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Testing various browsers under the Android mobile platform

Introduction


Hello, dear inhabitants of the community. Today I would like to talk about the various mobile browsers available for the Android mobile platform. A test stand will be the device HTC Desire. (For comparison, the results of various tests for the default browser, which is preinstalled on the android 2.2 Froyo mobile platform, will be published. In this case, the test bench will be the Google Nexus One, which is almost identical to the htc device in terms of technical characteristics. The results were made available by DieSlogan )
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Be careful, a lot of traffic!

Brief characteristics of the device:

Platform

Processor / Chipset

Memory

Display

Connection


Test browsers:


What will be tested:

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  1. Analysis add. features and interface
    • Multitouch
    • Work in several windows (tabs)
    • Availability of bookmarks
    • Presence of surfing
    • Specific features of each browser
  2. JavaScript engine speed

  3. Compliance


Dolphin Browser HD

And so, let's start with our consideration with this browser.
When you start the browser, we get the following window.
imageimage

As you can see, there is a tabbed panel above the address bar, which allows us to work in a multi-window mode, without switching every time to the window preview function, to switch from the current to some other.

imageimage

The lower toolbar is invoked by the Menu button, the left one is accessible by simply “dragging the screen” from left to right. Navigation is convenient enough, access to bookmarks and history can be accomplished quickly, without going into a separate window, but simply by moving the visible area.
imageimage

And now features specific to this browser: It is possible to install various add-ons / extensions. At this point available:
  1. Adblocker
  2. Password manager
  3. Screen cut can

And according to the authors, more additions will be available in the near future.

And the second feature is the ability to use the phone’s screen as a kind of primitive tablet to draw a specific set of images, thereby provoking browser actions (it can be convenient for people for whom hitting the right buttons (parts of the screen) is difficult).

The browser supports multitouch.

Opera mini 5.1

The next browser in question will be the recently released Opera mini 5.1 for the Android platform.
When launching the browser, we will be greeted by the already familiar Opera users (whether desktop or mini versions) with a start page with a preview grid of your start pages.
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The address bar is next to the search query string. The decision is dictated, as it seems to me by the analogy with the desktop browser. Here, in all browsers studied, except Opera mini 5.1, when typing a word in the address bar, which cannot be a website by any regular expression, it is simply automatically inserted into the used search engine.

imageimage

The browser supports multiple windows (with multiple sites) at the same time. And we must pay tribute - the transition between the windows is the most convenient of all that have been tested: there is no need to leave the page you are viewing, but at the same time, the list of windows does not hang on all the time before your eyes, eating the already valuable space on the screen of a mobile phone . The bottom common toolbar contains everything that you may need when viewing a page on the Internet.

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A very convenient mode of working with bookmarks and history, even if you have to move away from viewed windows. Everything is organic and not very redundant.

The browser supports multitouch.

Skyfire


The next browser in our charts is SkyFire. According to the developers: the only browser to play millions of flash-video clips on the Internet (at the moment the information is not relevant and true, since special programs have been released by both htc and youtube, which, if you have a flash plug-in from Adobe, allow you to play flash -video).
When you start the browser, we will automatically load the start page.

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As you can see, in this browser, the toolbar is located under (next to the album version) address bar permanently. It presents the most frequently used user while surfing the button.

imageimage

The bottom toolbar is also called the Menu button, and provides the user with a set of add. features such as: the ability to share the page being viewed, through one / several of the most popular communication services, view the list of videos available on the page and view the thematic parts of the page (video / news / tweets).

imageimage

The browser supports up to 8 simultaneously open windows with digital content from the global network. The ability to navigate through them (windows) exists only if you switch to a special menu function, while the browser page being viewed disappears from view. However, in fairness, it is worth noting that the function of switching between windows, mini-preview pages, make it very easy to navigate the already open tabs. Work with bookmarks and history also does not cause censures.

The browser supports multitouch.

