Why are Android web browsers so terrible?! - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I love android but I hate the browsers for it. I have a Galaxy s2 running on ICS. half of its ram is always available. IThe phone itself is never slow or anything, and I only have 3 apps running at the same time max, so I know its the browsers.
Ok. Why are the browsers for Android so bad? The only good browsers is the stock browser and opera mini. Stock is faster than Chrome, Dolphin, Firefox, and all the others. I find it weird how stock browser is faster than Chrome, considering that on PC it has no competition for speed.
ALL of the other browsers scrolling and pinch to zoom are slow and laggy compared to stock and Opera mini. Why? Opera mini's UI and scrolling is instant, why are none of the other android browsers have a fast and instant UI? The stock browser comes in second but it isn't instant like Mini. They all take a second in the UI and some of them have laggy scrolling. Why are they like this? My phone is fast and has lots of free ram. Is it just Android in general? Because iOS is closed and optimized and have none of these issues while web browsing.

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Best nook internet browser

Right now im using dolphin browser hd. Its pretty good, but it doesn't have multitouch and is a bit choppy sometimes. I've used xscope and it really sucked.
Any suggestions?
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using XDA App
Did you try Xscope 6 (web and file)? Very pleased with the pinch to zoom and speed.
I'm using Dolphin Browser HD v4.2. I believe it does have multi-touch (pinch and zoom works great )
roscher150 said:
I'm using Dolphin Browser HD v4.2. I believe it does have multi-touch (pinch and zoom works great )
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Yup, you want v4.2.
4.3 broke multi-touch on the NC.
There is already a post on this in the general discussion:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=892627
Suggestions include Opera Mobile, Dolphin HD, Dolphin Mini, Opera Mini, xScope, FF Beta off the top of my head.
Do you have a 4.2 apk you could share?
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
They posted a link themselves for Nook Color users who need to downgrade:
http://bit.ly/dolphin42
(Got this off their market page)
I, personaly, prefer Dolphin HD. I tried Opera but it just seemed a little too buggy for me. Granted, this was right as the NC was first being rooted so I might have to go back and evaluate.
bdcrim said:
Did you try Xscope 6 (web and file)? Very pleased with the pinch to zoom and speed.
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XScope 6 (web and file)?
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using Tapatalk
wicked_beav said:
XScope 6 (web and file)?
Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using Tapatalk
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http://www.androlib.com/android.application.sui-mrelease-xEtA.aspx
anyone try out Miren Browser? So far its been my browser of choice. Its pretty fast and comparable to Dolphin. Give it a shot, Id love to hear what you all think.
I use Dolphin HD as my primary NC browser, but if there are embedded videos (non-youtube) on sites that I want to browse, then I use Skyfire, which handles most embedded video sites extremely well, even without Adobe flash enabled on our devices.
I got miren last night and am beginning to like it. The scrolling is BY far the smoothest I've seen. I still might use dolphin HD because of the pinch zoom and the side bookmark gesture
Humanio said:
anyone try out Miren Browser? So far its been my browser of choice. Its pretty fast and comparable to Dolphin. Give it a shot, Id love to hear what you all think.
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Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Once you choose a new browser, is it possible to make the new browser show up when you hit the web button in the stock (rooted) firmware?
- Aerlock
I bought xscope a few days ago and have loved it so far. It handles reflow after zoom better than any of the other browser I've tried (Opera Mobile, Miren, Dolphin HD&Mini, stock) and pinch-to-zoom works out of the box. it isn't the smoothest scroller, and sometimes has accuracy issues when trying to press buttons, but I hardly care given its ability to format everything so nicely (my eyes aren't the greatest, so I do a lot of zooming on text).
Dolphin 4.2
Yeah I use Dolphin HD 4.2 and it seems to be the perfect browser for a tablet. Especially at 1.1ghz. It is fantastic.
i can't live without lastpass so dolphin gets my vote!
Sent from my NookColor using XDA App
I tried Dolphin HD, xScope, Opera Mobile and Miren Browser. My vote goes for Dolphin HD.
xScope is quite good. In fact the Opera Mini like instant back feature is useful. But the text rendering was not as good as Dolphin. Also the address bar is quite small which makes it hard to hit.
Opera Mobile is not yet optimised for tablets. When you start, the quick dial screen that greets you, has large buttons which look very odd. Also the font rendering was not good.
Miren is the best looking browser of the lot. But the issue is that this browser has lot of key options positioned in the corners of the screen. And we know Nook Color has detection issues with corners which makes it tough to use this wonderful browser.
Overall Dolphin HD is ideal. No corner controls and also provides tabbed browsing. Has some addons too.
Tried several, not real happy with any. Finally settled on Dolphin--at least for the time being.
I use Dolphin HD. It is alright, but I have a question. Does any browser allow scrolling in frames? I take online classes and the setup is a "tree" forum view. I can only see the first 7 or 8 posts and can't scroll down to see the others. Does anyone have any ideas?

