Alternative mobile browsers tested: Skyfire vs Opera Mobile vs Fennec vs Safari vs Internet Explorer vs BlackBerry

By Flora Graham on 16 November 2009, 6:20pm

8 pages

Surfing on your phone doesn't mean riding it over wind-swept waves -- it's actually worth getting on the mobile Web. Mobile browsers are doing a good job of bringing the Internet to life, even on the tiny screens and anaemic processors of our phones.

But you don't have to dance with the browser what brung you -- you can install browsers other than the default, especially if you have a phone that runs the Symbian S60 or Windows Mobile operating systems, which are particularly app-friendly, despite their lack of decent app stores.

We took three of the main contenders for Web-browser domination and stacked them up against three popular built-in browsers for your fun and edification.

We also looked at Opera Mini, which only requires a phone that can run Java, and the built-in Symbian browser, but both were so simple compared to the rich mobile Web of the other options that we didn't bother testing them -- neither could finish the tests required for this comparison.

Opera looks set to release a version of its Opera Mobile browser for Android soon -- when that happens we'll be taking Android competitors into the ring, so stay tuned.

The challengers

Skyfire (Windows Mobile, Symbian S60)
Opera Mobile (Windows Mobile, Symbian S60)
Fennec (Windows Mobile, Maemo)

The incumbents

Safari (iPhone)
Internet Explorer (Windows Mobile)
BlackBerry browser (BlackBerry)

As on our desktop browser tests, we tested standards compliance with the Acid3 test, and JavaScript-rendering abilities with the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark.

We also tested the browsers' speed and subjective usability. Tests were done on a Toshiba TG01 running Windows Mobile 6.5, an iPhone 3GS, and a BlackBerry Curve 8900. On each phone, all applications and network connections, including the 3G connection, were turned off while we tested over the same Wi-Fi network.

Click 'Continue' to enter the teeny-tiny browser fray.

8 pages

Comments 27

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Tusknia 16 November, 2009 22:24

How are you stuck with the Blackberry browser? I don't know what Blackberry OS you were using but I could use multiple browsers with my 8900.
Also Blackberry users should try the Bolt browser, it's not half bad.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 07:08

Interesting article, but you missed possibly the best one of all - the new Opera Mobile 10 beta on s60v5 devices (Nokia N97/5800, Samsung i8910, etc).

jonusher 17 November, 2009 10:05

and how about the HTC effort on the Hero which plays flash video?

Flora Graham 17 November, 2009 10:27

Tusknia, you're right that you can stick other browsers -- Opera Mini, for example -- on a BlackBerry but, as noted, it didn't make it into our test because it lacks the full range of features that we required. Thanks for the suggestion of Bolt, we'll take a look at it next time.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 10:47

Presumably this article marks the end of an era of compromised browsers, before the datum is reset with the release of Flash 10.1. Not sure how good Safari will look then.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 17:07

I wish you had included the Palm Pre.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 18:18

where's the palm pre browser? ...and please don't say it's not a contender.....

anonymous 17 November, 2009 18:52

It's a shame that you've overlooked the Google Android Browser. With the increasing number of phones and carriers supporting Android, I'm sure there are many others besides myself that would have stuck around to read about it.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 19:06

Do some realworld testing not only the stupid javascript test...

anonymous 17 November, 2009 19:52

Opera mobile rocks, Opera desktop rocks equally. Why use anything else?

anonymous 17 November, 2009 20:32

Hello? Android, anyone? Pre?

This test is a lot less meaningful without the other players in the game.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 21:00

You didn't test the android browser, really? Now that's just plain lazy, you could have even done it in the emulator if you didn't have access to an android phone.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 21:23

HTML editors which use @contenteditable, like CKEditor and TinyMCE, don't work on Safari on the iPhone. This is a significant flaw!

anonymous 17 November, 2009 22:08

Palm Pre's browser is basically same as iPhone's with very minor differences. It has the same rendering engine, same limitations (like no downloading of files) but a bit different UI.

I believe Android uses Webkit as well, so it's quite likely pretty similar to iPhone's/Pre's.

anonymous 17 November, 2009 22:29

This article is biased against BlackBerry, so you can't take it as accurate. I have owned Palms, WinMo phones, and several BlackBerrys. The BlackBerry browser is the best of all these three. Mobile IE is by far the WORST for speed, usability, and versatility. I use Opera Mini as a backup, and I also really love it. Don't trust their facts about BlackBerry. It's not the best browser, but still among the best mobile browsers out there. Better than IE?? Gimmie a break!!

anonymous 17 November, 2009 23:22

Great article.
There's a 404 for "Get it from: bit.ly/wma3cab for WinMo "

Anyone interested in checking out Fennec can also get the Fennec desktop emulator for Mac, Windows, or Linux here http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/1.0b5/

Mobile home page here http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/

anonymous 18 November, 2009 00:13

Opera mobile (even the mini 5 version) seems to do a much better job of "mobile view" reformatting of a normal webpage than anything else I've seen. Safari etc. seem unusable to me by comparison.

anonymous 18 November, 2009 01:46

Maemo 5 default browser on the Nokia N900:
Acid3: 93 / 100
Sunspider Java: 36722.0ms +- 1.5%

It also has full flash support with no jerky playback. Not too bad, and in my opinion it's pretty fast for browsing (if you have 3G or WLAN). Acid3 results make sense because it has a similar engine as Fennec. I just installed the latest Fennec on my N900 and it is a really nice browser, too. Here are its results:
Acid3: 94 / 100
Sunspider Java: 18899.4ms +- 5.5%

Maybe you should also count how you can extend these browsers? I have Adblock Plus installed on my N900 and that speeds up browsing a lot, too!

anonymous 18 November, 2009 11:58

Why do you bother to use Fennec which is still in beta, but don't use opera mobile 10 beta for symbian which is available also ? The speed differences are clear, and the UI is much better and has more features, like Opera Turbo.

Flora Graham 18 November, 2009 12:38

Unfortunately, a Palm Pre wasn't available for this test.

We will definitely be doing an Android-centric browser test soon, so stay tuned!

anonymous 18 November, 2009 13:29

Should have gone with Opera Mobile 10 beta. The 9.7 version is outdated :s

anonymous 18 November, 2009 18:07

Then how did the Blackberry browser make it?

anonymous 18 November, 2009 18:17

something wrong with their servers, page 9 either did not render correctly or had nothing to do with the article. of course, readers in general hate the way they break things up into thousands of pages, each with barely a nugget of information.

anonymous 18 November, 2009 21:46

You could have at least used a BlackBerry running the 5.0 OS. Acid test reaches 93% and layout is perfect.
This is ridiculous.

anonymous 20 November, 2009 03:58

MY 1 AND HALF YEAR OLD BB BOLD GETS 91% ON ACID3?

anonymous 22 November, 2009 20:44

Look at all those top of the range phone compared to the workhorse 8900. Not only that, but the 8900 OS is 100+ iterations out of date.

anonymous 22 January, 2010 06:49

Well Opera mini the most well known and compatible mobile browser.Till now i have been using it and i have read the reviews of this browser.This application offers just about all the features you need to access "Web 2.0" sites, like dynamic Flash, advanced Ajax, and Java. It's good enough that your main limitation in browsing is going to be the size and resolution of your smartphone's screen, and Skyfire is even able to compensate for that.

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