Many browser errors and issues

I'm using the stock browser and Firefox and really have no problems. Some websites have not solved the flash/html5 causing many browsers to hang - even ie on win does this. Get another browser really doesn't solve the issue. ...
I Agree. I tried the Next browser because I wanted to see what the fuss was about. This thread was dying anyway until it was hijacked for this interesting conversation. My observation is that Next is a somewhat simple implementation with what I see as some gimmicky features. I still prefer Dolphin for some uses, Opera Mobile (Classic), Firefox, and stock for others. Keep in mind that Next uses the exact same Adobe Flash plugin as Dolphin, Firefox,the stock browser, etc. Flash also works as well with Dolphin as with Next. It seems worth remembering though that Flash is no longer officially supported for Android, and as such it will be going away. (Good riddance!). Next browser comes with Flash turned on by default in Android 4.0 and lower devices, but turned off in 4.2+ devices. When enable Flash on 4.2+, Next pops up a warning that Flash will cause it to crash. Other browsers are turning it off by default, or no longer supporting it at all. That seems a bit premature, because in most cases it still wortks, but I understand why: Developers are getting tired of being bombarded by trouble reports because the Flash Player tends to cause browser crashes depending on the nature of certain Flash content.

On the browser performance discussion: I ran several tests using some complex/busy desktop pages on both Next and Dolphin. I could detect no significant differences in performance. Dolphin tended to seem faster at bringing up what I actually wanted to see. I then ran some more objective tests to eliminate seat of the pants errors. What I found when running Browsermark 2.0 is that Dolphin results were slightly faster than Next about half the time. The differences are very trivial, but Next was clearly not significantly faster. When I completed one of the tests, before closing tabs, I ran a quick PS to get the RAM usage and observed that com.jiubang.browser (Next) was consuming 120MB, while mobi.mgeek.TunnyBrowser was using 110MB ...very similar, but TunnyBrowser (Dolphin) was actually using 10MB less. The next test I ran, the numbers were reversed. What that likely means is that both browsers are likely equivalent in memory use.

A little more about memory use, to help prevent myths: Memory use of any given browser will vary from time to time depending on what each has been rendering. It depends almost entirely on what you have been browsing prior to viewing process measurements. I had Next running last night with twice the memory of Firefox by merely browsing from a second tab, so memory use should not be a reason to dump Firefox in favor of Next. Folks may find the gimmicks in Next appealing, but Firefox is a significantly more powerful and flexible browser overall, as is Dolphin.

The bottom line here is that of the more popular browsers, none are likely significantly faster than any others. Unless they have some critical fault, most use about the same amount of memory and CPU. Most are developed using the same common components. The main differences tend to be in appearance and configuration options. Some browsers like Next have fewer configuration options, while browsers such as Dolphin and Firefox have more.

It really gets down to personal preference, and whether or not you have had a good or bad experience with any given browser at one point or another. Some browsers have been groomed/tested better on certain devices, and may be unstable on others. When Chrome browser for Android came out, it was so unstable and disappointing (on the a500 anyway), and provided only the most basic of features, that I did not personally see it as worth the trouble. I tried it a few more times since and never saw enough value to convince me otherwise. That may or may not be a fair assessment of that browser today, but I still avoid it regardless. I had problems with early versions of Dolphin also, but my preference for a richer feature set and more configuration options kept drawing me back in.

Use the browser(s) that you like the best, or dislike the least. There are certainly a lot of choices.
 
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Ah mrhelper...

I will make a small comment here. I still love my A500 because access is great especially with the full size USB which is able read NTFS or NFS, FAT32,...So I can plug in my 2TB DRIVE. But one doesn't realize how slow the browsing is on A500 until you get a NOTE 10.1 and use it. All I can say is that all browsers really fly on the NOTE. Execpt when you get a website that hangs the browser - THEN IT IS JUST AS SLOW. Don't blame the A500! Blame bad programming practices, poorly written apps, backward compatibility issues, apps not properly tested by developers, and unrealistic deadlines. Had all these things been taken into account well....

