Dolphin: Android’s Social Browser

One of the greatest advantages of Android over Apple's iPhone is the ability to replace the default applications with custom apps. Sometimes these apps will run better than the built-in versions, sometimes they'll add features. Dolphin Browser manages to do both.

When I first starting using my Sprint Hero, I noticed that HTC's default browser was adequate, but had a few annoying quirks. I started looking around at other browsers and I stumbled across Steel (which is a review for another day) and Dolphin.

Speed

The first thing I noticed is that it's fast. It loads mobile as well as full web sites very quickly and you can start scrolling across the page eve while it continues to load it. This is a real time saver.

Long Press Menu

Context Menus and Zooming

Users familiar with Steel will find that Dolphin uses long press to open context menus and zoom buttons. The menus for a web page include options for sharing, bookmarking, finding text on the page, selecting text (for copying to the clipboard), refreshing and closing the current tab. Yes there are tabs in the browser and they're very well implemented.

Tabs

If you were to tell me that I would be using tabs on such a tiny screen, I would have thought you were crazy. However, Dolphin makes the address bar and tabs relatively painless and very useful. Using Chrome and Firefox on the desktop, it was very easy to get used to this functionality. To bring up the tabs and address bar, double click anywhere on the screen. On the current tab, you'll see an option to close and all the way to the right of the tab bar, you'll see an button to add a new tab. If you add many tabs, the tabs become scrollable. I'm not sure how many you can have at one time, but I would think it would start to run a little slowly after a while. Not a big deal, though, as three or four tabs seems to be an adequate number on such a tiny screen. Double clicking again hides the tab bar. One other important thing to note is that the search button brings up a box that works similar to Chrome's address bar. If you type a search term, it will search Google, but if you type a URL, it navigates there - one box to rule them all.

Sharing

Social

The social aspect of the browser is one you could probably live without, but I don't think it hurts the overall functionality of the app. The "Share" option available from the long press menu allows you to send the current URL to a number of social sites including Delicious, Facebook and Twitter, but also pulls in options to share via apps that you may have installed on your Android phone. For example, I can share via Bloo, the Facebook app, Twidroid, SMS, Gmail, etc.

RSS Discovery

One thing that you'll notice is that Dolphin will discover RSS feeds on a page and add them to your notification bar. I believe the default action was to add to your Google reader list. I opted to turn this notification off in the settings as I prefer to manage my feeds via Google Reader on the desktop - purely a preference, and it's a nice option for those constantly on the go or who primarily use Reader on their device.

Gestures

Gestures

Having no keyboard on the Hero and myTouch generally prohibits us from using keyboard shortcuts. Luckily for us, the Dolphin developers thought of a way to provide shortcuts even without the extra hardware. The first time I came across gestures in a browser was about four or five years ago when Opera was my primary browser (before Firefox stormed onto the scene - poor Opera).  The allow the user to navigate through pages quickly using only the mouse. Similarly in Dolphin, gestures allow you to do most actions without pressing the menu button or fidgeting with context menus. There is a small translucent half-circle to the middle left of the screen that, when clicked, opens up a sort of drawing pad. Depending on what shape you draw on this pad, you'll be able to go back, forward, open a new tab, bookmark the page, etc. There are a ton of options here and the only thing holding you back is learning what they are.

Conclusion

While this post may seem rather long-winded, there are many more features that I didn't touch upon including the ability to sync with Google bookmarks, an enhanced bookmark page with popular links from others around the web, shortcuts to Google services, the ability to customize menus and more. If you come across a favorite feature that I missed, please leave it in the comments.

Availability and Pricing

Dolphin Browser is available via the Android Marketplace for Free.