Five Best iOS Web Browsers
Safari may be the default browser for iOS, but
it's far from the only one. There are plenty of great web browsers for
the iPhone and iPad, and depending on the features you want—whether it's
third-party plugins or tab syncing with your desktop, you have options.
Last week we looked at
the five best Android browsers, and this week we're going to look at the five best for iOS.
Earlier in the week,
we asked you which browsers for iOS were the best.
You weighed in with your nominations, and many of you pointed out that
because Apple doesn't allow browser developers to embed their own
engine, no one has a speed or rendering edge on anyone else. That's
true, but there's more to a good browser than its engine. Let's take a
look at your five picks for the best of breed.
Apple's
Safari comes stock on every iOS device, and it's a natural pick for the
top five. It's feature-rich enough to make mobile browsing easy and
functional. You get plenty of tabs, and Safari's "Reader" mode, which
highlights the text of an article in an easy-to-read view without ads
and other fluff that can clutter up a web page. When you're finished
reading, you can add the article to iCloud to read again on the desktop
or just for safe keeping. Safari supports bookmark syncing via iCloud as
well, and lets you add your favorite sites to your home screen as
shortcuts so you can get back to them quickly. Fast, free, and right
there on every iOS device: it's no wonder many of you don't bother with
anything else.
Atomic Browser is
our favorite web browser for iOS,
mostly because of its deep feature set. It'll set you back $1, but for
that price you get ad blocking, form autofill, password management,
dropbox support for downloaded files, the ability to download and expand
zip archives, private browsing, tap-to-call phone numbers, and much
more. Atomic has some other useful features as well, like the ability to
skin the browser with themes, the ability to save web pages for offline
viewing, and configurable gestures for navigation. It's a
feature-packed app for a buck.
Google Chrome for iOS may be
less than a month old,
but it has already captured many of your hearts. That's no surprise—if
you use Chrome on the desktop, it's a great alternative for your iPhone
or iPad, since you can sign in to Chrome Sync and enjoy all of your
bookmarks, search history, passwords, and more seamlessly. The way
Chrome handles tab management in iOS—essentially by letting you "stack"
tabs on top of one another if you want them out of the way for a
moment—is unique, and definitely helps you keep track of what you're
reading. Plus, Chrome for iOS supports Incognito Mode, so you can surf
privately without being tracked or leaving (much of) a trace.
Dolphin Browser is one of our favorites
on the Android side,
and there's a lot to love about it on iOS as well. Dolphin saves
passwords and some form data, and will sync bookmarks and other data
using their new Dolphin Connect service. Dolphin for iOS also comes with
Dolphin Sonar, a speech-to-text engine that allows you to search the
web or navigate to your favorite sites just by speaking to your iPhone
or iPad, and also supports custom gestures for browser navigation
(forward/back/jump to top/go to bottom) and for your favorite sites.
Dolphin also supports "Webzine," which is similar to Safari's "Reader"
view, stripping out the ads and fluff for a streamlined reading
experience. Dolphin even supports third-party plugins.
iCab
is a name we hadn't heard in a long time. It'll cost you $2, but for
the money you get built-in ad blocking, form auto-fill, the ability to
import and export bookmarks and bookmark folders to and from the
desktop, and even a fully-featured download manager that lets you
download anything you could from a desktop browser. The app supports
Dropbox, so you can stash downloads there. iCab also supports gestures,
custom links to Facebook, Evernote, and other third-party services, and
more. It's the most expensive in the roundup (considering Atomic is $1
and everthing else is free), but you definitely get features for the
money.
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