#N9Apps: Best Third Party browser for Harmattan
I was scrolling through Twitter a few weeks ago, and saw a post about Nemo Mobile ( MeeGo 1.3 CE), and a browser it shares with the N9, HeliumReborn. I decided to try it out again, as it had apparently been updated a lot from my last experience. Using it, I thought about SnowShoe, that Qt 5 browser. So I went and installed that again, also largely improved. So there I had 5 browsers, Native, Opera, Firefox (v14), SnowShoe and Helium.
After posting about having “all” the Harmattan browsers on Twitter, I was directed to another, UC Browser. Also installed that. Then I remembered there was a Qt rewrite project of Fennec (Firefox). Although the rewrite is limited, it is still super slick, with no checker boarding. I say limited as it cannot click links, and needs terminal to launch it. You can see a video of it running below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HUmjHWpe-XI
So for me, its current state made it no longer a competitor. Hopefully in the future, it will be a contender.
Down to the deciding.
This is the same as the Symbian counterpart. It is in Chinese, with the possibility to get partial English support by way of a mod. It is fairly average, and is no longer supported for the platform. Thus, I don’t recommend it at all. Its current state is poor, and with no hope of it getting better, there is simply no reason to use it.
Verdict: Stay away
Opera has always been an awesome browser. I used it heaps on Symbian, and when it came out for the N9, I jumped at the chance to use it. It is super slick. Easy to use, and fairly feature packed. Earlier versions were a bit buggy, but the latest version has definitely come along way. With the option to use Opera as the default browser, data compression, no checker boarding and easy-switching to a desktop user agent, it is a serious option.
What I don’t like, is the lack of customisation in the keyboard department. I like the Harmattan keyboard and with various custom keyboards available, I find myself switching between them regularly. With Opera, you are stuck with the included one. I would like to see a Harmattan style UI, but it is understandable why it is the way it is ie. standard across all supported mobile platforms.
Verdict: Recommended Install
Snowshoe is awesome! It uses Qt5 and webkit2 technologies to bring a really slick and refined experience. Sadly the project hasn’t been updated in around 2 months, and it had great potential. Its fully open sourced so hopefully we will see it improved by the community. The UI of Snowshoe is cool. You have a tab view, and also a top sites page.This is one of my favorite browsers, just a shame that it isn’t fully stable yet.
Verdict: Give it a try
Now for the browser that kick-started the whole post. It is slick, it is fast, it is just all-round, well, awesome! It is understandable why this is the default browser in Nemo. Although being different, it still keeps the Harmattan-esque UI. I’ve been using Helium as my main browser for the last week on my N950. It has been hard to fully swap from the native browser on my N9 (especially since my native browser has the iOS6 User Agent and Qt 5), but it is a very solid, and finished browser. Pinch to Zoom is extremely fluid, and pages load quickly.
Not really anything bad I can find about it, except that I haven’t found an option to make it the default browser.
Verdict: Recommended Install
Finally we have Fennec or Firefox for Maemo. Its a decent browser, and with the ability to have Flash support, makes it hard to beat. however, the UI is average, found to be a resource hog and besides support as default browser and for flash, it doesn’t really offer anything over the other browsers. The ability to use SOME firefox addons is nice, but there is definitely a limited number compatible.
Verdict: Give it a try
So, from that, it seems fairly clear that I would choose the best browser to be either Opera or Helium. I am leaning more towards Helium. Mainly due to the UI, and the fact I can use the native keyboards. Its a great browser that I would recommend to all Harmattan users to at least try.
Have you used some of these browsers? Have your say in the comments section below!
Michael
Category: Applications, Maemo, MeeGo, N9Apps, Nokia
About the Author (Author Profile)
Hi! My name is Michael. Like the others, I'm also a Student, living here in Sydney. I have a real passion for the latest technology and I'm a real Nokia buff! My aim is to keep those of you, like myself, updated with the latest in what's going on in the Nokia World. Currently sporting N9 & Lumia 820, with other Nokia devices in my posession. Get in touch on Twitter via @MFaroTusino, Google Plus or even simply drop me an email at mike.mnb[at]outlook.com or tips[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- Comparativa navegadores para Nokia N9 | El Blog de Negu | October 9, 2012
- Mejor navegador Meego para Nokia N9 | MundoMeego | January 13, 2013
Thanks for this article. So far I’ve found myself constantly switching between teh default browser and firefox, will give hellium a look next I think, sounds good.
