Firefox 4 Beta - Vibrant Themes and Apps

Firefox 4 Beta has been released for Android.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/m/beta
I'm going to use it through the weekend to see how it is coming along.

Seems to be coming along nicely Still laggy but I haven't gotten a FC yet and before it was completely unusable It is looking promising!

Initial thoughts are that it is going to be really nice once finished. It is a little laggy in animation of the menus and I just had to pull the battery due to a complete system freeze when trying to load macrumors.com over 3G.

Nice find
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

am i missing something or this browser doesnt have "initial zoom" function ?

try firefox.com/m/beta to download, a little less typing
It sucks right now imho

for me the stock browser is better, well that's just me.
i hope after the beta version it will be better, i love firefox in my computer.

I didn't like it all - here is why:
1. Text rendering was terrible - like Linux RH 5 browser years ago. Even Google.com looked bad
2. I could not figure out how to type a URL - the address bar became search bar as soon as i started typing
3. Slower
4. Stock browser just works better
Maybe in a few more months it will be ready, but not now.

alphadog00 said:
2. I could not figure out how to type a URL - the address bar became search bar as soon as i started typing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you try just finishing the url?

Just remember that this is a beta. It will have bugs and not work at times. Mention them here so we can see if it's repeatable, but make sure you report it to Mozilla so they can fix it.
Sent from this one thing using another thing. Cool isn't it?

Couldn't deal with it went to uninstall, its 44 mgb they're going to pare that down a bit I hope.
Vibrant vibrating nicely now,Kthx!

My initial impression, after spending 3 years with iOS and almost a year with Android, is that this is the worst smartphone browser I have ever used. It's simply a dog, performance-wise. The UI is interesting and feels unlike anything vie ever used before (in a good way). But the incredible sluggishness of the experience negated any good will I had. I would tap something and have to wait a few seconds for the app to react to my input. Images would simply not load on some websites even though they work fine on every other browser on my system. It uses so much RAM that even LuncherPro had to relaunch itself anytime I exited Firefox.
This is clearly an early version of the app and they haves a long way to go but right now it does not deliver an experience that I find, in any way, to be better than the other options currently on the market.

birch25 said:
My initial impression, after spending 3 years with iOS and almost a year with Android, is that this is the worst smartphone browser I have ever used. It's simply a dog, performance-wise. The UI is interesting and feels unlike anything vie ever used before (in a good way). But the incredible sluggishness of the experience negated any good will I had. I would tap something and have to wait a few seconds for the app to react to my input. Images would simply not load on some websites even though they work fine on every other browser on my system. It uses so much RAM that even LuncherPro had to relaunch itself anytime I exited Firefox.
This is clearly an early version of the app and they haves a long way to go but right now it does not deliver an experience that I find, in any way, to be better than the other options currently on the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, I'm going to keep using Opera for the time being.

There is also an issue with the keyboard. For example, if I click google's search box, the keyboard comes up, but Firefox tries to zoom-in to the text box itself (makes it easier to read?) but the keyboard gets "left behind", and you just see the text box itself with no keyboard for entry.

firefox failed on this one..

Completely froze my phone using Bionix 1.1 had to reboot, COMPLETE FAIL

Not Ready
I agree with Alphadog The software is still too laggy and too primitive to be really useful,
I m sure they will get there it is just not there yet

Related

Please help! My Atrix is a slow piece of crap.

