Mobile. comparing on tablet side, Opera Mobile is by far the best and has the highest scores. ill test my other browsers n see. then update this post.
Edit: ICS+ scored horribly a 273 with 3 bonus points.
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Click to collapse
Seems the stock browser is getting about 256 with 3 bonus points.
Like I said, sorry if you guys have seen this before. It just seems alot of us here are number crunchers and it was something fun to play with...
Lol...the cm7 browser on my OG Evo scored a 184 with 1 bonus....lol.
343 with 10 bonus points on Chrome beta.
Autobots, roll out! Sent from my Transformer Prime!
hmm interesting. 346 on Win 7 box running firefox.
256 + 3 Bonus points on my prime with Dolphin HD browser.
Goot the exact same 256 + 3 Bonus points running the stock browser on my prime
Using Opera, I scored 54 and zero bonus point.
Just fyi
EDIT:
I should have mentioned but my 54 score was on Opera mini. not Opera Mobile.
opera Mobile is the fastest tablet browser and scored even better than a desktop PC running win7 & Firefox. Opera mobile will continue to be the best browser to use moving into the new age of Html5. Handles Flash & Html5 with ease.
267 +3 on boat browser.
Mcoupe said:
Seems the stock browser is getting about 256 with 3 bonus points.
Like I said, sorry if you guys have seen this before. It just seems alot of us here are number crunchers and it was something fun to play with...
Lol...the cm7 browser on my OG Evo scored a 184 with 1 bonus....lol.
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Damn, my Motorola Atrix phone on stock rom, Froyo, scored 354 & 10 bonus points on opera mobile
demandarin said:
opera Mobile is the fastest tablet browser and scored even better than a desktop PC running win7 & Firefox. Opera mobile will continue to be the best browser to use moving into the new age of Html5. Handles Flash & Html5 with ease.
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Hey I haven't tried Opera Mobile, I have Opera Mini and should have noted the version.
I'll give it a try though. I've been using dolphin as my main browser since like Cupcake so kinda hard to change.
scrufy said:
Hey I haven't tried Opera Mobile, I have Opera Mini and should have noted the version.
I'll give it a try though. I've been using dolphin as my main browser since like Cupcake so kinda hard to change.
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opera mini is lightweight version of opera mobile. basically stripped down to the core. plus it doesn't support flash. Actually opera mini should be faster loading pages than opera mobile. only reason though is because all opera mini info goes through a server first, then is compressed, then sent to your device. the compression translates to faster speeds most of the time. I used opera mini on my older cell phones and such because they needed the browsing speed boost. for higher end phones and tablet, opera Mobile is the way to go. I use to have dolphin and liked it but in comparing, I found opera mobile, ICS+, stock, and boat browser to be the best. I got tired of comparing browsers so i just keep those I listed. use opera mobile 99% of the time. Chrome was nice but was linked to too mAny issues people were having. so i got rid of it until it comes out of beta and all the bugs worked out.
Opera Mobile by far the best, and now that flash works fine in it as well it's my main browserof choice.
Opera Mobile 12: 352+11
XScope: 273+3
Mathon: 273+3
ICS+: 270+3
ICS: 256+3
Dolphin: 273+3
Great info...
demandarin said:
I scored a 352 with 11 bonus points on latest version of Opera Mobile. comparing on tablet side, Opera Mobile is by far the best and has the highest scores. ill test my other browsers n see. then update this post.
Edit: ICS+ scored horribly a 273 with 3 bonus points.
STOCK browser did even worse with a 256 score and 3 bonus points.
Boat browser scored 268 w/3 bonus points.
OVERSKREEN browser got 273 w/3 bonus points.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just made the switch to opera mobile after the 3rd try I've given it. The first two times I tried were met with glitches, not this time around.
It seems like boat still loads pages quicker, but opera loads them almost as fast but much much more stable. Boat doesn't scroll anywhere near as fluently.
Opera is the only other browser I'd consider when it comes to a minimal ui. Only gripe is its slower to switch tabs.
ickkii said:
I've just made the switch to opera mobile after the 3rd try I've given it. The first two times I tried were met with glitches, not this time around.
It seems like boat still loads pages quicker, but opera loads them almost as fast but much much more stable. Boat doesn't scroll anywhere near as fluently.
Opera is the only other browser I'd consider when it comes to a minimal ui. Only gripe is its slower to switch tabs.
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That and the start-up time are my only gripes. But neither is so important.
When it comes down to hardcore browsing on a mobile device, Opera's the only way. All others I've tried checkerboard like crazy and generally have very insecure zooming/scrolling, even Boat (one of my favorites now) has some adverse choices in how it handles heavy pages.