Didn’t know about Helium browser, writing this comment using Helium, pretty crappy browser if I’m honest.
So you say that, and then you don’t articulate WHY…
You can’t say something is crap without explaining why it’s worse than other options.
Well you can, but only if your happy for your opinion to hold little credibility.
Helium’s main drawbacks IMO is the integration of the vkb…Sometimes you type things and they don’t appear leading you to type them again but they actually have been received in the system…
IMO, Stock w/iOS6 UA is the best by far on the N9…I like a no-frills browser that gets me to my destination fast and simple…Now only if we could get maps.google.com to work with iOS6 UA and we are pretty set
thedead, have you thought about doing the odd article here @MNB?
It’d take some of load off Michael, you post regularly enough at TMO anyway!
Haha! This blog is too big for me
Anyway Michael is doing an excellent job…
Thanks for the link regarding the maps thing… Its all due to our WebKit browser being old… In fact iOS5 is the last browser to share similar traits with us hence why i was reluctant to package the iOS6 UA but Arie co-erced me into doing it… With iOS6 safari is upgraded to v8XXX while at iOS5 it was still v7XXX hence the issue…
Snowshoe is more or less our best hope going forward…However the development speed of it doesn’t encourage me too much honestly…
Cool, thought you would make a good tag team
His Maemo/MeeGo stuff is mostly downed out nowadays sadly, but to be expected I guess.
If you read that Whirlpool link, it’s more than the actual browser core being outdated, even if Snowshoe/Helium (or Oleg’s/Romaxa’s take) moved ahead rapidly & was finished tomorrow, we may still hit problems with major content providers like Google simply not supporting it (spoofed UA or not).
“simply not supporting it (spoofed UA or not).”
Not “fully” supporting it I mean…
“with major content providers like Google”
By that I mean those who have the most extensive cloud infra, Apple, Google, MS etc.
Which is why the Sailfish alliance sounds like part of their approach is to expand in that area quite a bit more, not just on their own, but by partnering with entities like Dropbox etc (probably a lot of partnering in Chinese/Indian regions too).
Well the convo looks to be quite dated (~May ’12)…
At that time Snowshoe was just a Qt5 browser but look through the nightlies now and you’ll see the are working on upgrading WebKit to use in conjuction with Snowshoe…
This gives hope in the sense we’ll most probably get an upgraded WebKit browser which would be able to spoof the UA to our liking….
Jolla OS for the first version should be able to run on the N9 either as a beta image or a full fledged one…
Them signing to create Sailfish based in the Far East is a good ruthless business decision as they are able to tap on the anti-American sentiment among OEMs and telcos there…
Sailfish might work out or just end up as an OS for white box manufacturers…
Yeah but as explained by the dev, spoofing UA’s alone won’t be enough, major providers like Google still have control over what browsers can use/access.
Hopefully that can be overcome (maybe it already has) or Google can be convinced to loosen how they assess these things, the former’s more likely, if at all.
“Now only if we could get maps.google.com to work with iOS6 UA and we are pretty set”
There’s this post here which explains why that may never be surmountable:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1941044&p=32#r632
Thanks for the tip. I’ve been using Opera for quite a while and though I don’t have anything too bad to say about it, I would still like to replace it with a slicker browser. I gave Helium browser a quick test and it seems to have a fluid scrolling, but it’s prone to crash quite often. Especially when you use it in a horizontal mode. Another thing is that I can’t click links that would open a new window/tab (www.ampparit.com, a Finnish news site). I have a 64GB N9.
Thanks for this post Michael, great to see you are keeping the N9 flame burning at MNB!
I haven’t tried Helium yet, but I will. I agree with you on SnowShoe, great potential, but if I needed to hop on the web, I’d just as easily use stock with JellyBean UA or Opera, mainly out of habit than anything else.
Cheers, Cobber!
“Thanks for this post Michael, great to see you are keeping the N9 flame burning at MNB!”
Indeed! Good old Michael to always keep us to date on our beloved N9.
