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Ask Slashdot: Gaining Control of My Mobile Browser?
An anonymous reader writes: I run Firefox with NoScript and FlashBlock at home. Browsing is easy, and I only have to enable scripts on a few sites. If they have 20+ scripts, I just surf somewhere else. Fast forward to the mobile experience. I had an Android device, but now I have an iPhone. In addition to the popup problem, and the fake "X" on ads, the iPhone browsers (Safari, Chrome, Opera) will start to show a site, then they will lock up for 10-30 seconds before finally becoming responsive. If I switch back to another app and then return to the browser, Safari and Chrome have a little delay, but Opera delays 20+ seconds before becoming responsive again.
Firefox is not available on the iPhone, so I can't simply run NoScript. Chrome does not appear to have a NoScript equivalent for mobile. What solutions are you using to make mobile browsing work?
Firefox is not available on the iPhone, so I can't simply run NoScript. Chrome does not appear to have a NoScript equivalent for mobile. What solutions are you using to make mobile browsing work?
"Firefox is not available on the iPhone"
There's an app called virtualBrowser, which runs firefox, but you'll better have LTE.
You can try it out for free, but if you want to save installed extensions like noscript and adblock, you'll have to pay a monthly fee, 2 bucks if I remember.
There are also standalone adblocker apps. (weblock etc) I pasted my custom filters copied from adblock into mine and it works OK.
Instead of dealing with malware in the Play store, you get to deal with no freedom in the App store. You knew the sword cut both ways when you switched, and now you're complaining?
Buy an Android phone (or Jolla), run Firefox, be happy.
If you buy closed junk, you get closed junk, deal with it.
Read subject. You can not get an alternative browser on iPhones, it is not allowed, all the "alternative" browsers on iPhones are just reskinned Safari because Apple does not allow alternative browsers. So if you are wondering how to get control over you phone again: Ditch iPhone!
Run DD-WRT on router, put hosts.txt on USB drive, add this script to "firewall" commands:
This blocks almost all ads in mobile Safari, but only works at home of course. The hosts.txt can be updated by sharing the USB or ssh to router, then reboot. This script is a bit different from the one on dd-wrt site that downloads hosts.txt on boot, but that script doesn't actually work.
In an attempt to actually answer the question, try the Mercury browser. Basically Safari + AdBlock. The others are usually crapware/adware. https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...
Root the phone, remove Google apps, use alternative apps. Not terribly hard, and pretty much what I've done to my LG Google Nexus 5, but I choose to use a few Google apps. Why you trust Apple to track you appropriately but not Google would be a better question though.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
I had an iPad 2, enjoyed lots about it, but the whole browser issue killed my enjoyment of the device. "Legitimate" sites like NBC and the New York Times had pop-up tabs and I couldn't control the browser to the degree necessary to stop them.
Although I had rooted the iPad, I could not find a decent way to deal with ad blocking on iOS. I sold the device and have gone to Android stuff for my mobile solutions.
Here's my recipe for, if not happiness, at least much less pop-up and advertisement induced rage:
--rooted Android device
--installed AdAway (from f-droid)
--use Naked Browser, with javascript off, and then I whitelist only the sites that need it
No pop-ups, no worries, no ads.
The concepts of an iPhone and user freedom/control are mutually exclusive.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
He's not asking for a non-WebKit browser. He's asking for a browser that blocks ads and pop-ups, of which there are many for iOS. And yes, they all use WebKit. That has nothing to do with the question asked.
Both browsers are cheap and will block most ads. I've used Atomic for the past several years as my primary browser on my iPhone 4 and 5s, iPad 3, and iPad Mini retina, and it has worked very well on all. The browser is very configurable and makes much better use of small real estate than Safari. It's very rare that Atomic has let me down or that I have to fall back to using Safari or Chrome (maybe twice a year?).
I've used Mercury less than Atomic, but only because Atomic has worked well. The little I have used Mercury, I've had no complaints.
Alas there's precious little company support or user community for Atomic. If Mercury turns out to be better for this, I might be willing to switch.
The amount of misinformation in this topic is staggering.
There's enough cool stuff in the App Store that take a lot of the hurt away. I'm using iCab Mobile, an alternative to Safari that has many options, ad blocking one amongst them.
As for the comments that all browsers are just reskinned versions of an older Safari version, as far as I know the new WKWebView component makes it possible for alternative browsers to have equal speed compared to Safari.
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