Ok I hope I've finally found the right forum. I was posting in modmymobile and not getting the help I needed. Finally a friend of mine told me about this forum and told me anyone who knew anything about Android posted here. As you can imagine I was on modmymobile because I was a frequent user of modmyi. I am an iPhone guy. An iPhone guy that is DESPERATELY trying to make the jump to Android.
I have my gripes with this phone versus my iPhone 4; for example the iPhone screen makes the Atrix look like a gameboy in my opinion (most notably at off angle viewing) and the build quality is no where near the same. BUT I can already see after 1 day of use why Android is superior. The thing is endless in customization, and for the most part the OS is more functional on every level.
With that said, PLEASE HELP. This fricken phone is supposed to be the fastest thing on the planet and it chugs a long like a snail. For example: If I were to load up a webpage with many pictures, such as phonescoop, and touch the middle of the screen and gently move it in circles, it stutters the entire time. Anytime I am zooming and or scrolling around a page I am constantly seeing stutter. Safari does not do this. I figured it was a browser problem so I tried Opera and Dolphin HD as well. While Dolphin was a bit better, it still does not compare to Safari. Not only that, when I'm scrolling through pictures I've taken its the same thing. Even the settings menu seems to chug!
My only hope is that the bloatware and Moto Blur is what is causing this stutter, so I desperately need help on how to remove any and everything from the phone that is not necessary. Not to mention Moto Blur looks disgusting. Please point me to a tutorial where I can learn how to root (make sure it will allow unroot please) and then please guide me on how to get all this crap off the phone. I think moto Blur is called a "Launcher"? Can you also reccomend the speediest and nicest looking launcher to go with as well.
I really really really want to replace my iPhone with this phone, but if it doesn't make sense I can not make the switch. I am already going to have to deal with the sub-par (in my opinion) screen, but I just can not deal with a laggy phone. What scares me the most is that I had my buddy come over last night that has an Inspire rooted and running at 1300mhz and his browser stutterd just the same. Please don't tell me this is an Android thing, I don't want something so trivial to ruin this for me. I really want to convert. For the record I chose the Atrix not only because of the speed, but because of the webtop and HD dock as well.
Thank you in advance and I hope I can get educated here.
Dolphin browser runs that site very well for me, no stutter as you say.
For a launcher, I'm using Go launcher, and also like ADW, and launcher pro.
Haplodroid said:
Dolphin browser runs that site very well for me, no stutter as you say.
For a launcher, I'm using Go launcher, and also like ADW, and launcher pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you remove blur and replace it with that launcher? In doing that does it remove the bloatware and free up system resources? Id like to make the phone as fast as possible
Err...use the built-in task manager to kill apps that are either taking up CPU (though you're not using them) or a lot of RAM or both. Uninstall stuff you don't need.
Also note that this is not an iPhone, so quitting an app in a normal way (using back button / quit icon if available) is a lot better performance-wise than pressing the home button.
In your browser, close windows you do not need. Really. And switch on "on-demand" flash (it's in the browser options somewhere) so that it only loads flash elements when you click on them.
You could also try Firefox as a browser, it comes with its own engine. All other browsers in Android (afaik) use the built-in webkit engine, so are basically the same thing "under the hood".
Hope that helps. The phone is a beast, but that does not mean that you cannot slow it down
I think its moto's ui that is causing all the problem. Motoblur indeed is disgusting. My android is a mere 1 ghz phone but it does not stutter at all. Atrix is indeed a slow phone not utilizing its dual cores. Ive used my brother's optimus 2x which has the same processor as the atrix and it blew me away with its speed.
when I removed Motoblur and added Miren it got fast
I use Go Ex as a launcher although Gingerbread or Launcher Pro is equally fast. Motoblur is the biggest culprit when it comes to slowing the Atrix down. Miren loads quickly as a browser. I also got rid of apps I do not use and installed Swype beta as well as the Gingerbread keyboard form the market. Additionally I am using three screens and a simple, static wallpaper. I have 15 apps on the dock and use gestures for the dialer and to check the battery. I'm rooted and use setCPU. Functionality is great now. I hope they release the Galaxy S II soon. I can't find much else to do with the Atrix.
Sebring5 said:
I use Go Ex as a launcher although Gingerbread or Launcher Pro is equally fast. Motoblur is the biggest culprit when it comes to slowing the Atrix down. Miren loads quickly as a browser. I also got rid of apps I do not use and installed Swype beta as well as the Gingerbread keyboard form the market. Additionally I am using three screens and a simple, static wallpaper. I have 15 apps on the dock and use gestures for the dialer and to check the battery. I'm rooted and use setCPU. Functionality is great now. I hope they release the Galaxy S II soon. I can't find much else to do with the Atrix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^^ this^^............
Does using a launcher like LauncherPro replace MotoBlur or does it just cover it up and I have to use TitaniumBackup to freeze MotoBlur behind LauncherPro?
DON'T download a launcher, it takes up ram and in overall will suck up ur memory.
What you want to do is just install Adeo and get ur phone deoxed, also remove bloatware, and you're phone will be FAST.
