Update 3/4: Upgrading your browser, here's a comparison (New Iris included)

[Riley]

Browser Wars: Diamond Edition: New update with Iris Browser 1.1.3 which addressed crashing issues as per Iris. Previous Update with Pie 5.0, PIE 6.0, PIE 8.0 (thanks Highlife22) and Netfront v 3.5!

I wanted to start a thread discussing the various mobile browsers available on the Diamond. The nine I decided to include are Opera Mobile ver. 15613, Opera Mini 4.2, Iris 1.13, Skyfire PPC, UCWeb’s latest release, PIE 5.0, PIE 6.0, PIE 8.0 and Netfront v. 3.5. My findings are by no means scientific but they are useful in determining which browser you end up upgrading to or using on a daily basis. I used 3 criteria to come up with the winners and losers. The three being downloading time, rendering accuracy (how close to desktop), and scrolling speed. I also wanted to make this as scientific (yeah right) as possible sitting in one location to perform the tests. So my signal was ev 2-3 bars the whole time. Basically the test is simple. I loaded up forum.ppcgeeks.com and timed the results. This site provides a snap shot of browser performance rendering clean/less complex websites. Next I loaded up espn.go.com which is much more difficult and as you will see time consuming to render. Ok, so here are the results.

Forum.ppcgeeks.com:

Opera Mobile: 7.5 seconds. Comments: excellent rendering and good scrolling speed
Opera Mini: 3 seconds. Comments: good rendering and excellent scrolling speed
Iris Browser 1.1.3: 31 seconds Comments: excellent rendering and great scrolling but 31 seconds? no change in speed with 1.1.3 over 1.1.2.
Skyfire: 5.5 seconds. Comments: good rendering but slow and annoying scrolling.
UCWeb: 6 seconds. Comments: average rendering (Zoom mode) but font is too small. good scrolling (smooth scroll enabled)
PIE 5.0 (one column mode): 22 seconds. Comments: average rendering, good scrolling.
PIE 5.0 (desktop mode): 70 seconds. Comments: average rendering, poor scrolling. seemed to bog down the diamond big time.
PIE 6.0: 26 seconds. Comments: good rendering and scrolling speed. Font is too small making it very hard to use this browser.
PIE 8.0: 30 seconds. Comments: good rendering identifical to 6.0 along with similiar scrolling. Font issue not addressed. recently released on new 6.5 beta roms.
Netfront v. 3.5: 20 seconds. Comments: Good rendering and very good scrolling. font is small though even on largest font size.


Espn.go.com:

Opera Mobile: 27 seconds Comments: excellent rendering plus ability to browse page while loading. Good scrolling performance
Opera Mini: 6 seconds Comments: below average rendering struggling with loading pictures and flash content but good scrolling speed.
Iris Browser 1.1.2: didn’t finish test! About 45 seconds into loading the page, the screen went blank and never came back!
Iris Browser 1.1.3: completed the test this time! took about 90 seconds though but did not crash. tested in desktop mode as well. In mobile mode, it brings up the mobile espn site very fast, 10 seconds or so.
Skyfire: 6.5 seconds Comments: very good rendering, but slow scrolling performance. Constantly waiting for web content to load.
UCWeb: did not work at all in Zoom (UCWeb’s desktop mode) but 6 seconds in Adaptive (WAP mode). Comments: rendering is ok but very basic, scrolling is good.
PIE 5.0(one column): 28 seconds. Comments. rendering below average but scrolling is descent.
PIE 5.0(desktop): Comments: over 2 minutes and counting. never seemed to fully load up. very slow scrolling.
PIE 6.0: 2 1/2 minutes and counting. Never seemed to finish. Could not scroll on the page while downloading like opera. Font is too small and cant be changed.
PIE 8.0: same results as ie6. kept trying to download but nothing seems to actually happen. wont allow much scrolling while loading either.
Netfront v. 3.5: 28 seconds. Comments: Above average rendering. missing some pictures/flash content. Very good scrolling. font small.

