Lost DeskTop Format with ICS upgrade

[jostarr]

I used to have a real Desk Top format for Yahoo Mail. Hotmail, and Goggle Mail before the
ICS upgrade. Now, I am unable to view these mail clients in Desk Top mode. Perhaps
I am missing how to do it. Any help\suggestions would be welcome.

 

[Mrhelper]

I'm convinced that most a500 users should install Dolphin, and select "desktop" during the setup for a nearer to desktop experience. This seems to be especially important since the ICS update, where the stock browser options appear to have changed.


The stock ICS browser UAs, even when selected from the debug menu, do not always cause sites to return desktop versions of pages. The Dolphin "desktop" UA works much better. The Chrome Beta for Android has similar UA problems as the stock Android ICS browser.


Also, for those who do not wish to install a bunch of different browser apps, and then have to rely mostly on luck to determine whether one or the other might work, then the following browser UA samples may be useful. Dolphin allows you to set any user agent that you wish, so if you want to make Dolphin masquerade as Opera, you could use the UA for Opera, etc. I have shown above how you can make Dolphin masquerade as IE7.


Look at the UAs below to see how easily certain websites (those that are interested in providing customized/special content) can detect that you are browsing with an a500, Tablet, etc. when you use some browsers.


##############
To change the UA string in Dolphin:


In Dolphin, open the settings (app settings button->More>Settings)


Expand the menu item for "Dolphin settings"


Look a few items down in the menu, and select "User Agent"


Select the radio button for "Custom Agent"


Enter a user agent string... examples are listed below...




###########################
Some Android and other browser User Agent strings are listed below:
(I collected most of these using a packet sniffer on my network.)


IE7 User-Agent:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)


Opera User-Agent:
Opera/9.80 (Android 4.0.3; Linux;Opera Tablet/ADR-1204201824; U;en) Presto/2.10.254 Version/12.0 0


Stock Android ICS browser User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; en-us; A500 Build/IML74K) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML,like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/534.30


Stock Android ICS browser (request desktop) User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.24(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/11.0.696.34 Safari/534.24


Google Chrome Beta User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.45 Safari/535.19




These are the Dolphin built-in UA choices:


Dolphin (Android) User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; en-us; A500 Build/IML74K) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML,like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/534.30


Dolphin (desktop) User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U;Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16


Dolphin (iphone) User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7


Dolphin (ipad) User-Agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X;en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10

 

[Frederuco]

I love ICS Browser+ by Beansoft. It fixes most of my issues with the stock browser AND it has customizable thumb/quick controls.

 

[gerryex]

I'm convinced that most a500 users should install Dolphin, and select "desktop" during the setup for a nearer to desktop experience. This seems to be especially important since the ICS update, where the stock browser options appear to have changed.
. . .

Hi Mrhelper,

I went ahead and installed Dolphin HD and it seems to be working but with a few problems.

First I set it up for "desktop" and while most of the sites did come in as desktop, when I tried Wikipedia it came in as mobile and I didn't see any way to change it. EDIT: I just realized that I went to Wikipedia using the standard built-in bookmarks - could the one for Wikipedia be specifically set up for the mobile site? If I want to put in one of the custom UA, do I type in the full text you had under each of the suggestions? For example this whole string:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)


The other problem I had was when I went to YouTube and played a video. When ever I tried to go to full screen Dolphin informed me that it crashed and would I like to send a report back. So I said OK to the report and selected Gmail but nothing happened! So the first question is why did it crash in the first place and secondly when I selected report why didn't anything happen. (By the way, when I selected the YouTube app to play the video it played full screen with no problem.) (Also, I have the latest update for Flash!)

Overall it does seem to be better than the standard ICS browser but still seems to have some bugs!!

Gerry

 

[Mrhelper]

Hi Mrhelper,

I went ahead and installed Dolphin HD and it seems to be working but with a few problems.

First I set it up for "desktop" and while most of the sites did come in as desktop, when I tried Wikipedia it came in as mobile and I didn't see any way to change it. EDIT: I just realized that I went to Wikipedia using the standard built-in bookmarks - could the one for Wikipedia be specifically set up for the mobile site?

Yes, you nailed that. Type in "www.wikipedia.org" for the desktop version.

If I want to put in one of the custom UA, do I type in the full text you had under each of the suggestions? For example this whole string:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)

Yes. You should only need to do this in rare circumstances -- e.g., when the site exclusively expects only MS browsers, or is outdated, and only recognizes MS UAs. The "desktop" UA selection in Dolphin seems to work for most sites.

The other problem I had was when I went to YouTube and played a video. When ever I tried to go to full screen Dolphin informed me that it crashed and would I like to send a report back. So I said OK to the report and selected Gmail but nothing happened! So the first question is why did it crash in the first place and secondly when I selected report why didn't anything happen. (By the way, when I selected the YouTube app to play the video it played full screen with no problem.) (Also, I have the latest update for Flash!)

Overall it does seem to be better than the standard ICS browser but still seems to have some bugs!!

Gerry

I've encountered a number of bugs in Dolphin also. The intermittent crashes are out pretty. Then there is the issue of Dolphin eating huge quantities of CPU if you park it in the background for any length of time -- the stock ICS Android browser does this also, but to a lesser extent. I have seen Dolphin consuming 70-80% CPU while in the background... only when pages are not closed by clicking the X in the tab before using the Android up button to "park" the app. I have seen upwards of 50% background CPU usage on the stock browser app under the same conditions. Chrome Beta does not have an appetite for CPU in the background, and I have not tested any other browsers for this effect other than the three I mention here. Chrome does seem to crash about as frequently as Dolphin though. I do not recall seeing any crashes from the stock browser, but I do use it less, and for shorter periods of time.

I use all three of these browsers depending on what I want to do:

If I want simple, stable operation, and much higher performance, I use the stock Android browser.

If I want to look at sites with more features, I use Dolphin. I tend to use Dolphin more often than others.

I use Chrome mostly for editing posts, because it works much better for that than the other two.

I have not found a single perfect browser that meets every single browsing need I have, but that may be because I may not have looked at enough of them yet. There are numerous choices, and depending on your browsing habits and preferences, one may be more suitable than the other... most of the time.

 

[gerryex]

. . . .

I have not found a single perfect browser that meets every single browsing need I have, but that may be because I may not have looked at enough of them yet. There are numerous choices, and depending on your browsing habits and preferences, one may be more suitable than the other... most of the time.

Hi Mrhelper,

Thanks for your help! Maybe I'll give Chrome a try also.

Gerry

 

[Mrhelper]

I love ICS Browser+ by Beansoft. It fixes most of my issues with the stock browser AND it has customizable thumb/quick controls.

Just tried ICS Browser+ and I like it... with reservations.

It has some nice features layered on the stock Android browser, including access to some of the "debug" options, like UA selection (still no custom string like Dolphin though, and uses the same limited "desktop" UA as stock and Chrome).

Still has some of the same quirky text edit behavior as the stock, so I still like Chrome for that.

It also consumes too much CPU while in the background when parked with a few open tabs. This behavior is identical to that of the stock browser. Neither the stock browser or ICS Browser+ seem to be quite as hungry for CPU while in the background as Dolphin is.

I'll probably use this in cases where I would have otherwise used the stock browser if it works OK. I may not know about that until I use it for a few days.