Mini Dolphin or Dolphin HD

which one do you prefer???
to me mini dolphin loads quicker than HD.
I prefer Mini, HD just seemed to bloated and slow for me. I didn't really need all those plug ins. Though I've actually switched to Miren Browser myself, seems a little faster than Dolphin.
opera browser is a lot smoother and quicker in my opinion
speoples20 said:
I prefer Mini, HD just seemed to bloated and slow for me. I didn't really need all those plug ins. Though I've actually switched to Miren Browser myself, seems a little faster than Dolphin.
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Firefox used to be my favorite.
but now i switch to Dolphin HD, more fun and customizable.
If comes to only Dolphin.
Then i prefer HD with powerful add-ons and fast loading.
I still use the Stock browser for most. Firefox was my undisputed reigning champion of my internet browsing. But Bolt Browser comes out swinging pretty hard. Esp for being a Alpha build. It's almost to nice.
I've also pretty much just used the stock browser for the most part. I'm curious though...haven't tried many of these 3rd party browsers, i.e. Dolphine, Opera...mostly just because I haven't seen a need to. The stock one works well IMO, but if the alternatives are even better then why not...? What are the major benefits of these other browsers? Different features and faster page loading?
sunsean said:
I've also pretty much just used the stock browser for the most part. I'm curious though...haven't tried many of these 3rd party browsers, i.e. Dolphine, Opera...mostly just because I haven't seen a need to. The stock one works well IMO, but if the alternatives are even better then why not...? What are the major benefits of these other browsers? Different features and faster page loading?
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Opera Mini and Dolphin mini lack alot of features, like flash for example. But they are blazing fast. Firefox is really quick and has 1:1 desktop syncing. Bookmarks, passwords, user names EVERYTHING is 1:1. But it only supports flash lite. I cannot speak for Dolphin HD or the other one that was mentioned i've never used them. Skyfire is quick and has a-lot of plug ins.

Reccomend me a phone with the smoothest browser

Idc which as long as it not the htc one x(too expensive I surf the web the most and i need a silky smooth browser like the iphone. Tried Stock ics browser on the galaxy nexus today and its not even CLOSE to ios safari.
Try Dolphin, Chrome, Boat, Maxathon, Firefox.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA
Opera also has a decent browser
Sent from my HTC Evo Shift using Tapatalk 2
Wait what?
Are you talking about the phone or browser app?
If you're on a budget try the HTC Desire HD, great surfing speeds and note that it isn't 4G.
If your really serious get a 4G phone but please note that it is very limited in different countries (Australia currently only has one 4G phone).
Browser app: Dolphin, Firefox, Chrome etc. There are tons to choose from but I really recommend Google stock browser (Chrome) or Dolphin if you REALLY hate stock.
Boat browser is one of the fastest (try the regular, not the mini one).
I'd say you have to aim for 200 + euro phones. The ones with 1ghz+ cpu like xperia neo v, Huawei x5 pro etc
Try Opera or Firefox!
i recommend Opera!
Opera Mini on 3G and Dolphin HD on WiFi
I've been using Dolphin and its pretty smooth for me
Use Google Chrome it had iPhone user agent
galaxy sII
I noticed the Samsung Galaxy SII browser is very smooth, not only because of it's cpu, but also because it's programmed to also use gpu accelerated rendering.
But for a standalone browser, i'd recommend Opera, it's very fast.
cakedev said:
I noticed the Samsung Galaxy SII browser is very smooth, not only because of it's cpu, but also because it's programmed to also use gpu accelerated rendering.
But for a standalone browser, i'd recommend Opera, it's very fast.
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Its smooth only when it has ICS, otherwise its not very smooth. ICS came with improved browser.
Fasty12 said:
Idc which as long as it not the htc one x(too expensive I surf the web the most and i need a silky smooth browser like the iphone. Tried Stock ics browser on the galaxy nexus today and its not even CLOSE to ios safari.
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htc inspire 4g

[Q] Does android 4.0+ use os gpu compositing like ios?

I currently have both an ipad mini and nexus 7, and I have realised that they both seem to render things differently.
Ipad mini's scrolling in apps are superb with very minor lags from time to time when refreshing.
Android 4.1.x and even 4.2.x shows lag almost everywhere, from scrolling a fully loaded, cached web page to scrolling on mobile new readers and app to widgets tab.
In all, the only exception to this is samsung's galaxy flagship smartphones which exhibit a similar response to ios with the addition of very few stutters which is what I believe vanilla android should be (no I'm talking about use experience and not stupid benchmarks that mean nothing if it scores 6000 in quadrant and lags like android 2.2 while a rom with 1000 in quadrant is completely the opposite.

chrome choppy scrolling

I finally gave up on using chrome on the hdx 8.9. Scrolling on most web pages was just too choppy and laggy, both before and after various modifications. I finally switched over to Dolphin, which so far is much smoother and faster. Anyone else having similar issues with chrome? I prefer it's features, but Dolphin is much more usable right now.
Try other
improvius said:
I finally gave up on using chrome on the hdx 8.9. Scrolling on most web pages was just too choppy and laggy, both before and after various modifications. I finally switched over to Dolphin, which so far is much smoother and faster. Anyone else having similar issues with chrome? I prefer it's features, but Dolphin is much more usable right now.
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Try "opera beta" or "chrome beta" from Play store, much better than original chrome browser. I use opera beta for web browsing and chrome beta for better video support.
jeryll said:
Try "opera beta" or "chrome beta" from Play store, much better than original chrome browser. I use opera beta for web browsing and chrome beta for better video support.
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I tried both Chrome and Chrome beta, same thing. Very poor scrolling, both vertical and horizontal. I'll just stick with Dolphin for now, I guess.

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