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[Q] What will ICS do for the browser?

I have a xoom & some websites i go to like as far the scrolling & page rendering is horrific.My friend who has a dang ipad comes along & loads & scrolls through the same pages on his ipad with ease.Will ICS do anything for the browser?
Maybe any links to what the browser is capable of in ICS?

Check the development forum...ICS is amazing, and the browser is much faster now.

brandogg said:
Check the development forum...ICS is amazing, and the browser is much faster now.
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Pretty much this. I have noticed a big difference in page rendering on ICS. I won't go as far as to say it's revolutionary because I don't think HC was that bad, but it is definitely improved.

Some pages, like XDA forums, are particularly bad in the honeycomb browser. No such issue on ICS browser. This page renders and scrolls smoothly, just like many other.

Thanks for the replies. I just picked up the Asus Transformer Prime & the keyboard dock. I'm looking forward to ICS on this baby.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

One major difference is the iPad is not loading the Adobe Flash content/ads. XDA is extremely bad because of all the ads it has embedded. My suggestion is (if your not using my ROM) is to get an ad blocker, pages will load much faster.

zone23 said:
One major difference is the iPad is not loading the Adobe Flash content/ads. XDA is extremely bad because of all the ads it has embedded. My suggestion is (if your not using my ROM) is to get an ad blocker, pages will load much faster.
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I'm sure the xda admins will "appreciate" you recommending people to block ads from THEIR site, on their own forum

RMerlin said:
I'm sure the xda admins will "appreciate" you recommending people to block ads from THEIR site, on their own forum
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Ya probably but I would be willing to BET they all have ad blockers. I mean who doesn't? Am I right? I know I do in Chrome and don't see any of the ads.

zone23 said:
Ya probably but I would be willing to BET they all have ad blockers. I mean who doesn't? Am I right? I know I do in Chrome and don't see any of the ads.
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I think an even better idea is to just use the xda premium app! That way you're supporting the site without getting the ads
Sent from my Desire HD using xda premium

I had ad blocker on chrome since day one and i keep asking myself whether I went to the right page when I surf the web on a different computer.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Like others have said, the ICS browser is much better at rendering and scrolling. The keyboard doesn't lag in the browser either. I have still had issues where links or new web pages will not load, which requires force stopping the browser.

burden010 said:
I think an even better idea is to just use the xda premium app! That way you're supporting the site without getting the ads
Sent from my Desire HD using xda premium
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I have it. I like to browse the web on my device and a lot of times I just stop in. No need to go open the app. I tend to use it more on my phone.

jaymode said:
Like others have said, the ICS browser is much better at rendering and scrolling. The keyboard doesn't lag in the browser either. I have still had issues where links or new web pages will not load, which requires force stopping the browser.
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how does dolphin act on out? Or other browsers?

eatonjb said:
how does dolphin act on out? Or other browsers?
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The only other browser that I've used on ICS is the new Firefox. Firefox isn't as snappy as the ICS browser but doesn't seem to have the issues with links not opening. I'm also not a huge fan of the Firefox UI, so I tend to use the stock browser most of the time.

I find that setiing plug ins to "on demand" makes a big difference, the browser isn't trying to load all the flash stuff then. Mine is now pass able, still not as smooth as the ipad or ie9 in wp7 but I do have flash available which mostly makes up for the laggy performance.

definatly alot smoother.

Yea, lots better, wish there was the zoom bubble like the iphone

eatonjb said:
Yea, lots better, wish there was the zoom bubble like the iphone
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Just double tap to zoom.

No double tap does not work, I am talking bout a little bubble can you copy and paste on the iphone or ipad

eatonjb said:
No double tap does not work, I am talking bout a little bubble can you copy and paste on the iphone or ipad
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I have a copy and paste app that just takes a long press to activate. Clip It works really well. There are quite a few free apps that do this...they are just resident and are available when you need them.
The long press can do wonders in android...many possibilities.

Browser for ICS

Can anyone recommend me a good browser to use? I'm in ics using the uniporn rom.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA

Ice cream sandwich browser plus in the play store. It's free. Has some cool shortcuts and a lot of useful settings.

hollywood528 said:
Ice cream sandwich browser plus in the play store. It's free. Has some cool shortcuts and a lot of useful settings.
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I know lots of people prefer ICS+ but It just keep messing up my usage. Just somehow, I don't like the way how it worked on infuse. The side selection menu is all the point.
I would recommend Chrome beta or the system browser. They are both pretty good.
The system browser has the side selection which is very convenient, even it's only five fixed selections it's enough. I like the way how you can switch between tabs in the system browser easily.
On the other hand, I noticed a speed advantage in Chrome beta. The tab sync function is excellent if you use Chrome on your computer. Totally "Cloud". Also the magnifier function when you click on some close links save you some time double tap to zoom in.
The others are gingerbread era browser. Probably among those I would recommend Opera mobile.
Just some personal suggestion

Dolphin HD is stable and ez to use
Sent from my Infuse 4.0.4.