I haven't installed any launchers because they slow, i've tested it with LP and ADW and they don't co-operate too well with Atrix....i'm not sure but it might have something to do with the dual core not running right on the launchers.
I've had my phone constantly on for about 2 weeks now and it's still as fast as when i first booted it up. Also, knowing what ur running will help you understand what is sucking up performance if maybe you're running widgets that refresh every 15 min, it will hog ram.
Motoblur is a pretty good launcher...it just needs to be set up properly.
launcher pro scrolls much smoother than motoblur, and has that little spring effect the iphone does when you scroll between pages, it's excellent.Also, browsing as I've seen has been pretty hit, or miss, but on the xoom, which has the same guts as the atrix, website scrolling is much better. The only difference between the xoom and the atrix is froyo vs honeycomb, so that leads me to think this is a software bound problem.
Techcruncher said:
launcher pro scrolls much smoother than motoblur, and has that little spring effect the iphone does when you scroll between pages, it's excellent.Also, browsing as I've seen has been pretty hit, or miss, but on the xoom, which has the same guts as the atrix, website scrolling is much better. The only difference between the xoom and the atrix is froyo vs honeycomb, so that leads me to think this is a software bound problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well froyo is not designed for dual core...honeycomb is designed for multiple core usage...if you didn't know the motorola xoom was Google's developer tab for designing honeycomb.
This has to do with the way the android browser renders pages. The Safari browser is GPU accelerated thus, is smooth as silk. The android browser is not (unless you have a Galaxy S I9000 international version). So no matter what you do, the android browser will NEVER be as smooth as Safari until they give it GPU acceleration like the Galaxy. There's only one way to currently have a smooth browsing experience, and that is Opera Mobile 11 beta. However, I tried it on an Atrix and it doesn't seem to work, so I guess you're out of luck there. Again, this doesn't particularly have to do with the Atrix as ALL android phones using the android browser aren't GPU accelerated except for the I9000.
It's something a lot of android users even on this forum will not admit: the android browser is laggy. Sure, it may be quick to them, but if you always have an iPhone next to it to compare to Safari, it'll always lose. Except for playing flash, where it always wins. =)
seh6183 said:
For example: If I were to load up a webpage with many pictures, such as phonescoop, and touch the middle of the screen and gently move it in circles, it stutters the entire time. Anytime I am zooming and or scrolling around a page I am constantly seeing stutter. Safari does not do this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Safari is a very good browser...so its gona be tough. Root your Atrix through "aroot" and "freeze" your blur apps not remove them.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
use ginger blur and miren browser
so much better
I told you the guys here will take care of you Sean.
Ok heres an update.
So I found out that the firefox browser is by far the fastest browser with almost no lag whatsoever. I found this out before I modded the phone at all. I then rooted the phone and did the adeo modified rom on the phone and installed launcher pro. I also took off my live wallpaper. The only thing I haven't does is freeze all the bloatware. I'm kind of concerned that even though I'm using launcher pro, moto blur is still there and making the phone run slow.
Either way, the phone still chugs like a razr. For example, I took a random picture of my room. I then went into the "Gallery" app and looked at the picture. I zoomed in on it a bit and then dragged the picture around to scroll around and look at it; it chugged along like an NES game!!! It does the same thing while zooming in and out. What is going on!?
If I freeze the bloatware including moto blur, WILL my problem be fixed? I'm desperate.
I've found a thread that shows how to freeze the bloatware. I'll freeze everything including blur while I wait for you guys to respond. If I can't get this thing running up to par by the end of the week I'll need to return it. Which SUCKS because the benchmarks show that this is the fastest phone ever made (in stock form).
And really guys, what are the chances that the phone is only using 1 core because of 2.2? What are the chances that 2.3 will make this thing fly and eliminate the lag I am seeing?
You have to remember I am coming from an iPhone 4, which while not faster at all, SEEMS much faster because everything is so smooth. It seems stupid but I need the UI to be fluid, I won't be able to look past it. Thanks again.
**Are you guys with the super modded, OC phones on the newest versions of Android experiencing UI lag like I've mentioned above?**
More updates haha. Went to the market and downloaded "bloat freezer" and found that i cant use it because my device is not rooted. Looks like i rooted it and then when i installed the modded rom it erased my root or something. And since i dont have my usb cable here at work ill have to wait until i get home and re-root and then use bloat freezer.
Which rom did u install.....gingerblur? If so, it should have rooted it for u. Otherwise do the aroot process again. Then download titanium backup and freeze your bloateare through there.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
rjayflo said:
Which rom did u install.....gingerblur? If so, it should have rooted it for u. Otherwise do the aroot process again. Then download titanium backup and freeze your bloateare through there.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Adeo v0.2 is what i have, is gingerblur faster? When i get home ill re-root and start freezing

