Only a few short months after Mozilla released the final build of Firefox 4 for Android, we now have Firefox 5, just added to the Android Market for the taking. Mobile web browsers can often be a little disappointing, but Mozilla is making great efforts into bringing its Firefox browser up to the desktop edition’s standards. The Android version of the app boasts an impressive feature set that sounds more reminiscent of desktop software, minus one important feature in my book.

This latest version improves page load times on 3G and 4G connections and the overall performance of web browser is also accelerated thanks to smoothing, page panning, and CSS3 animations. Privacy concerns can be somewhat alleviated now, by enabling the new “Do Not Track” option which will prevent web sites from recording information about your online activity.

One of the key advantages of using Firefox over other mobile web browsers is that it is very familiar, if you are used to the desktop version of the software. Settings and preferences can be easily synchronized between platforms and support for add-ons means that the capabilities of the browser can be extended and customized in a variety of ways.

But there is room for improvement, as there almost always is with mobile browsers. The biggest drawback would be the lack of support for Flash. Which means that many web sites cannot be viewed in full, as we would sometimes like to do. Seems like an odd thing to leave out, on a platform that fully supports it.

For the most part, Firefox 5 is a bug-fix release. There are few significant changes, but considering a ton of effort went into changing the release cadence, and then fixing a huge backlog of bugs, that’s enough to expect so soon. It’s also worth noting that Firefox 5 Mobile, which is now part of the main Firefox codebase, will enjoy a simultaneous release with its desktop brother. Firefox 5 Mobile actually has quite a few nice, new additions, including WOFF support, faster surfing over 3G/4G, and overall better rendering of websites, as well as the new privacy feature.

What are your thoughts on how this mobile browser is shaping up?
Does anyone use it as their main browser?
Tell us why, or why you don’t use it.
What improvements would you like to see?

Market link: Firefox 5
source: mozilla

Let’s face it: The stock browser on your shiny new Android device lacks…a lot. Well, let’s go ahead and fix that, shall we?

Get It!

You can visit this Appbrain Link or scan this QRcode to get Dolphin Browser HD from the market:

So go ahead and download it. Hurry! You’re missing out!

Now That You’ve Got It

Alright. You have, by now, gone to the market and downloaded this baby. Now it’s time to fire it up. On the first run of the app, you’re going to be confronted with a welcome screen:

After the welcome screen, Dolphin HD Will take you through a small intro that shows you some of the features and basic usability tips. You can’t use the browser without going through this, so I won’t bother showing you the screenshots. Once you get through the intro presentation, you will be looking at the dolphin start page:

Good times. Let’s take a look at some of the features.

Some Of The Features

Bookmarks and History

One of the things that always peeved me about the stock browser was how it handled the history and bookmarks. It was just a little bit cumbersome and awkward. You had to hit all those buttons and go through those menus, making selections all willy-nilly, but none of that matters now! Dolphin has made a much better experience for this situation. With the page all the way zoomed out (or scrolled to the far left of the web page you’re on), swipe the screen to the right (past the realm of the webpage). BAM!

It’s just better. If you want to add a bookmark (assuming you’re wanting to add the page you’re currently viewing), just click that star right there. Easy-Peasy. It’s so simple, in fact, that i have nothing more to say about it.

Multiple Tabs(Windows)

You have been given the ability to view up to 8 different web pages simultaneously. That’s probably quite few more than you should need but it’s always nice to know that you CAN. You have probably noticed, by this point, that you have a tab bar up on top of the page. Click on that big ol’ plus sign. Well done. You are now the proud owner of 2 tabs. In addition to the tab bar interface, Dolphin has given you a much more “Impress your friends”ish option. Remember how we slid the page to get to the bookmarks panel? Same thing, other side. That’s your add-ons panel. We’ll cover the add-ons later. for right now, direct your attention to the downward arrow at the top right. Pull it down.

This way, you can see a preview of the page you’re switching to. It is, admittedly, a laggier way of doing things. In my experience, this window switching panel is pretty jumpy, even on my Evo. It’s definitely not bad enough for me to quit using it though. Look at how cool that looks.

Add-ons OMG!

This is pretty huge. Dolphin HD has support for a whole bunch of add-ons. Swipe left to open up that panel we talked about earlier. Yeah, that one. You can click the puzzle piece at the bottom to get to the main add-on screen.

Now, in my screenshot, I’ve already got quite a few installed. They have a huge range of functions and I’m not even going to attempt covering them all here. Just click the “Get more Add-ons” button and go nuts. Seriously, there’s a ton of them.

Gestures

On the bottom left of the browsing window, you’ll notice a picture of a hand. Tap it. This is your gesture area. You can click the gear on the bottom right to see what gestures are built in, or you can make your own custom gestures that can perform a wide array of functions. I made this one:

Which ended with my browser doing this:

Cool. Go nuts on this one, too, because this is a really quick and infinitely useful feature. Sometimes it will have no idea what gesture you’re trying to do, but you’ll eventually get it. It works for me most of the time.

Under the Hood

I won’t go through all of them, but you get a lot more options to play around with in the settings menu. Like, A LOT.

Play around with it. Dolphin browser does a lot and the best way to learn is to play.

Now I’d like to take a moment to talk about

Your New Favorite Dolphin HD Add-on

You may have noticed the PPCGeeks icon in my screenshots or when you were looking through the add-on gallery in Dolphin. If you haven’t already installed it, you’re fired. Just kidding. But, seriously, get out of here.

The add-on gives you access to the PPCGeeks RSS feed so you’ll be able to read my posts ANYWHERE (and posts from the other awesome writers for PPCGeeks, I guess ;)). To use it, install it like any other add-on. Then, go into the main add-ons window and click it. That was easy.

->

Immediately, you will be transported to a dream-world of magic. A place where you always know what’s going on with the mobile device world.

The End, You Guys

Thanks for reading, and I hope it helped! I definitely recommend Dolphin HD and the PPCGeeks add-on. Download and try it yourself! What do you have to lose? Nothing, that’s what.

Some of the features (you know this list will just grow…)

• Awesome Bar – Go to your favorite sites in just a couple of keystrokes with intelligent and personalized searching
• Weave Sync – Sync your Firefox tabs, history, bookmarks and passwords between your desktop and mobile device for a seamless browsing experience
• Add-ons – Customize your Firefox by adding small pieces of functionality, like games and news readers, that help make the mobile Web browser your own
• Location-Aware Browsing – Get maps and information relevant to your location
• Tabbed browsing – View open tabs as thumbnails to easily identify and select the Web page you’d like to go to next
• Safe Browsing – Get an Instant Web Site ID and easily access and edit security settings
• Available in more than 30 languages and counting
• And the awesome YouTube plugin…

So if you are one of the lucky ones who has a N900, leave us a comment describing it. Is it what you expected?

Source

Please understand that Beta software is often buggy and unstable and not typically for the mainstream user. That said, if you would like to give either of these new versions a test run, you can go here to download the latest Opera Mobile 10 Beta and here to get the latest Opera Mini 5 Beta.

Source: Opera Software