Chrome Beta
KingVekxin said:
Can anyone recommend me a good browser to use? I'm in ics using the uniporn rom.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA
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The BEST ONE will be Chrome Beta. You can download it from Google Play.
It has a lot of great features.
I use it and I would say it is the Best browser for ICS for me right now.
Have the Galaxy Nexus device.

Trying dolphin for now, seems pretty smoothy so far, thanks guys u rule
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA

I use opera mobile without any problems
Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow

KingVekxin said:
Trying dolphin for now, seems pretty smoothy so far, thanks guys u rule
Sent from my SGH-I997 using XDA
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Sent from my Infuse 4.0.4.

Works well, looks great =
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome
Sent from my SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

I use opera mini, skyfire, or dolphin
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium powered By Dark Knight ICS

I like Boat Browser.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

LDimchik said:
The BEST ONE will be Chrome Beta. You can download it from Google Play.
It has a lot of great features.
I use it and I would say it is the Best browser for ICS for me right now.
Have the Galaxy Nexus device.
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I must agree. I was using ICS browser plus... but after using Chrome beta.. I must say.. it is probably the best browser I have used.. It's great how it links to your home computer's tabs if you're using Chrome at home too.
Chrome Beta for the win!

hollywood528 said:
I must agree. I was using ICS browser plus... but after using Chrome beta.. I must say.. it is probably the best browser I have used.. It's great how it links to your home computer's tabs if you're using Chrome at home too.
Chrome Beta for the win!
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Bookmark syncing is a welcome addition as well. Chrome ftw

I used to dislike chrome for android... but it now works very well. I vote chrome, it makes the browsing super snappy compared to the stock one which takes forever to load xda and such.

Ryanscool said:
I used to dislike chrome for android... but it now works very well. I vote chrome, it makes the browsing super snappy compared to the stock one which takes forever to load xda and such.
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Same. It's a lot faster than the default browser and it is still in Beta and only available for ics roms. One of the things I like about it is that it syncs all of my bookmarks from my pc, which is a really cool feature. My vote is for Chrome as well.

Best browser for 4.2?

As good as the stock browser is, is there any other browser that has good speed, flash and fast download time? Im running scott's recent cm10 4.2.1.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda app-developers app

I use chrome runs smooth my favorite browser simply cause it syncs with my tablet and laptop
sent from my Samsung Infuse v10.1

ShadyWTT said:
As good as the stock browser is, is there any other browser that has good speed, flash and fast download time? Im running scott's recent cm10 4.2.1.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda app-developers app
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I use Chrome because of synch simplicity too. Nice to be able to pull up recent pages from any device I accessed.
I tried Dolphin. Didn't see much difference though people claim it is lighter and faster.
Dolphin and Chrome don't support Flash. I use Firefox Beta for that. Regular Firefox seems crashy. Not that I use it a lot but it is nice to have for testing.
You can get Flash from Adobe here... You can't get it from the Play Store any more... The stopped supporting it.
http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html
Scroll about 3/4 of the way down and you'll see the Android 4.0 downloads... Along with older versions.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda app-developers app

I use Maxthon as my default browser now. Good look, fast downloads, stable and now they offer cloud support which takes from the sync that Chrome features if you use Maxthon desktop or Maxthon for iOS
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium

new contender
I use naked browser. Lightning fast. It got XDA front page attention a little while back. Written by one of our own. Fast, flash, but few frills.

I'm a fan of Firefox. It's not as fast as, say, naked browser, but it's stable and it's not owned by Google.

Whizzpopper said:
I'm a fan of Firefox. It's not as fast as, say, naked browser, but it's stable and it's not owned by Google.
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Naked Browser is not owned by Google and it is a not for profit app.
On the other hand, Google gives major funds to Firefox so in a way Firefox is pwned by Google.
Dolphin, Maxthon, Boat...most Android browsers spy on you.
Naked Browser does not spy or monitor in any way and never will--not even any ads.

Is the stock browser supposed to be so smooth?