ICS - www browser - freezes... We have seen it before...

Did you notice that ICS browser likes to freeze? It is the same story as it was on Honeycomb on TF101.
Generally I try to type an address thet hit enter. The browser just pretends to be loading a www but it seems to do nothing.
I have noticed that. I have been getting force close after force close with this. The weird thing is that this worked great for the first day and then the second day it just has been fc crazy on me.
I guess I am getting the same thing.....
BROWSER IS NOT RESPONDING.
Then it asks
WAIT or CANCEL
The first night after the update, the thing was awesome. Now it seems to stutter and NOT RESPOND every so often.
Also I have to wait for the whole page to load before I can scroll. And sometimes it will load 75% of the page and then take like a minute for the rest.
For example....xda prime - show us your homescreen- that webpage was kicking my primes ass...lol
Btw, wasn't there settings in debug that we can change or turn on. Type About:debug into address bar and then go to settings and click on debug. Then u can change some if the rendering options. Is this a good idea, and what settings should be changed.
Still love my prime, just some little glitches that can be annoying at times.
Mcoupe said:
I guess I am getting the same thing.....
BROWSER IS NOT RESPONDING.
Then it asks
WAIT or CANCEL
The first night after the update, the thing was awesome. Now it seems to stutter and NOT RESPOND every so often.
Also I have to wait for the whole page to load before I can scroll. And sometimes it will load 75% of the page and then take like a minute for the rest.
For example....xda prime - show us your homescreen- that webpage was kicking my primes ass...lol
Btw, wasn't there settings in debug that we can change or turn on. Type About:debug into address bar and then go to settings and click on debug. Then u can change some if the rendering options. Is this a good idea, and what settings should be changed.
Still love my prime, just some little glitches that can be annoying at times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have this same problem. Usually when the "Wait or Close" option comes up, the page is already loaded. Annoying but useful,
My browser also does the same thing, sometimes hanging and giving me the 'Not responding' dialogue just as it starts responding again. This happens on my prime under HC and is still exactly the same after updating to ICS. I never have to force close the browser due to it, but the freezing is slightly annoying.
None of this never happens in Opera Mobile. Another good alternative browser better than stock is ICS+ browser. the maker of thumb keyboard made it. He has a thread in themes and apps section. its a free app and getting real good reviews on it now. plus plays flash and everything with no problems.
But there is a problem with flash on opera?
When I have issues just force stop it clear cookies and history plus cache... Fresh start It is a pain but I LOVE ICS's BROWSER!
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201
Dolphin HD locks up too
Any browsers that don't give problems? I saw one post for Opera that was good any others?
Maxathon Browser for Tablets is a pretty nice browser
I have the same problem but it did the same thing more with Honeycomb so ICS was an improvement. It runs faster and better, but there is still some stalls when loading sometimes. However, in Honeycomb this would give me Wait/Force Close messages all the time.
I have the same problem. Noticed it after the latest firmware fix (19th?). Don't recall seeing this happen before.
I don't think its the browser, I think its ICS. I've tried 5 different browsers and they have all had the same issues.
I think it is ICS too. Makes me wondering if Asus is testing anything they release pertaining to the prime? Or if they did, hope they are testing it out on random primes coming out of the assembly line for any abnormality before releasin it. Or maybe they are because we are the beta testers.
I have not experienced freezing, but i get random keyboard lag, where i type an url, and it takes 1 second to register the keyboard presses on the url bar then they print at one pop
I blame the delay on the stock browser's ability to process scripts.
This didn't start till the last update. It was working great before.
If there is one thing I hate about this is that there aren't any good browser on Android. Can't import bookmarks, can't handle flash well, no ad-block adons.
I just use remote desktop so I can use Firefox on Windows. Only real solution.
Hope they figure it out soon, as it is annoying to say the least. I believe it is worse after the latest firmware upgrade also...........
I've noticed the waits a ton since ICS. Never had a problem with Gingerbread. It's quite annoying and my wife thought the same.
wifesabitch said:
If there is one thing I hate about this is that there aren't any good browser on Android. Can't import bookmarks, can't handle flash well, no ad-block adons.
I just use remote desktop so I can use Firefox on Windows. Only real solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Big peeve of mine, too... no ad-block addons. I thought dolphin had one, but I couldn't find it after I wiped my phone. Haven't looked for it since.
Remote desktop is a poor solution though. I can't find any decent VNC clients aside from AndroidVNC, but that doesn't let you pop up the keyboard on a tablet like you can on a phone.