I’m trying Helium.. will let you know my opinion later.
Anyone here tried Nitroid alpha #4 (ICS) ?
I did
damn good work
“It has been hard to fully swap from the native browser on my N9 (especially since my native browser has the iOS6 User Agent and Qt 5)”
What is this, a dev mod?
The stock browser was never targeted for Qt5, and there’s no source to make it a “Qt5-based” browser, so I dont even know what that sentence of his means exactly.
It is however possible to change the UA that grob (stock browser) uses to iOS6 or JB…
thx for the update
I love using Opera. I will stick with it.
If there only was a single alternate browser for WP (no, that pointless IE skins are no alternates)
Opera Mobile would be nice, most of because of adblocking. Too bad that it runs on unlocked roms only
For quick browse I use the native browser and I still have it as a default system browser. It is overly simple and lacks a lot of things, but it still performs rather well and is usually the fastest route when you need to look up something on the web quickly.
For more serious browsing Helium, I find it more fluid than the native one, and it has some nifty features that I really miss in the aforementioned.
For desktop-like experience, or as a fail-safe backup, or for Flash-required sites, I use Fennec with a few of my tweaks. It works rather well these days compared to the state it was in a year ago, and I always liked Gecko more than WebKit. Oh, and while it does use the Harmattan keyboard, context menus go behind it constantly which is in need of dire fixing! I have high hopes in the attempts to strip off unnecessary XUL and to QML-ize it. We all know what MicroB could do in a similar setup, it just needs to be streamlined and it would probably win the mobile browser wars fair and square.
P.S. Just to clear something, when I say `more serious browsing` I mean complex pages which often bring the native browser to a halt, Helium chews through them quite easily.
It is by no means a complete browser, too much features missing like on the native browser, but the speed has its cost…
thanks for the tip!
just installed helium browser on N9, opened MNB but helium chrashed at that time.
uninstalled again
my browser ranking on N9: 1. stock browser (mostly used) 2. opera mobile (fast & easy to use) 3. firefox (good, but to slow on my N9).
snowshoe looked promising, but developement seems to be stopped, like on most other apps for N9.
It hasn’t stopped, they said in the thread ages ago that focus had shifted back to related core components, apparently they intend to start focusing on it again in Oct/Nov, so hopefully by Dec/Jan we’ll start to get the 1st beta builds.
That’s assuming the team behind it (based in Brazil) hasn’t been killed before then, there still seems to be activity on the core components though.
Hi, i got a different question. what do you people suggest, should i buy a nokia n9 now or wait and pay double for lumia 920. i’m really confused. with one i can play around, latter is more up-to-date and fancy too.
If you’re not really a DIY type person*, then you’re best-off getting an iP5, top-end Android, or a top-end WP8x, in that order.
If you can wait a bit longer (6mth [maximum, probably less] after the 920), the BBX might also be compelling compared to the top-end WP8x phones available.
*i.e. things OFTEN breaking, but getting great enhancements in the process + learning lots.
Actually maybe this order:
top-end Android*, top-end WP8x, or iP5.
*There’s another wave about to come out (roughly around the time the 920′s out) that are better than the current top-end’s.
I’m all about Opera Mini
You people deserve medal for preservering. But why don’t you give 920 a try when they come out. I mean … come on.. N9 is a history. It’s an abandonware for Christ sake. Nokia doesn’t want you people poking around the N9.
Since when did what Nokia want become associated with an individual’s will?
Its useless arguing about what could be but telling someone that Nokia wants you to move on so you must is plain dumb honestly!
Head over to TMO and see the activity there before you comment on how “dead” the n9 is.
You’ll be shocked to see some of the development is more than what others do for the Lumia…
Use whatever you like but don’t attempt to force someone else to do the same…The title of the article had a N9 hashtag so why do you even bother reading it then? To see how we have more browser choices than the Lumia? :p
link please?
link for? TMO? Talk.maemo.org
Hackability/flexibility is on a scale/lvl that’s still not seen (too this day) for WP’s.*
That may be different a yr from now, if WP continues to slowly gain marketshare.
But for a long time & even still, there’s waaay more fun to be had with Maemo5x & Maemo 6x (meego-harmattan).
To get an idea of what I’m talking about….