Douvie :eek:
 
Glad to hear the GO Launcher Dev Team fixed the RAM problem. I pointed it out to them in a review after installing their browser and they put it on their to do list. Next will definitely be competing strongly vs Firefox, chrome, dolphin, opera...

Ed

Well, then I for one thank you for pointing that out to the Devs, and I agree that Next will be a strong contender in the browser wars.

@Mrhelper...thank you for your very informative and interesting post. I was not aware of a lot of the points you made. I also use different browsers for different sites. For example, one site I visit more than once a day will not pinch and zoom with any other browser except Firefox, and zooming is critical on that site because the text is so small because there is a border on the right and left. I've tried the default browser, Dolphin, Next, Firefox, and others I installed and uninstalled just to see if they would zoom the tiny text on that website and none will but Firefox. That is the only reason I'm keeping Firefox because it is by far the slowest browser I've used. Anyway, I just did my own load tests on different websites on my bookmarks and I stand by what I said before, Next is faster on the websites I use every day, and it's very obvious to me. But some I don't use every day, I have to agree with you, speed is about the same as Dolphin, except Next pulls in everything at once, text, graphics and all, which I like and makes it seem quicker to me, while Dolphin loads the text first, then everything else, which is what you might have meant when you wrote, " Dolphin tended to seem faster at bringing up what I actually wanted to see".

I can see your points about memory use, especially when more than one tab is open. When I did all of my memory tests yesterday, I was sure there was only one tab open in all browsers, so I stand by what I wrote in my reply to edap. I couldn't agree with you more about it all coming down to personal preference and your good or bad experience with certain browsers at one point or another, and when Flash completely goes away, the browser that adapts and deals with graphics and former flash videos the best with the least problems will be my browser of choice, if it isn't slower than molasses that is.
 
Ah mrhelper...

I will make a small comment here. I still love my A500 because access is great especially with the full size USB which is able read NTFS or NFS, FAT32,...So I can plug in my 2TB DRIVE. But one doesn't realize how slow the browsing is on A500 until you get a NOTE 10.1 and use it. All I can say is that all browsers really fly on the NOTE. Execpt when you get a website that hangs the browser - THEN IT IS JUST AS SLOW. Don't blame the A500! Blame bad programming practices, poorly written apps, backward compatibility issues, apps not properly tested by developers, and unrealistic deadlines. Had all these things been taken into account well....

Douvie :eek:
I could not agree more. My Nexus 7 runs very fast for some tasks compared to my a500, but I still use both most every day, and have a hard time putting either down.
 
The nexus 7 - off the shelf it doesn't come with the camera app. A friend of mine bought one. I dropped in for a cuppa. He was so frustrated that he couldn't use the camera -dropped it into my hands and said, "Fix IT". I showed him how to browse to the Play store, downloaded the nexus 7 camera app and installed. My friend is a elderly gentleman about 79 years old. That was my experience with the nexus 7. Otherwise not bad phablet!
 
I love my Acer500,( which is kinda funny, never been an Acer fan PC wize) and nothing else has ever been at issue, other than this browser hang/text box jump issue. I will try the Next, and see what happens. I still have NOT been able to get Flash working on Dolphin, checked settings, cleared cache, and data, did force stop, even unintalled/reinstalled. It sorta sees/executes flash, but not completely. Some Flash test sites the animation shows working, but no sound. Some sites that have flash content, I know its not working because it brings up its non flash web page. I TOO love the Acer500 because of all the imput ports. LOVE the full size USB, dont know of any other tab that has that. I travel alot and take only that, so taking pics with a camera that uses an SD card, a simple .99 card reader lets me copy/edit/send any pics I take on my camera. Its a great tablet if only the browser issue wasnt so dicey.

Thanks for all the great input here..
:)
 
ok got Next. it does Flash fine but does not play at all nicely with my swype keyboard, at least not on this forum. it seemed Ok on facebook.

I like the clean simple look/feel And bookMark management.

I'll keep playing with it. thanks for the suggestion
 
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