Web Browsing Is Terrible Without Root

So I lost root with the latest version, as did many people.
And now I hate browsing on this device, 90% of the time I get browser lag with the force close warning. When rooted with the ad blocker everything was so smooth. All the javascripts from the ads slow down the browser, is this the case with ipad too?
Damn I need my root access back.
I never understood why people kept complaining about the slow browser. Now I do.
yumms said:
So I lost root with the latest version, as did many people.
And now I hate browsing on this device, 90% of the time I get browser lag with the force close warning. When rooted with the ad blocker everything was so smooth. All the javascripts from the ads slow down the browser, is this the case with ipad too?
Damn I need my root access back.
I never understood why people kept complaining about the slow browser. Now I do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will not answer the iPad queston because then I'm a fanboy. Anyway, did you try a different browser like Chrome or Dolphin Browser HD? These are much faster then the default in my experience, Chrome doens't support flash (as far as I know), Dolphin does.
Go in browser setting, advance, uncheck javascript and put plug-ins on demand, close browser including in last use app then go back in. Should improve browsing
JoeyLe said:
I will not answer the iPad queston because then I'm a fanboy. Anyway, did you try a different browser like Chrome or Dolphin Browser HD? These are much faster then the default in my experience, Chrome doens't support flash (as far as I know), Dolphin does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dolphin doesn't always show tabs, it hides them when you scroll down. Current Chrome version is too featureless for normal use
yumms said:
Dolphin doesn't always show tabs, it hides them when you scroll down. Current Chrome version is too featureless for normal use
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't that a setting in the menu for Dolphin? I believe it is somewhere, but I'm not really sure.
Blackwidowman said:
Go in browser setting, advance, uncheck javascript and put plug-ins on demand, close browser including in last use app then go back in. Should improve browsing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does, but it gives me a broken web experience.
I use Quick ICS Browser and its all good.
Blackwidowman said:
I use Quick ICS Browser and its all good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I'm using.
And there is no setting in Dolphin to always show tabs.
Man this crap is getting freaking old!
Why the hell do I have to go into settings, turn this off, enable on demand, etc etc....
This tablet was touted with a quad core chip running 1.4 MHz on performance mode, yada yada...why the hell can't it handle a heavy web page! Wtf!!
My 2 year old HTC Evo....rooted running cm7....is smoother. I can screw up and hit page back, and hit menu then click a bookmark flawlessly ...
But the OP does bring up a great point. I have adfree on my phone and I guess I haven't realized that it makes that much of a difference.
Don't know, maybe its just me, but why do you have to go thru all sorts of settings just to get a smooth internet experience?
Sorry for the rant, I still love the little beast. Just get the browser straight and I might not be scared to recommended the Prime to others....
Using ICS+ browser with adblock, flash and java script enabled all the time and everthing is butter smooth here
This is actually the best browsing experience ever. Especially with the keyboard dock and the addition of the Overskreen floating browser i prefer it to my desktop most of the time! I dont even start it up anymore unless i need it for my music progs or gaming. Its just PEWPEW!
Also in iCS+ you can set back and forward to screen swipes and that also works with the touchpad. Its so cool to just swipe around and control everything that way toghether with the keyboard shortcuts.
yeah adblocker or ad free makes a world of difference. you could also enable the force gpu rendering in developer options in settings to speed things up.
ill answer the other question since Joey didn't..lol. Ipad browsing is decent but not nearly as good as its made out to be. plus Ipad doesn't even support flash so its not loading up the ads. its as if it runs browser with adblocker on. stock safari browser sux. you can get a good 3rd. party one like Icab or Atomic browser on Ipad and do well. but really all 3rd party Ipad browsers aren't true 3rd party ones. 99% of them are based off of Safari or have sacrifice engine as the core of it. but my prime is way faster and smoother than my Ipad. as far as web browsing and scrolling lag free. my Ipad can't even touch my prime no matter what its doing.
I have my prime on 1Ghz top speed and using opera Mobile. the web pages still load near instant and experiencing no lag at all scrolling. I am rooted and have adfree on. plus I forced gpu rendering. I'm truly amazed how well this tablet performs even having 1Ghz as my top speed. can't even tell the difference hardly cuz everything so fast and fluid.
yumms said:
It does, but it gives me a broken web experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Leave java on then guarantee most of the lag is from waiting for all the flash to load set to on demand you can still view them just hit the down arrow of the vid you want to view. Far from broken web Haven't seen the wait window since I changed my setting and I always run on performance
yeah i made a thread about losing root and how much it sucks not having adfree yeseterday. it SUCKS. the thing is i doubt there is the urgency to find a new root method there was at the beginning either because so many have root still.
is there even away to gain root access if i unlock? i don't even think there is a stock rooted .21 custom rom out to load anyways and from what i've read all the other custom roms don't play well with the keyboard.
NeoMagus said:
Leave java on then guarantee most of the lag is from waiting for all the flash to load set to on demand you can still view them just hit the down arrow of the vid you want to view. Far from broken web Haven't seen the wait window since I changed my setting and I always run on performance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is just from my bookmarks:
http://lifehacker.com/
http://gawker.com/
http://www.gametrailers.com/
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/
http://gizmodo.com/
Yahoo Mail
No comments on engadget stories
All broken without javascript.
javascript has been an intricate part of the web since the Netscape Navigator browser, practically every browser since Netscape have relied on javascript, not to be confused with Sun/Oracle Java . Turning off javascript in a browser would be like turning image viewing, you're going to end up with a crappy web browsing experience.
Google and ASUS not being able to address this is a shame.
With the last update... Asus finally fixed the Screen tearing and flickering that made the Prime look like an amateur programmed it. I'm annoyed that the browser lag is still there under normal use if I keep javascript on. Like others have said, an end user should not have to disable and tweak a bunch of stuff just to get decent performance. Constantly turning javascript on and off depending on the site is pretty annoying and does not make for an enjoyable browsing experience. It also doesn't seem to help the PULSE news app at all.
While I love my Prime, it's pretty sad to see my HP Touchpad absolutely destroying it when comparing the two at web browsing. The Touchpad on an alpha release of CM9 seriously blows the Prime away on the stock browser... Never had a wait message pop up while surfing even heavy pages...it just works. I can't even scroll right away on the Prime while the page is loading. I have to either wait for some elements to load or for the dreaded Wait/Ok to pop up. On my Touchpad or ipad 2..this issue is nonexistent.
I hope that this is the next priority on Asus list. User experience is an important thing...and a laggy browser and screen tearing should never have made it past quality control.
Now, I don't want to be all negative, so I will say that one of my test sites always runs best on the Prime stock browser, and that is:
http://www.pirateslovedaisies.com/
This site won't even finish loading on an ipad 2 (don't know about the 3) and runs slower on the Touchpad with CM9 (and not at all on Web OS) so at least we know the Prime is decent with complex HTML5 in some cases.
avlon said:
With the last update... Asus finally fixed the Screen tearing and flickering that made the Prime look like an amateur programmed it. I'm annoyed that the browser lag is still there under normal use if I keep javascript on. Like others have said, an end user should not have to disable and tweak a bunch of stuff just to get decent performance. Constantly turning javascript on and off depending on the site is pretty annoying and does not make for an enjoyable browsing experience. It also doesn't seem to help the PULSE news app at all.
While I love my Prime, it's pretty sad to see my HP Touchpad absolutely destroying it when comparing the two at web browsing. The Touchpad on an alpha release of CM9 seriously blows the Prime away on the stock browser... Never had a wait message pop up while surfing even heavy pages...it just works. I can't even scroll right away on the Prime while the page is loading. I have to either wait for some elements to load or for the dreaded Wait/Ok to pop up. On my Touchpad or ipad 2..this issue is nonexistent.
I hope that this is the next priority on Asus list. User experience is an important thing...and a laggy browser and screen tearing should never have made it past quality control.
Now, I don't want to be all negative, so I will say that one of my test sites always runs best on the Prime stock browser, and that is:
http://www.pirateslovedaisies.com/
This site won't even finish loading on an ipad 2 (don't know about the 3) and runs slower on the Touchpad with CM9 (and not at all on Web OS) so at least we know the Prime is decent with complex HTML5 in some cases.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, I'll take a little credit for the Touchpad running well despite inferior hardware. =P
I've been meaning to get CM9 on my Transformer Prime to see how the browser performs there. One thing to note is that I disable the gpu upload path on the Touchpad due to an Adreno driver bug. I'm curious to see if that has any affect on the performance on Transformer Prime. If you'd like to try it for yourself then go to about:debug in the browser. Then go to settings->debug and check Enable CPU Upload Path. This is only a temporary switch and will go away when you close the browser but worth testing as a shot in the dark.
I do generally agree that the stock browser performs better on the Touchpad with its dual core running at 1.2ghz. Tegra 3's cortex-a9 should be about 10-20% faster than the Snapdragon CPU in the Touchpad clock for clock.
So how does browsing on the current version of CM9 preform, anyone who's installed please give your impressions.
Or any other custom roms any better?
dalingrin said:
Hey, I'll take a little credit for the Touchpad running well despite inferior hardware. =P
I've been meaning to get CM9 on my Transformer Prime to see how the browser performs there. One thing to note is that I disable the gpu upload path on the Touchpad due to an Adreno driver bug. I'm curious to see if that has any affect on the performance on Transformer Prime. If you'd like to try it for yourself then go to about:debug in the browser. Then go to settings->debug and check Enable CPU Upload Path. This is only a temporary switch and will go away when you close the browser but worth testing as a shot in the dark.
I do generally agree that the stock browser performs better on the Touchpad with its dual core running at 1.2ghz. Tegra 3's cortex-a9 should be about 10-20% faster than the Snapdragon CPU in the Touchpad clock for clock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome job on the Touchpad port. It's absolutely amazing as a tech enthusiast to be able to witness the amazing work done by people like yourself.
I went ahead and tried your solution and it's a vast improvement on the stock browser. I've only seen the wait/cancel pop up once and that was stress testing it with 6 tabs open on heavy sites. It has not done it again and it's been about 2 hours playing around with the TFP. What exactly does that setting do? Maybe it can be set to permanent on ICS browser+.
What adblocking app do you all prefer?
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

