Mobile Browsers Compared: pocketnow.com exclusive video
August 24th, 2010
In a story posted yesterday evening, pocketnow.com has released a video on YouTube that compares the default browsers of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7. It’s not a completely fair comparison due to the fact that they’ve used the latest versions of both iOS and Android, yet the Windows Phone 7 system is not scheduled for official release until October of this year. Regardless, the new Internet Explorer Mobile looks pretty good!
The interface of the new IE Mobile does not look like anything new or groundbreaking. I actually think they’ve wasted a lot of space on the display with toolbars and icons, similar to Mobile Safari. The beta release of Firefox Mobile on Android is still the most impressive interface because it incorporates the ability to slide the page left and right to gain access to bookmarks and tabs, leaving the full screen for the actual Web page; Dolphin Browser followed suit with this style in an update released shortly after Mozilla’s beta. Comparing the interfaces for the default browsers of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7, Android is the cleanest, focusing on the Web content itself. I guess this should be expected from Google.
I would say that the three browser’s are very similar in terms of speed and page load times. iOS seems to load page content on demand as you scroll, so you get a slight blank checkerboard when you scroll quickly. Overall, there are going to be very negligible differences between the three systems, but Windows Phone 7 finally brings Microsoft back into the mobile race with Apple and Google (and RIM is still struggling to compete).
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May 7th, 2010
Last week, Mozilla launched their plan of attack as one of the newest armies fighting in the mobile browser war. With application marketplaces such as Apple’s iTunes App Store and Google’s Android Market, there seems to be quite a bit of visibility for a large number of browsers in the mobile space. There are several big players and I wanted to compile a list, so that we can understand the scope of this new browser war:
- Google Android Browser
- RIM Blackberry Browser
- Dolphin Browser HD
- Mozilla Fennec
- Microsoft Mobile Internet Explorer
- Apple Mobile Safari
- Opera Mini
- Skyfire
(Please add any I’ve missed in the comments.)
UPDATE August 24, 2010: pocketnow.com has released a video comparing the browsers of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7.
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April 29th, 2010
I’ve been anxiously awaiting this app for quite some time and finally yesterday I was able to install Fennec, Firefox Mobile, on my Nexus One. A mobile browser built with ingenuity… it is clear that Mozilla will extend their vision of making the Internet public, open, and accessible onto the mobile, touch platform. With Fennec, they took their time and built an intuitive and well thought out mobile browser that is true to the Mozilla ideals.
Fennec on Android is instantly the best mobile browser on the market today. It came with some pretty specific “warnings and caveats,” but overall, it is a great explanation of what’s to come in the more mature releases. The interface is clean and simple, yet the browser has incredible capabilities. When you first open Fennec, you’ll see the standard interface for mobile browsers: location bar and homepage. The fennec location bar also acts as a quicksearch bar, utilizing default search engines: Google, Amazon, Twitter, and Wikipedia. Just as Firefox normally defaults to the Firefox Start page, Fennec defaults to the Fennec Start page. This page seems very similar in design and in function to the Firefox Start page, providing information about the browser, such as recently closed tabs as well as add-ons preferences.
The way Fennec handles tabs is where I see its true power. Simply swipe the current page to the right to reveal the tabs pane, which utilizes page thumbnails for each of your opened tabs. This method of tab selection allows Fennec to switch tabs with just one tap (swipe), rather than two or three taps to switch tabs through the menu systems of the Google Android Browser or Apple Mobile Safari, or even Opera Mini. (UPDATE: Dolphin Browser HD on Android has decided to copy this tab management system). Of course, the added bonus of Fennec’s excellent tab management is that Mozilla’s Weave project allows the syncing of open tabs between computers. I installed the Weave addon-on without any trouble (even on this very early beta) and it’s great to be able to pass my Web work from my PC to my Android, so that I can continue my train of thought from the office to home.
Bottom line, Fennec is a great mobile browser, but without the ability to set it as the default browser it just can’t compete with the default Android browser (or Dolphin HD or Skyfire). Im sure this will be resolved in the first non-beta, public release… so until then…
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