v 5.0.1 · iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad · Free
Fast Browsing features: Opera Mini’s pre-processing feature not only delivered pages quickly, it also enhances web page compatibility with sites that aren’t iPhone friendly. Speed dialing lets you choose sites to cache, then load with a tap. Opera Mini delivers an overview snapshot of a site superfast, you can then tap and zoom in to selected sections that you want to read.
Speed Bumps: Opening new tabs seemed slow, compared to simply opening a new page in Safari. Only one level of Zoom. Some pages loaded oddly, random images were missing, pages were stretched into a rectangular format. We also saw full sites as opposed to optimized for mobile sites for about 1/3rd of the pages we browsed. You do get the sense that Opera didn’t invest 100% of their effort into this app since they weren’t sure it would be approved by Apple, and who can blame them? Given Opera’s track record, now that its iPhone app is approved it’s a safe bet that future versions will address many of these issues.
v 3.2 · iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad · $1.99
Fast Browsing features: Tabs display is nicely optimized for small screens via the “open tabs” page. You can specify how links on pages behave, whether to open them in a new or same tab, in the background -- great for browsing link heavy sites. Page content is loaded in background tabs, so no annoying delays when you switch to a new tab. You can speed page rendering even further by disabling image downloads and blocking advertising.
Speed Bumps: Opening too many tabs in the background crashed iCab, stick to nine tabs maxium (six if the sites are memory hogs) and you should be fine.
v 2.8.0 · iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad · $0.99
Fast Browsing features: Configurable search options got us to our favorite search sites quickly. The “Search current page” let us hone right into what we were looking for. Save session let us replace the startup screen and instead warp directly to our last browsing binge with tabs intact. “Install Bookmarklet” facilitated a fast switch from Safari to Atomic when Safari was opened by default within another app. Adblocker made pages render faster. The ability to turn tabs and buttons on and off while browsing didn’t make things much faster, but we liked it -- Atomic provides a slew of configurable options for users who like to tweak things.
Speed Bumps: None, apart from the standard third-party app issues detailed earlier in this article. There are some complaints in iTunes user reviews about stability issues, but we didn’t encounter any problems.
Note: There’s a free “Lite” version of the browser, that speed freaks will want to skip in favor of the .99 cent version. Lite is missing most of the go fast features we mention in the paragraph above.
v 2.3.2 · iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad · $0.99
Fast Browsing features: Screen real estate is reserved for browsing (browser navigation, settings and bookmark buttons live in transparent overlays, URL bar vanishes with a shake and can be called back with a tap) which makes it easier to quickly skim pages. Tabs are supported and content is pre-loaded in the background. Springboard icons let you skim bookmarks quickly, but you can switch to standard style if you prefer. The ability to change font sizes let us whip through small type pages. Pages can be saved for later viewing offline.
Speed Bumps: Occasionally full pages were displayed instead of mobile-optimized sites.
v 4.0 · iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad · $0.99
Fast Browsing features: “Find” feature got us to where we wanted to be on a page quickly. “Hyperscroll” whipped us up, down and across pages at warp speed. You can turn on web compression if you want to speed page downloads a bit. Image blocking offered a nice speed boost when we just wanted to access page content. Nice cross-compatibility with Safari makes opening pages in one browser from the other one a snap.
Speed Bumps: None, apart from the standard third-party app issues detailed earlier in this article.
MrMos3s
May 15, 2010 at 4:53pm
I used to use Mercury until this article made me want to try out a new browser and ended up switching to Atomic Web. So far I love it.
If I'm going to buy an app, it has to run well, have lots of customizable features and MOST IMPORTANTLY (to me anyway) has to look nice.
I didn't even try iCab because of it's icon.
BTW When is somebody going to make a browser that looks like iPad's Safari?
AppsFire
May 15, 2010 at 12:18am
Great review - Safari is a great browser but competition is good for everyone.
Here are Mac Life's selections of the best alternative iPhone browsers for Safari (http://bit.ly/iphone-browsers), which you can share with friends or embed on your blog. Created with the AppsFire Widget Maker (http://appsfire.com/widgetmaker.php).
Jonathan
AppsFire.com
jiubreyn
May 14, 2010 at 6:26am
Your graph for the Page Load Times does not match the data being presented below. The graph shows Opera opens a page in about 3 seconds, while Safari takes over 12. However, in the data being presented below the graph, it states all pages load in about 12 seconds. Please fix this discrepancy.