Firefox instead of Chrome, what was I thinking

I have only had the prime for about a month now. I have been using firefox the entire time. Installed it day one. I got fed up with how slowly it was rendering pages and finishing page loads on the prime. ESPECIALLY this site. Unreal. The loading circle just spun forever.
Tonight I put chrome on and realized what an idiot I had been choosing firefox in the first place. A google OS should run a google browser
Page loads complete quickly, and the browser is performing so much better than FF I just can't believe it. I was thinking of giving up on tablets for browsing due to the way FF was performing.
If you havent run chrome on here, and yes maybe I am the last to think of this, but please do try it.
Chrome on JB ROCKS!!
hx4700 Killer said:
I have only had the prime for about a month now. I have been using firefox the entire time. Installed it day one. I got fed up with how slowly it was rendering pages and finishing page loads on the prime. ESPECIALLY this site. Unreal. The loading circle just spun forever.
Tonight I put chrome on and realized what an idiot I had been choosing firefox in the first place. A google OS should run a google browser
Page loads complete quickly, and the browser is performing so much better than FF I just can't believe it. I was thinking of giving up on tablets for browsing due to the way FF was performing.
If you havent run chrome on here, and yes maybe I am the last to think of this, but please do try it.
Chrome on JB ROCKS!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sadly I think they both suck on prime. Default browser works best, is compatible with sideloaded flash on jb and if you scroll to the bottom of xda you can choose the xda 2010 option that works much better.
Chrome lags like crazy on my prime with JB. It performed better on ICS. Stock/Dolphin are by far the smoothest for me.
iOn my experience Dolphin Browser Beta Works really well and it is very smooth. I tried Firefox but feels slow...
hx4700 Killer said:
I have only had the prime for about a month now. I have been using firefox the entire time. Installed it day one. I got fed up with how slowly it was rendering pages and finishing page loads on the prime. ESPECIALLY this site. Unreal. The loading circle just spun forever.
Tonight I put chrome on and realized what an idiot I had been choosing firefox in the first place. A google OS should run a google browser
Page loads complete quickly, and the browser is performing so much better than FF I just can't believe it. I was thinking of giving up on tablets for browsing due to the way FF was performing.
If you havent run chrome on here, and yes maybe I am the last to think of this, but please do try it.
Chrome on JB ROCKS!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
keltsi95 said:
iOn my experience Dolphin Browser Beta Works really well and it is very smooth. I tried Firefox but feels slow...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Talking about Firefox there's AuroraX from the same makers just that this has faster rendering times but all in all I'd go ahead and say that no matter what rom you're on for the Prime, the stock browser would still be the optimal performer
Boat browser all the way
Boat Browser is by far the best. Give it a try
Scrolling on FF is just awful and it can be pretty laggy at times but I put up with it as the only browser I have on here mainly because of Ad-block Plus, syncing with my desktop, ability to restore tabs from last time and it handles flash pretty well. The pros outweigh the cons for me and since there is no perfect browser on Android this is what I'm going with.
The stock one just looks like rebranded chrome. Seriously, same options, same settings just a different skin.
whycali said:
sadly I think they both suck on prime. Default browser works best, is compatible with sideloaded flash on jb and if you scroll to the bottom of xda you can choose the xda 2010 option that works much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second that... Tried about every browser nothing comes close to the stock browser. Chrome is cool but it lacks features. Its just not finished in my eyes. As long as most streaming sites use flash (i watch alot of esports) i will need flash support.
I also don't like that there is no bar when a page loads. There just this little wheel that spins and then its finished.
Boat boat boat boat boat!
Yeah, go boat browser.
hx4700 Killer said:
The stock one just looks like rebranded chrome. Seriously, same options, same settings just a different skin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really talking about the look and features where yes i agree that it is very similar to chrome. Chrome however, has added the sweet feature of being slow and subtracted flash support.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium
But chrome can sync between any device that uses chrome. I don't recall boat or dolphin being able to do that? Or I might just be out of the loop.
I agree with wifesabitch, for the same reasons, the syncing between desktop, phone and tablet, saved passwords, book marks and familiarity. I will say that I've not tried Chrome, but I used Dolphin exclusively on all my other phones and tabs until FF came along. I did try using Chrome on laptop and importing settings, passwords and bookmarks, but it didn't gather everything and after trying 4 times I gave up. FF is not as smooth, safe, and stable as it used to be at all even on the desktop. However I've collected Nearly 500 book marks, have 6 pages of speed dials and all my passwords, until something comes along that will import all of that and be smooth, safe and stable, I'll stick with the devil I know.
Hey I found that Tint Browser is really Smooth and stable. It's like stock one but without the ANRs.
hx4700 Killer said:
The stock one just looks like rebranded chrome. Seriously, same options, same settings just a different skin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Except stock has that super-cool thumb control thingy which once you get used to it is a real pleasure to use and really fast to navigate. Oh, and Flash of course also.
try Aurora
wifesabitch said:
Scrolling on FF is just awful and it can be pretty laggy at times but I put up with it as the only browser I have on here mainly because of Ad-block Plus, syncing with my desktop, ability to restore tabs from last time and it handles flash pretty well. The pros outweigh the cons for me and since there is no perfect browser on Android this is what I'm going with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could always try Aurora for Android - despite its being pre-Beta, it runs really well. AND supports syncing )
I use Chrome, just for the sake of Synchronization of stuff and Chrome to Mobile.
But as somebody wrote, both FF & Chrome need some speeding up, sometimes it renders the page just too long for my taste even on fast connections.