Hang out in all the main sub-forums at TMO for at least 2mth, also do the same for some of the major WP forums.
*I have a L900
One of the main reasons why I’ve purchased the N9 (and the N900 before it, and even the N95 to some extent) is precisely because it allows me to do what Nokia (or anyone else) might don’t want me to do, or couldn’t predict a use-case that suits me to support it right from the get-go. One of the main reasons why I won’t purchase a Lumia (or any other WP device; granted I have an Omnia 7 but it was donated to my company by Microsoft) is because I cannot do the things I need on WP. Besides the fugly UI, of course. If faced with the choice of featurephone and bling-featurephone that is WP, I’d go for the first one – both cannot do what I need them to do, but at least the first option is far, far cheaper. Seriously, I don’t see a single thing that I might need which the, say, Asha line doesn’t provide me with but the Lumia does. At least the first one wouldn’t turn me into a perpetual milking cow for the carriers and Micronokia.
The two N900s have cost me a bit over 1000€ (620€ for the first one, 400€ for the second) and the two N9s I’ve purchased ended up with a 1100€ price tag (470€ for the black 16GB, 630€ for the unicorn one) – when I fork out that kind of money I expect to actually own the devices I’ve purchased, not to lease them from the manufacturer and ask them what am I, pretty please, allowed to do with those devices. I pity those who have fallen into the trap of `we know what’s best for you` sweet talk by the manufacturers who turned them into a classic milking cows for their own benefit. And while I can accept that the majority might not care about their freedoms as long as somebody provides them some petty comfort and security, for the love of one’s favorite deity I cannot understand how can anyone (apart from those who benefit from that scam or some paid shills) actively promote such clearly anti-consumer schemes that turn them into ATMs for the manufacturer. What’s in it for you when you try to promote a locked-in system? You won’t benefit from it a single bit, but you’ll be potentially putting fetters on the legs of your brethren.
These days, I swear, I expect from all those `the N9 is history, get with the program…` people to start spewing the famous slogans: War is peace; Freedom is slavery; Ignorance is strength…
Who cares what Nokia wants? Have Nokia asked me what I want? Nope, otherwise they wouldn’t be running on the fast track to oblivion with the lunacy strategy they’ve embraced, but that’s a whole other topic.
–
tl;dr: I care about Nokia’s wishes as much as they care about mine. That is – I don’t care at all.
I think the guest comment was out of line on this thread, definitely. However, how you managed to turn it into a wall of anti-Lumia text about some Orwellian future is beyond me.
This is a Nokia fan site, so proclaimed to be by the owner of the site. Why are people fans of sporting teams or whatnot? It does them no good. They do it because it makes them feel good.
Nokia’s wishes are irrelevant, that is true. However, this is still a Nokia fan forum. The desire to move on with Nokia is perfectly normal and understandable in that sense.
It is our team. Clearly it no longer is yours. Having said that, there was no need for guest to make that comment on an N9 thread. N9 news are perfectly on-topic here of course.
p.s. The N9 had and has nothing on the N900, which is still the best piece of mobile hardware I’ve ever owned.
The N9 has just as much on the N900 nowadays, all your posts in the past have shown you have comparatively little knowledge about either, so you’re no authority, other than owning both devices, which means very little.
Michael,
You have missed adding Opera Tab UI in the Opera sub-section… Its available in N9QTweak and also as a separate mod by kuzmichov (spelling?)
The Tab UI makes Opera a better browser but still stock for me beats everything else…
All of them are suck except opera and fennex.
I tried helium for a second, but I have to say that native browser is still much better in terms of usability. It launches faster and is faster to use. Helium seems to have faster site loading speeds, but thats secondary feature for me. It’s UI reminds me too much of iPhone. Those 2 bars take so much screen space so I have to pinch zoom much more than with the native.
I would be fine with native browser with a flash support and faster loading speeds. Any options?
They’re there at TMO, at least 3 of them all up (inc. helium), little searching helps, they’re all not ready for prime-time, at least one of them will be within another 6mth or so, given progress thus far.
I just wish we could have Opera Mini in N9. It’s so light and fast browser. I’ve used it on my E71 for years and liked it a lot! It would be perfect option with N9 native browser. I wonder if theres any way to get it to work on N9?