Observations:

Being that Opera Mini, Skyfire, and UCWeb use server side rendering, it makes sense that they are the quickest browsers on the Diamond. But they all have their drawbacks as well. Mini-rendering issues on some sites, Skyfire-slow scrolling after download, and UCWeb-poor desktop rendering. I would think Skyfire would draw the most battery as well since it never truly loads a page, just constantly downloads web content as you move around the page hence the slow scrolling performance. But to their credit, Skyfire is a must have simply for the video capabilities it brings to the table. UCWeb is great if you need information quick and don’t need or want desktop rendering. It has improved very much and is definitely giving Opera mini a run for the money. Overall, mini seems to provide the best overall browsing experience among the server side browsers for day to day use. Of course this is just my opinion so the thread is open to discussion.

Now for the heavyweights, Opera Mobile is still the best especially with their new release. They have improved download/rendering speeds considerably and scrolling is very smooth. Iris 1.12 has many unique features like the i-podish history tabs and flash capability but it isn’t quite there yet. Iris still crashes on certain sites like espn and also took very long to load other sites. Also it doesn’t allow you to move around the page while loading up a page unlike Opera. I guess time will tell whether Iris will step to next level. I do give them a lot of credit for constantly updating their browser. Which leads me to the analysis of 1.13. Speed hasn't improved with this new release but espn.go.com did load up this time without crashing. In Iris blog, they addressed this update as fix for touchpro and diamond users. Definite improvement over the previous release.
PIE 5.0 is really not much of a competitor in the mix. It's good for quick web searches in One column mode but that's about it. PIE 6 initially looked interesting since it renders pages closer to desktop but the font size and slow download time is too much to overcome. PIE 8.0 still is a dissappointment especially considering it's an upgrade. I really didn't see a noticeable improvement from IE6. To be fair, this may improve as more 6.5 roms are released and ie8 is optimized. For now is not in the ballpark.Netfront is more usable in my opinion then Iris. It's faster and scrolliing is about as quick. It also doesn't crash like Iris did in my test. Being that Netfront is fairly out of date, it would be nice to see them upgrade this browser because it may be one of the best.

In my final analysis, Opera browsers (Mini and Mobile) still rule the roost as far as I’m concerned. What do you think?

[Soaa-]

Iris is based on WebKit, which is a great plus, because it's considered a pretty standard rendering engine. The slowness appears to be in the way it handles loading of pages, and not rendering. Perhaps it could take a lot of optimization. Like I've said in another thread, I see great potential in Iris.

Opera Mobile would be my pick for now though. A fairly solid browser, and text reflow is awesome.

[xTSFx]

Can I get a link or a .cab for Mini Opra. Their website doesn't have the Diamond...

[tobeychris]

Please change from white text!

[Riley]

Originally Posted by tobeychris

Please change from white text!

thanks man!! trying to do that now!!

[Riley]

Originally Posted by xTSFx

Can I get a link or a .cab for Mini Opra. Their website doesn't have the Diamond...

that's not a problem, when you go to mini.opera.com using ie on your device, select "If the version fails to install or you would like to install a previous version, please click " then select the first one with multiple certificates. Also, here is the latest jbed that works great with mini. You can install this first and when you select the multiple certificate version, your jbed will load up automatically. good luck!

[Drybonz]

Originally Posted by rileyd5

So in conclusion, Opera browsers rule the roost as far as I’m concerned. What do you think?

I haven't seen anything that made me want to stop using Opera as my main browser.

[wmdunn]

rileyd5 ... your descriptions mirror my experience. I find 15613 to be a significant improvement in Opera Mobile. Good work ...

[Riley]

Originally Posted by wmdunn

rileyd5 ... your descriptions mirror my experience. I find 15613 to be a significant improvement in Opera Mobile. Good work ...

Thanks! I just figured there was alot of activity last week in the browser world so I threw together a little test to see how they stacked up. Opera 15613 is really good! much better than before.

[intx]

Just a mention, you can have flash working stable in Opera Mobile as well, which can dissipate the advantage of Skyfire and Iris.