DX2 has a new exciting life with CM10

I have been running CyanogenMod 10 Alpha 2 by dragonzkiller for a couple of days now and can say...my phone has never been better! As is expected there were some hiccups, but overall this thing rides smooth! What does everyone else think about it and what has been their experiences?
Here is what I've found so far
Not working:
Facebook
Dolphin Browser
SMS does not show text in field, and notifications do not show.
My workarounds:
Opera browser has so far worked flawlessly.
Friendcaster works fine in place of FB.
Combination of Handcent SMS and SMS popups as workaround to native SMS issue.
Weird things yet to be worked out or around:
File explorers (so far ES and File Expert) randomly will not delete or rename files.
And again, this ROM is great (thank you dragonzkiller!). Too bad providers didn't push for Jelly Bean on these models because I think it works the best so far. Older in the cycle, so I understand. I still have about of week of testing before I praise it any further, but so far I am mega happy. I can say this having tried various other ROMS throughout the year or so I've owned this phone, and of those I am coming from what I consider a rock stable ROM, Liberty3.
Introduction:
I have been using CM10 for a month and a half now. My review is based on the standard of an every day driver. I understand that Dragonzkiller is the only developer for this ROM and basically for DX2 (as far as I know) but I use my phone with the intention of USING it. With this in mind, I've been struggling with the idea of reverting back to the stock OS or some other rom because of some key issues I have with the current alpha release.
Pros:
Status Bar brightness control: Although you have to disable auto brightness, this is the biggest plus for me, mainly because auto brightness never seems to be good enough. Its always slighty too dim or too bright, even with custom brightness levels. The negative of this would be that if you have a passworded lock screen (swype lock screens don't affect this) the status bar is not click able so you can't increase brightness. This is a big issue if your screen is on the lowest brightness and you need to unlock your phone in the sun. This is mostly for taste. I find this feature highly convenient and puts control in my hands. Although automatic brightness works, it doesn't work well enough for me.
Toggle buttons in the notification pull down menu: This is insanely convenient. This coupled with the long pressing option to open the corresponding settings menu is also one of the biggest things keeping me with CM 10
Swypable notifications: You have no idea how convenient this is until you have it. To be able to pick and chose which notifications to dismiss with the swype of a finger.
Screen Shot and restart option in the power menu: I restart and screen shot enough that these options need to be in the power menu or somehow accessible
Everything else ICS and CM10 provides: I really dislike how Ginger Bread looks. It just doesn't have the nice clean feel. CM10 gets it right with the minimalistic look and design while adding features hidden where they should be hidden. Honestly, this is a HUGE plus. I really like the way CM10 looks and feels over almost every other ROM. I haven't found one that I've liked more than CM10.
Cons:
Most apps that use some form of a web view crash: A web view is a little window that renders webpages for you. Apps like Facebook use to use this and they crashed all the time. Exceptions include the stock web browser and most other web browsers. The reason for this crash is that there is a fatal Out Of Memory exception.
Google Now takes way longer to load: Yes, I already said that apps take a while to load but Google Now seems to take 5 seconds MINIMUM up to 10 seconds. I don't know why. I tried disabling the "Say Google to search" feature as well as the cards and that seems to have cut down on the load time but if Google Now is something you really want/need, this is a huge drawback.
Apps take a long time to load: Long is a subjective term so I'm defining it as between 1 second to just initialize to 3-5 seconds on a bad day. I am very sure this is because our phone has very little ram so the OS has to free some space for the new app and this is an intensive process that take that much time. At first, I pushed this off as some issue that doesn't really need attention but when you are trying to add a contact and it takes 5 seconds to load the Phone app, then another five seconds to load the People app, you're going to start being annoyed. Want to take a picture of your contact, add another 5 seconds to load the camera app.
The flashlight button in the notification pull down will crash: It will crash. You tap the button and it crashes. You long press and it crashes. Don't even bother. That's a big enough con for me to give it a mention and put it in the middle of my list. There have been a few times when I've needed a flashlight only to realize I need to actually open an app for it. I think the next best thing is to put the flashlight app in the swype to unlock menu.
Media Player stutters under load: Remember how I told you that app loading is an intensive process? Apparently, the thread priority for the media player process is lower than the app loading process. I say this based on the fact that as I play music from Pandora, if I press back, switch apps, or open a new app, the music from Pandora starts cutting and stuttering almost like a buffer, but not quite. I have not tried this with other music players but I have done it with another youtube player and I get the same problems. I haven't tried this with Google Music though so you may have some luck with that.
System Crashes: Rarely will my phone reboot on me for some strange reason. It has happened to me maybe 5 times in the last month and a half but it has happened. I don't really consider this a con just because it's so rare but it happens.
Google Maps Street View Crashes all the time: I believe this is related to the problem with Google Chrome. I remember reading that our kernel doesn't support certain drawing textures or drawing APIs so any app that tries to use those methods force close without warning.
Here are the apps I run and why:
Facebook Bookmark: I have a bookmark to facebook.com instead of using the facebook app mainly because the app USED to crash very frequently in the alpha one release (it used to use webviews instead of native code). I haven't noticed it crashing on me recently so I may switch back to using the stock Facebook App.
Go SMS: Simply because I like the look and feel of Go SMS better. It's really your choice on this one. I also like the popup notification when I receive messages that Go SMS provides over the one that the stock Messaging app provides.
K9-Mail: The stock E-Mail app crashed very frequently on me in the alpha one release. I could never figure this one out because it would crash even without the web views open. It may be fixed now but I've gotten used to K9-Mail
Stock Browser: Most other browsers clutter the screen (like Opera). I don't run firefox because I tried the beta release and it was very lacking. Google Chrome crashes all the time because of the kernel issue. I really enjoy using the stock browser with the "Quick Control" feature enabled under "Labs" in the stock Browser app. It cleans up the screen really well.
aCalendar: The widget is better. Plain and simple. I use day view for the widget. I use the widget on it's own home screen.
gTasks: Just something to use. I mostly use the widget on it's own home screen full sized
Conclusion:
Although I cannot recommend this ROM as an every day driver, I have to say that it does provide some serious features with some serious drawbacks. It is really up to you in my opinion because even I cannot decide whether it is a good or a bad ROM. The reason why I would flash a ROM is because I want to increase usability and to clean up my cluttered OS. However, minimalistic ROMs don't provide the features that CM10 provide. Those features definitely come in handy at times. Moreover, I like the CM10 lock screen way more but that's just taste. The reason why I haven't discarded CM10 already is because I can probably live with the longer load times for apps and the spontaneous crashes. The crashes are either rare enough to not bother me or predictable enough that I can avoid them.
My recommendation would be to try it out and see if you can live with it. If you can live with it, then you should definitely run it because it is by far the best app around. This is a good rom but not good enough for a solid recommendation. However, it is amazing it is still only on Alpha 2 considering how well it works for an alpha.
By the way, if you're coming form CM7/9, definitely jump to CM10. The decrease in force closes is worth the increase in app load time.
randomKID thanks for the awesome breakdown of the pros and cons you've found in this ROM. You still using it?
Sent from my Android device using Tapatalk
It's been 5 days and it's holding quite well except my batteries drain 3 to 4 times as faster. I don't use 3G so it's disabled throughout the day. I'm coming from Gingerbread 4.3.3.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using xda premium
OxyX said:
It's been 5 days and it's holding quite well except my batteries drain 3 to 4 times as faster. I don't use 3G so it's disabled throughout the day. I'm coming from Gingerbread 4.3.3.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gingerbread 4.3.3?
Well I do love CM10. I was getting some great battery life out of it. Wonder if everyone was/is that uses or used it? I had workarounds for just about every bug but one- the camcorder. I had to have a good working camcorder and the Videocam Illusion app was not reliable enough. Why so necessary? A 6 month old little girl that daddy loves to capture every day So I went to Eclipse but was not at all impressed with the battery usage (ROM was fine otherwise). I have now landed back on CM7 which I test drove some months ago. I will go back to CM10 provided there is an update that speaks to the camcorder issue. If not, I will hang out here for awhile most likely :silly:
You should try Eclipse 1.3 as I net 1.5-2 days of light use (phone calls / sms / fb) and it's blazing fast. I just put 2.3 on a few days ago and it's a very solid ROM but the speed isn't like 1.3 thou
PnoT said:
You should try Eclipse 1.3 as I net 1.5-2 days of light use (phone calls / sms / fb) and it's blazing fast. I just put 2.3 on a few days ago and it's a very solid ROM but the speed isn't like 1.3 thou
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I'll give that a try
I have serious battery issues running CM10. My battery NEVER lasts a full day on light/moderate use. When I was on CM7, I used to get a day and a half out of moderate use, so I'm a bit upset at that. I still prefer it to CM7 though, mostly because of the layout and the fact that my WiFi doesn't constantly lose connection. But the constantly-crashing apps and battery life have me ready to move on from the phone altogether. :/
Google Nexus 4, I'm on my way...

Categories

Resources