Firefox
Similar to Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox browser lets you sync up all your data and preferences, including bookmarks, passwords, history, open tabs and add-ons. It works across devices, including your desktop, so this is a big win for Firefox.
Moreover, Firefox still provides support for Flash for those with Flash installed on their device. As with Chrome, Firefox is WebRTC-enabled for the future and it has long-provided add-ons and extensions to help enhance your mobile browsing. Want to block ads, or place a ‘Quit’ button in the main menu? You got it.
You have a private-browsing tab that is easily activated, though Do Not Track is offby default. And you also have to delve right in to the settings to clear any private data.
It’s also worth pointing to a couple of neat little ‘tricks’ within Firefox that you may simply have never noticed. Reader Mode, actioned by clicking the little ‘book’ icon in the URL bar, strips out all the junk from a page to present you with a clean view of the text. And Guess Session mode lets you lend your phone to a buddy, who can then use the Internet without compromising your (or their) data.
Firefox is a great, feature-rich browser that offers a brilliant alternative for those wishing to steer clear of the clutches of Google. Speaking of which…
➤ Firefox
Chrome
Chrome is brought to you by Google, and Android is brought to you by Google too. Ipso facto, Chrome is your best browser bet on Android, Right? Well, yes and no.
Perhaps one of the main benefits of Chrome is that it’s available on your desktop and your mobile, meaning you can sync tabs and bookmarks across platforms, and there’s autofill and password-syncing too. There’s no question it’s massively convenient for those seeking a seamless switch between their laptop and smartphone.
Moreover, Chrome is fast and is nice to use – just try swiping away those unwanted tabs in Chrome, or pulling down to launch a new tab.
However, Chrome offers no support for Flash videos, and it only works with Android 4.0+ anyway. That isn’t a massive issue per se, but it’s thought that around 20% of Android users are still on versions 2.2-3.2 – however it’s probably safe to say they’re perfectly happy with the stock Android browser anyway.
Then there’s incognito mode (or ‘porn’ mode) for all your ‘private’-browsing needs, and it’s WebRTC-enabled for whenever Web-based video- and audio-communications become the norm.
Privacy is an increasing concern for many people. Aside from incognito mode, which is easy to activate, Chrome does support Do Not Track to block tracking of your online browsing behaviors, but it’s off by default – so you have to activate this. That all said, third-parties aren’t required to obey your ‘don’t track me’ requests anyway, so how much of an issue this really is, is up for debate. Also, you do have to dig quite deep into Settings to clear your browsing data – this could be much further to the forefront.
All-in-all, Chrome is Chrome – it’s fantastic at synchronizing your online browsing across platforms, and there’s not too much to fault with it really – beyond any apprehensions you may have about Google knowing too much about you. And in fairness, that is a concern many people have.
➤ Chrome
Maxthon
Maxthon’s core selling-point is its cloud-based, cross-platform credentials. Indeed, not only is it available for Android, but it has a version for Mac, Windows, iOS, Kindle Fire and Windows Phone. Good going, if you ask us, as it lets you sync and centralize all your online browsing exploits irrespective of the device you’re using.
Purely as a standalone Android browser, however, Maxthon is great too. On the main homescreen, you have quick access to your favorite sites and a bunch of so-called ‘NewsBites’ – basically an RSS feed of news from a selection of publications. These can be edited and moved around.
From the main menu, you have quick access to private browsing mode, night-mode (darker screen) and a data-saving feature that switches image-loading off.
Other features include ‘Fetch Mode’, which automatically loads the next page of a site in the background, so when you tap forward, you don’t have to wait for it to load. It’s a nice touch for sure.
Similar to Firefox, you also have quick access to reading mode directly from within the URL address box – clicking the little book icon strips all the garbage out and leaves just the text you wish to read.
As noted already, signing in to Maxthon lets you sync all your browsing via ‘My Cloud Tabs’, which works seamlessly across all the platforms I checked it on, while Cloud Push also supports the sharing of texts, images, links to other devices too.