I've had my Nexus S for almost two years now. At first, I flashed probably every ROM that existed. After a few months I just wanted to use my phone. So I stuck with MIUI. I never really stood still by the performance of that ROM. When the Nexus 4 was announced, I wanted to upgrade at first. It wasn't (isn't) available, so I had to wait. In the meantime, I flashed another ROM (JellyShot) again for the first time in months. Again, I didn't really stand still by the performance. I used the Chrome browser, and browsing wasn't really smooth, but I thought: that's normal for a 2 year old phone.
Because of certain reasons I decided to skip the Nexus 4 and wait for the next Nexus. But if I was going to hold out for another year with my Nexus S, I needed the smoothest and fastest ROM/kernel there was. So I found Rasbeanjelly. Together with the Marmite kernel and the BM seeder tweak, my phone is blazing fast again. I use Smart Launcher (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ginlemon.flowerfree), a very basic launcher with a nice UI that uses very little RAM, and a very nice lockscreen theme from magiclocker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/...xvY2tlci50aGVtZS5wYWlkLmhhcm9uLkNpcmN1bGFyIl0.). With almost no effort I made my Nexus S look fresh, beautiful and fast again.
But let's get to the point. The biggest improvement I noticed was the browsing. For the first time in months, I used the stock browser again. I can tell you, there is a BIG difference compared to Chrome. Is it my ROM/kernel, or is the stock browser supposed to be so fast? And is there an even faster browser? If so, I would really like to try it.

Big fan of Naked Browser here. Fastest I've seen, simple, just works. The options are incredible and it starts instantly, just like the default browser.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fevdev.nakedbrowser

Gonna try it now. I like the layout of the stock browser, and as long as it runs smooth, I don't really have anything to complain about, but naked browser looks cool too. Thanks!

Androyed said:
Gonna try it now. I like the layout of the stock browser, and as long as it runs smooth, I don't really have anything to complain about, but naked browser looks cool too. Thanks!
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It's mostly because of the configuration. The UI is very bare, and it's meant to be that way, but the features and the constant dev support is what makes it shine.

polobunny said:
It's mostly because of the configuration. The UI is very bare, and it's meant to be that way, but the features and the constant dev support is what makes it shine.
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I've tried it. It is as fast, if not faster than the stock browser. What I missed with the stock browser were tabs. This is my main browser now. Thanks!

Dolphin browser good in speed test. I love the slide screen to get bookmarks.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda app-developers app

n2d551 said:
Dolphin browser good in speed test. I love the slide screen to get bookmarks.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda app-developers app
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Naked Browser has it!
I used to be a Dolphin Browser user. I went over the fact the privacy was dubious with it because it was a browser with a good set of features. Then I found Naked Browser, and it evolved so quickly I never looked back. Once you get over the "meh" UI, you won't ever go back to something else. =)

polobunny said:
Naked Browser has it!
I used to be a Dolphin Browser user. I went over the fact the privacy was dubious with it because it was a browser with a good set of features. Then I found Naked Browser, and it evolved so quickly I never looked back. Once you get over the "meh" UI, you won't ever go back to something else. =)
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Yeah, the UI really sucks. But it's supposed to. I would probably use another browser if I got a new smartphone, but with the "slow" Nexus S, the Naked Browser is perfect.

Androyed said:
Yeah, the UI really sucks. But it's supposed to. I would probably use another browser if I got a new smartphone, but with the "slow" Nexus S, the Naked Browser is perfect.
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I just wish aminaked put a bit of eye candy in there. Not too much to slow it down, but enough to make it look decent. He isn't really looking forward doing that. Different philosophies.

polobunny said:
I just wish aminaked put a bit of eye candy in there. Not too much to slow it down, but enough to make it look decent. He isn't really looking forward doing that. Different philosophies.
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Nah, I get it. If you're gonna stick with "as minimal as possible", you really have to stick with it. He even made the icon look terrible . Some layout for the bookmarks screen for example would help the user experience though. But I would rather have him focus on making it even smoother, or adding a feature that actually matters. If you use the Naked Browser, you obviously don't care about looks anyway.

Androyed said:
Nah, I get it. If you're gonna stick with "as minimal as possible", you really have to stick with it. He even made the icon look terrible . Some layout for the bookmarks screen for example would help the user experience though. But I would rather have him focus on making it even smoother, or adding a feature that actually matters. If you use the Naked Browser, you obviously don't care about looks anyway.
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Yeah, but minimal != ugly. Or not user friendly. One can make something minimal but still practical and great to see. That's my main gripe with it, but no other browser can rivalize with it's speed. Can't have everything for nothing!

polobunny said:
Yeah, but minimal != ugly. Or not user friendly. One can make something minimal but still practical and great to see. That's my main gripe with it, but no other browser can rivalize with it's speed. Can't have everything for nothing!
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You're right. Well, we can only hope, right? As long as even the icon looks terrible, I doubt there are going to be any improvements.

