Best iOS browser
Despite heavy hints from Apple - refusing
to let users change the defaults; banning
third party rendering engines from the
App Store; taking an eternity to approve
browser apps - rival browser makers
would really like you to use their
products on iOS, and the arrival of
Chrome means the big guns of Google
are taking aim at your iPhone and iPad.
Has Google got it right, or would you be
better off with Opera Mini and its cloud-
based browsing and acceleration? Is
Safari the best iOS browser, or is Apple
using dirty tricks to protect its position
on your phone? There's only one way to
find out. Let's see what the three big-
name iOS browsers can do for you.
Safari vs Opera Mini vs Chrome:
appearance
To our eyes Chrome is the best-looking
browser here, its unified search and
address bar freeing up space for other
buttons (back, menu/bookmark and tabs)
so there's no need for a second toolbar -
although it'd be nice if the address box
scrolled away when you're viewing
content.
Safari's getting on a bit, and it shows: the
interface hasn't changed much since the
days of iPhone OS, and while it's
perfectly functional it's due a bit of a
polish (which is coming in iOS 6). Its
address and search boxes disappear as
you scroll down, but the toolbar at the
bottom of the window remains, providing
access to bookmarks, sharing, new tabs
and navigation buttons.
Opera takes a similar approach - its
separate address and search boxes scroll
away, with a permanent toolbar at the
bottom - but you can enforce single
column viewing and text wrapping as
well as set the default zoom level, and
there's a fullscreen mode that replaces
the lower toolbar with just two buttons,
a back button and one to bring the
toolbar back. It's okay, but the black
interface doesn't exactly blend in with
the rest of iOS.
Safari has a manually activated Reader
mode that strips out page furniture such
as ads so that you can concentrate on
the content. Chrome doesn't have that,
but it does have a Request Desktop Site
option for sites that insist on serving up
cut-down mobile versions.
Safari vs Opera Mini vs Chrome:
features
All three browsers have private browsing
modes, although Safari's is the hardest to
access - where Chrome and Opera keep
the on/off switch in the browser, for
Safari it's buried in Home > Settings >
Safari - and all three browsers enable you
to synchronise bookmarks with your
desktop PC or other devices. Chrome has
the best such system here: where the
others only sync bookmarks, Chrome can
sync open tabs from device to device
provided you sign in with your Google
Account.
Safari has Reading List, which you can use
to create a quick "read later" list that
syncs between your devices via iCloud,
and Opera enables you to save pages
locally for offline reading.
There are differences in the way each
browser handles tabs. Opera has Visual
Tabs, a little drawer that appears with
thumbnails of your open tabs, while
Safari zooms out to show each open tab
as a separate document. Chrome does a
bit of both, shrinking and stacking the
tabs so you can see their contents easily.
Chrome also enables you to switch
between open tabs without invoking the
tab bar by swiping quickly from the left
or right margin of the current page, a
feature we soon found ourselves missing
in the other browsers.
Opera has Speed Dial, which enables you
to store your favourite websites in a
simple grid layout for easy access.
Chrome has the same, but it's
implemented in a nicer way: when you
choose the New Tab option you can
swipe between your Speed Dial-esque
favourites, your bookmarks, or the open
tabs on your other Chrome-using
devices.
One of Chrome's most interesting
features is voice search, which enables
you to - yes! - search using your voice. It
works very well, and unlike Apple's Siri
it's not exclusive to the iPhone 4S.
When it comes to standards compliance,
Safari and Chrome scored 324 points
(with nine bonus points apiece) out of a
possible 500 at html5test.com, with
Opera achieving a disappointing 63 with
no bonus points. That was reflected in
the way websites were displayed: for
example some mobile sites, including
ours, looked lovely in Safari and Chrome,
but a bit odd in Opera.
Safari vs Opera Mini vs Chrome:
speed
Apple's rules mean that browser apps -
other than its own Safari - must use
Apple's UIWebView browsing
component, which means they can't turn
up with their own JavaScript engines or
use Apple's own Nitro engine. That gives
Safari an enormous advantage when it
comes to JavaScript processing: it
whizzed through the SunSpider
benchmarks in 3,650ms on an iPhone 4
while, on the same device, Chrome took
11,908ms (Opera Mini doesn't execute
JavaScript locally - it's a cloud-based
browser - and as a result it can't run
SunSpider).
JavaScript benchmarks don't tell the
whole story, however, because JavaScript
performance is much less important on
mobile devices, which spend less time in
web apps and considerably more time
waiting for the network to deliver web
pages than their desktop equivalents. All
three browsers felt similarly speedy in
real-world browsing, and in search - the
most common thing most of us actually
use our mobile browsers for - Chrome's
first-class voice search and search auto-
completion meant that it delivered
results more quickly than its rivals. You
can disable both features if you want to,
but they make a big difference to
everyday use.
Opera's big draw is its compression,
which promises to reduce both download
times and file sizes. That's a boon if
you're browsing on a pricey data plan, if
you're roaming abroad or if you can't get
3G, but on 3G there was no noticeable
difference between browsing speeds in
Opera and Chrome. On Wi-Fi Chrome
was faster, as its page preloading kicked
in; the feature defaults to Wi-Fi only so
you don't accidentally burst through any
3G monthly data limit.
The big problem for Chrome and Opera is
Apple's refusal to let anybody change
their default browser. That quickly
becomes an enormous pain in the
backside, with every link in an email,
Tweet or RSS feed launching Safari. The
"swear / select URL / copy URL / close
Safari / open other browser / paste URL /
go" routine gets old and annoying
extremely quickly, and while Google has
published code for third party
developers to offer an "Open with
Chrome" option that's not going to
appear in core iOS apps such as Mail.
Safari vs Opera Mini vs Chrome:
verdict
Safari is the fastest browser here, as the
benchmarks prove. However, in
everyday use Chrome often feels
quicker, especially when you're tab
switching or searching, and it's hard to
shake the feeling that if Apple didn't
deliberately limit other browsers'
performance and iOS integration, Safari
would have a real fight on its hands.
Opera is a nice enough browser, but it
feels old in this company, and unless you
spend a lot of time travelling and/or
using crappy mobile connections the data
compression isn't enough of a draw here.
It doesn't feel as fast as its rivals, and it
suffers from the same (Apple-enforced)
lack of OS integration as Chrome does.
Unless you jailbreak your device that
means it's an easy win for Safari,
especially if like us you get a lot of your
URLs by clicking in other apps such as
email and Twitter clients, or by saving
links as home page icons. Apple's
insistence on Safari as everybody's
default browser means that, fairly or
unfairly, it's still the most convenient
browser on iOS.
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