In addition to supporting Flash video, Maxthon also has a handful of add-ons that lets you extend its usability, including a screenshot assistant, RSS Reader and bookmark backup.
➤ Maxthon
Opera
Opera is one of the stalwarts of the mobile-browsing sphere. Indeed it’s a dependable, uber-popular browser, with a few tricks up its proverbial sleeves, as it seeks to set itself apart from the pack.
For example, ‘Off-Road’ mode taps the same compression technology as its little brother, Opera Mini (see below), to expedite page-loads when your Internet connection is patchy, or when you’re using a lower-end device. Of course, this will preclude many modern Web features from working, but there’s always going to be a trade-off in such situations.
Then there’s the neat ‘Speed Dial’ feature, which is worth a mention too.
In the simplest terms, Speed Dial is like a visual bookmarking system, one that lets you drag related items onto each other to create a group of bookmarks – ‘folders’, for want of a better word. It’s much like how you create folders of apps on the iOS homescreen. And right next to that, the ‘Discover’ feature delivers a curated list of news articles from your region – you can select the country and topics of interest (e.g. ‘Arts’, ‘Sport’, ‘Business’. It’s like Flipboard…but baked in to your browser.
With one eye firmly on the future of Web communications, Opera was recentlyserved with WebRTC support. And you’ll also be pleased to know that, as with Chrome and Firefox, Opera lets you sync all browser data, bookmarks, Speed Dials, passwords, and more between your computer, tablet and mobile phone, thanks to Opera Link.
Opera is a genuinely great browser – not much more to say, really. Though we should note that, as with Chrome for Android, this specific incarnation of Opera is only available for Android 4.0+.
➤ Opera
Opera Mini
Opera Mini is a little bit like its big brother, Opera, insofar as it’s made by the same Norwegian company. But from a user perspective, the similarities pretty much end there.
Yes, you can connect up your settings, bookmarks, and so on from other devices using Opera Link, but it doesn’t have features such as ‘Discover’, while Speed Dial is decidedly less slick.
That said, Opera Mini is more about being fast and efficient for those on poor connections, or using lower-end devices, letting you choose whether to load images or not (and their quality), opt for a single-column view, and more. It’s about simplicity and saving money via its data-compression technology.
Plus, for a ‘simple’ browser, it still packs in a fair amount of features, including a Smart Page for news and updates from your social networks, as well as saving pages for reading offline later.
Dolphin
Along with Opera, Dolphin is one of the oldest and most-popular third-party browsers for Android – indeed, it claims more than eighty million downloads, which isn’t to be sniffed at. Dolphin is a genuinely beautiful Android browser, particularly since it was given a massive lick of paint last summer.
Dolphin offers a similar speed dial-style visual bookmarker to that of Opera, and it’s easy to switch between tabs. On that point, Dolphin was one of the earliest browsers to enable tabbed-browsing on Android. So there you go.
But where Dolphin sets itself a part is via the neat little pop-up menu that serves up a number of options – one of which is based around the notion of gestures. You simply draw a gesture on the screen, for example an ‘F-shape’, and associate that shape with a particular URL or browser action, and you will be able to initiate that action by using that gesture.
In addition to gestures, ‘Sonar’ mode lets you use your voice to search the Web, while a tonne of add-ons lets you enhance the browser. This includes extensions such as Dolphin Reader, which strips out the junk and brings a Firefox-style reading mode to your device.
The one downside for me, and probably many others, is that it doesn’t have a desktop-based counterpart, which means it’s not quite as easy to sync up your browsing actions across the board. That said, as of an update last year, Dolphin replicates desktop-mobile syncing with its Chrome, Firefox and Safari extensions, allowing you to send tabs, images, phone numbers and even directions between platforms. But from my own experiences, Dolphin Connect is really not as seamless as something like Firefox Sync.
One final point worth noting too. When you exit the Dolphin browser, it makes it easy for you to clear your cache and history by throwing up this dialog box – you can configure it so this doesn’t happen every time, however.
All in all, Dolphin is a great browser
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