What's the fastest Android browser?

Android is simply the best operating system because there are so many different ways to do one thing,so many different ways to access your favourite social feeds, so many different ways to upload your media to the internet, so many different ways to make your launcher look and of course, so many different ways to access the internet. This last one is the one I want to pick out in this case as there are plenty of different browsers for Android. What I have done is pick the most well known browser and plot them against one another in a very simple speed test for those of you who are speed-junkies. The six browsers I chose to compare against one another are the default browser, the Dolphin HD browser, the Dolphin Mini browser, the Firefox browser, the Opera Mobile browser and finally the all-new Opera Mini 7 browser.

Just to clear up a few things before I talk to you about the results. I am using an HTC Desire which contains a 1Ghz processor and a 512mb RAM running Android version 2.3.3 which are the only details I think you need to know. Don't click away after reading these stats because you're running a new dual-core phone with much more power, the reason for these results was to show how the browsers handled the website I set them up against. Okay, here were the ground-rules:

• The website I loaded was phonedog.com
• I typed in the address each time
• I started the timer as soon as I hit “Go” despite any lag
• I cached the browsers each time
• I stopped the browser only when they had fully stopped loading (not just when the bar said they had)

Now, I admit there may be differences between HTC's default browser and other handset makers' browsers or a difference between 2.3 browser speeds and 4.0 browser speeds, but I'm pretty sure these results will be pretty stable across all OS' and across all manufacturer’s devices.

Okay, so let's get into the results:

The results work like this: each test has a green and a red number, the green number is the fastest load time and the red number is the slowest load time in that round. The final column is an average number over the three test rounds producing a more rounded number.

As you can see by the results, the Opera Mini 7 browser just blows every other browser out of the water! It got below 20 seconds in every test whereas none of the other browsers even got below 20 seconds ONCE. The Opera Mini 7 browser has been recently updated and brags that it's “speed and efficient controls put it ahead of all other browsers” and also what makes this browser doubly brilliant is this quote from them “reduce costs by up to 90% with our unique compression technology.” Now what confused me is that Opera claim that their Opera Mobile application is for more powerful phone and Opera Mini is for the lesser powered phones, when you look at the results above, I can't see any possible way of arguing FOR the Mobile version over the Mini version.

In addition to being the fastest browser on the market, the Opera Mini browser was incredibly smooth at scrolling (not quite as smooth at pinch-to-zoom, but again that may be a software thing.) It also produced nice animations with the settings sliding up from the bottom and when going back to a previous website, it would slide back (similar to on Macs.) I was just generally really impressed with this browser.

The browser that bugged me the most was the Firefox equivalent which was just simply AWFUL! It took ages to load the actual application and then produced the significantly worst times in terms of loading the final page too. Yes, the browser supports ad-ons that allow to customise it with extensions to enhance your browsing experience, but who the hell ever uses these? Let alone on a mobile phone; on a mobile phone we want to get to the website we've searched for as quick as we can.

As you can see, the default browser produced fairly decent results compared to the Dolphin and Firefox browsers which is good to see. What alos gives me hope is that I'm damn sure that Google will have improved their browser speeds on Ice Cream Sandwich, so if I were to test these results on an Ice Cream Sandwich device (which I shall do in a months time) then they would produce even closer results to the Opera browsers.

If you're not too bothered about speed, then definitely stick with your default browser as the Android browser is by far one of the best on the market. However, if you feel you could do with a much-loved speed boost then definitely hit up the Opera Browser Mini application as it allows for faster internet speeds with up to 90% lower data consumption. It's a freakin' WIN/WIN situation with this browser!