Default Browser

Well, finally, the last in the list, but not least, is a pre-installed browser by htc.
Launching it, we automatically open the start page, which by default is the htc page.
imageimage

As can be seen from the above screenshots, the browser is always in full screen mode, however, it comes out of it right there if there are any system notifications that are reflected in the phone’s task bar. And a very important part is that when browsing a page, scrolling it down a little is enough, and the address bar also disappears, which gives the user the ability to view Internet content of interest to him throughout the entire screen of the phone.

imageimage

The lower toolbar is called up again by familiar Android phone users by pressing the Menu button. Not the most functional toolbar, but what to do. The browser supports multiple windows simultaneously (up to 5 windows). Navigation between open windows is very convenient, even if it is a separate function that requires you to leave the page you are viewing.

imageimage

Working with bookmarks and history is standard, and not much different from the browsers discussed earlier.

The browser supports multitouch.

We proceed directly to comparing performance and standards compliance with the browsers in question.

Javascript benchmarks


SunSpider javascript benchmark


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Leader in all indicators pre-browser. Then follow the SkyFire browser and Dolphin browser HD. Opera mini 5.1 could not pass the tests with no attempt, confidently hanging on the first or second javascript. The browser, which comes as part of the android 2.2 OS, has surpassed its predecessors in almost all indicators and is very strong.

V8 benchmark

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The table above shows that the fastest browser in most categories was htc pre-installed by the company. He lost only one of the indicators of the opera mini 5.1 browser. As for opera mini 5.1, with only 10 page loads I managed to get at least some of the tests to pass, the rest of the tests did not pass through this browser flatly.

We looked at how and at what speed browsers execute javascript scripts. Perhaps only Opera mini 5.1 failed to cope with this. For the sake of fairness, it is worth noting that in all browsers considered (except opera mini 5.1) there is the possibility of forcibly disabling the execution of javascript scripts.

And again, the browser that came with the updated version of the OS defeated all its predecessors.

Compliance


Acid2

  1. Dolphin Browser HD
    image
  2. Opera mini 5.1
    image
  3. Skyfire
    image
  4. Default browser
    image

Only the browser preset by htc and the dolphin browser were able to display the same picture that the author intended (the orange bar in front of the emoticon disappears if you start dragging the page across the screen, so this omission can be forgiven by the browsers).

Acid3


  1. Dolphin Browser HD
    image
  2. Opera mini 5.1
    image
  3. Skyfire
    image
  4. Default browser
    image


In this contest, opera mini 5.1 won. (Although what is displayed on the screen, well, with a stretch, you can admit that the author wanted to convey, but the site issued 97/100 and I believe). Next come the dolphin browser hd and a browser preinstalled by htc. And the SkyFire browser closes the march in this test. In fairness it should be noted that all indicators above 90 points can be considered very successful, especially for mobile browsers. Like its most successful predecessors, the acid3 test preinstalled in the android 2.2 mobile platform, the browser passed 93 points out of 100.

html5 test

  1. Dolphin Browser HD
    image
  2. Opera mini 5.1
    image
  3. Skyfire
    image
  4. Default browser
    image


All browsers, with the exception of opera mini 5.1, showed the same result at 151/300, which is very, very good, considering that the html5 markup standard has not yet been approved. As for opera mini 5.1, it has a very modest result in 27/300. As a result of improvements made by Google ltd. Employees, the results of the browser included in the android 2.2 OS bundle are 173 points out of 300 at the end of the html5 test.

This completes our testing, and I would like to summarize some results.

findings


Each of the browsers presented above (with the exception of opeera mini 5.1) show very good results in existing tests. All of them are quite convenient and functional, correctly display almost all existing sites. Opera mini 5.1 is useful if you need to save traffic hard, as the whole image, if they are loaded onto the phone, undergo a process of compression on the servers of the opera.

What to choose - you decide. My goal was to compare these browsers and provide the result to you.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/99353/

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