Thanks everyone for the numbers! Informative.
demandarin said:
I scored a 352 with 11 bonus points on latest version of Opera Mobile. comparing on tablet side, Opera Mobile is by far the best and has the highest scores. ill test my other browsers n see. then update this post.
Edit: ICS+ scored horribly a 273 with 3 bonus points.
STOCK browser did even worse with a 256 score and 3 bonus points.
Boat browser scored 268 w/3 bonus points.
OVERSKREEN browser got 273 w/3 bonus points.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, Overskreen was really as high as ICS Browser+? I love Overskreen, but even with only one window open it can be pretty laggy, especially with videos or heavy pages. I also get a little frustrated with its zoom/scroll, but I haven't tried turning its "fit to page" or whatever option off.
What settings do you use in Overskreen 'darin?
buxtahuda said:
That and the start-up time are my only gripes. But neither is so important.
When it comes down to hardcore browsing on a mobile device, Opera's the only way. All others I've tried checkerboard like crazy and generally have very insecure zooming/scrolling, even Boat (one of my favorites now) has some adverse choices in how it handles heavy pages.
Thanks everyone for the numbers! Informative.
Hmm, Overskreen was really as high as ICS Browser+? I love Overskreen, but even with only one window open it can be pretty laggy, especially with videos or heavy pages. I also get a little frustrated with its zoom/scroll, but I haven't tried turning its "fit to page" or whatever option off.
What settings do you use in Overskreen 'darin?
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overskreen works great for me. no lag at all. IM using default sttings. haven't really changed anything in it. it is based off of stock or ics+ browser. they'd probably why it scored so high.
demandarin said:
opera mini is lightweight version of opera mobile. basically stripped down to the core. plus it doesn't support flash. Actually opera mini should be faster loading pages than opera mobile. only reason though is because all opera mini info goes through a server first, then is compressed, then sent to your device. the compression translates to faster speeds most of the time. I used opera mini on my older cell phones and such because they needed the browsing speed boost. for higher end phones and tablet, opera Mobile is the way to go. I use to have dolphin and liked it but in comparing, I found opera mobile, ICS+, stock, and boat browser to be the best. I got tired of comparing browsers so i just keep those I listed. use opera mobile 99% of the time. Chrome was nice but was linked to too mAny issues people were having. so i got rid of it until it comes out of beta and all the bugs worked out.
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In Opera Mobile, you can configure the browser to do page requests through the compression server as well. Helps speed loading times.
---------- Post added at 07:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 PM ----------
buxtahuda said:
That and the start-up time are my only gripes. But neither is so important.
When it comes down to hardcore browsing on a mobile device, Opera's the only way. All others I've tried checkerboard like crazy and generally have very insecure zooming/scrolling, even Boat (one of my favorites now) has some adverse choices in how it handles heavy pages.
Thanks everyone for the numbers! Informative.
Hmm, Overskreen was really as high as ICS Browser+? I love Overskreen, but even with only one window open it can be pretty laggy, especially with videos or heavy pages. I also get a little frustrated with its zoom/scroll, but I haven't tried turning its "fit to page" or whatever option off.
What settings do you use in Overskreen 'darin?
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You should know what the score represents. The score isn't about "speed" so how high a browser scores in the HTML5 test has little to do with how fast it loads. The score represents a browser's compatibility/implementation of certain HTML5 standards -- whether it's able to properly load the latest HTML5 code.
It just so happens that browsers that score high also tend to be pretty fast because the implementation of new standards usually means that the browser is being worked on extensively and new browser builds tend to incorporate newer developments in JS rendering and other speed enhancements.
Firefox is an example of a browser that scores fairly high, but is slow as hell.
I scored 354 + 11 bonus with my HTC Incredible2 running Opera Mobile; 352 +11 on the Prime...
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
I like opera a lot BUT I need Quick Controls & the ability to hide the navi bar.
Lock-N-Load said:
I like opera a lot BUT I need Quick Controls & the ability to hide the navi bar.
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Just FYI, Opera Mobile does have the option to hide the status bar and navigation bar.
NeoteriX said:
Just FYI, Opera Mobile does have the option to hide the status bar and navigation bar.
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where, I don't see it? if it does, I never knew that. can't find it..lol
Hi, I have been lurking around Google Play Store in search for the browser that will suit my expectations. Right now I am using Firefox Beta, but the UI is not that great for tablet (I am using Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 with 7 inch display). Also checked other most popular browsers like UC, Puffin, Opera Mini etc. but all of them look the same to me. Besides I heard that some of them like to spy on users. The most important criteria for me is speed and by speed I mean overall feel of the browser like: page loading, smooth scrolling and javascript engine. Cause most of the Android browsers are really sluggish, especially Google Chrome. So... what are your recommendations? I am interested in niche browsers as well. Thanks