I love puffin browser. So. Fast.
Edit: naked browser is pretty quick. Might be my new browser. How come this isn't as popular as other browsers?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app

Stock browser on Nexus S destroys Chrome in smoothness and performance
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda app-developers app

nespid said:
I love puffin browser. So. Fast.
Edit: naked browser is pretty quick. Might be my new browser. How come this isn't as popular as other browsers?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
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If you search for browsers in the Play store, you won't see it right away, and when you see it, you see an app with an ugly icon that's called "Naked Browser". Probably more than half of the downloaders thought it was some porn app.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda app-developers app

Androyed said:
If you search for browsers in the Play store, you won't see it right away, and when you see it, you see an app with an ugly icon that's called "Naked Browser". Probably more than half of the downloaders thought it was some porn app.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda app-developers app
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Yeah, what I mean is that I like puffin, and I used to use xscope pro and skyfire and you never hear about them or see them being reviewed. It's always chrome, Firefox and dolphin. These over achievers need more word of mouth advertisement. Hehe. You'd think they'd catch on like wildfire.
And you're right, they should consider something that doesn't look like a porn app. Although, on reality, it's not to far off from being my "porn app". Ha ha ha
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda app-developers app

Puffin is definitely staying onboard. Still accesses blocked sites in through Wi-Fi security at work. But naked is a keeper for data or home Wi-Fi.
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda app-developers app

I use firefox as that's what i use on pc and need sync. Previously i was using stock browser and had switched to desktop chrome to have bookmark sync. But now firefox is really really good it doesn't immediately load up sometimes but scrolling is butter smooth.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda app-developers app

No text wrap in any browsers on Kitkat

Looks like some functionality was removed from kitkat since no browser wraps text anymore when increasing text size.
Any solution to this yet?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

Opera works on nexus 4 kk, it's the only one I have found that text wrapping works on kk. You have to turn it on in settings if I remember.

And only Opera Classic. Not the new Opera... which uses Chromium.
But Opera Classic is so slow compared to Chrome or Boat.
I wish I could have speed and wrapping.
Any ROM developers willing to add the SINGLE_COLUMN and NARROW_COLUMN LayoutAlgorithm back in to kitkat?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

eustilou said:
And only Opera Classic. Not the new Opera... which uses Chromium.
But Opera Classic is so slow compared to Chrome or Boat.
I wish I could have speed and wrapping.
Any ROM developers willing to add the SINGLE_COLUMN and NARROW_COLUMN LayoutAlgorithm back in to kitkat?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
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meangreenie said:
Opera works on nexus 4 kk, it's the only one I have found that text wrapping works on kk. You have to turn it on in settings if I remember.
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- the new opera browser that uses chromium does support text wrap and does work, tested
- besides opera, dolphin browser also support text wrap, BUT you have to install dolphin jetpack, apparently dolphin jetpack uses a different engine or something that helps dolphin browser support text wrap and load pages faster.
- personally i really like the text size feature in chrome and feel like text wrap is not necessary since this feature works so well. however chrome for some reason always reloads pages after you switch to another app so i don't use chrome

This has hit the news http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/15/kitkat_text_trap_no_wrap/
Please star the issue at http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=62378 - Cant do any harm

I'm surprised even one tech news site has come forward with this. I find the unwillingness of all the news tech sites to report this problem appalling!
I guess the thought of not getting free stuff overrides any sense of morality. They are all very quick to highlight anything positive, no matter how small, like the removal of a few micro seconds wait time when 'tapping' the screen in mobile view.. which let's face it is just common sense, I bet all other browsers do this anyway..... but 'no', 'this is brilliance in its highest form!!!', is splashed about on the front pages of every android news site, multiple articles created over periods of weeks telling us how fantastically brilliant Google are, over and over again... it's disgusting brown nosing of the highest order.

Why aren't any custom rom developers adding the WebView functionality back in? Is that portion not open source?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

I made a signature... please star the issue. :good:

Don't worry, google are going to fix this issue by giving away a free pair of 'Sundar' glasses to every user.

eustilou said:
Why aren't any custom rom developers adding the WebView functionality back in? Is that portion not open source?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
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See this: http://review.cyanogenmod.org/#/c/56054/
hopefully, ROM cooker will start to cherrypick soon
meangreenie said:
Don't worry, google are going to fix this issue by giving away a free pair of 'Sundar' glasses to every user.
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oh great :victory: