Dolphin fans freak, blast browser's bumbling bundles of bloatware The Dolphin mobile browser is feeling the wrath of netizens angry over the new extensions being bundled with the app. A Reg reader points out that the mobile browser has been hit with a string of one-star reviews and criticism from people who say they've had unwanted apps being installed alongside the browser, including a …
It turned suspicious quite a while back a along with a dramatic drop in quality (performance, bugs, bloat & constant feature churn). Would have replaced it earlier but none of the alternatives appealed to me. When Firefox finally started being useable a couple of years back Dolphin got sidelined then dumped.
Dolphin is just a rebadged-Webkit.
Lollipop is the first OS release where the Webkit can receive upgrades from the Play store. In earlier versions, /system/lib/libwebcore.so *CANNOT* be modified, nor can the TLS implementation.
Most browser just put new UI controls around the existing webkit. You can imagine that the older versions have some severe security problems, as Apple patched 100 security bugs in 2015 alone.
Take Dolphin on Jellybean and point it at http://ssllabs.com - you will see the STRONGEST recommendation to upgrade your browser, but you cannot.
The safest browsers on Android include their own rendering engine, and that engine is not Webkit.
they didn't have time to rename it.
Its being pulled away in the tuna nets of advertising funding and will probably be eaten by the Japanese. And dolphin is a nice cute name to appeal, but the kittens brower may not have had mass market appeal...
Kitten browser.
Wouldn't that be just, well, fluffy?
As to mass market appeal...
Kitten browser = optimised for funny cat videos
Pussy browser = optimised for the other 90% of the internet
For dealing with the government, and other predatory websites, I'd recommend
Greebo browser = For when you have to match like for like.
Was curious -as a Dolphin User, I'd had no recollection of the forced Add-Ons. Just looked now and the following is on the Play Store page for Dolphin
What's New
Note: So Sorry for force addon installed. This issue has been resolved. Please uninstall and reinstall Dolphin from Play Store to fix it. Please Give Me one More Chance."
Interesting to see a developer respond so quickly to negative feedback - but perhaps it is time to have a look around at other browsers. Hopefully there's a better selection than the last time I looked - about 2 years ago.
Take Firefox for a nice long drive. On Android, I use as my daily driver. Also, Brace is a pretty good product that merged with Link Bubble. And there are several adblocking browsers too, bedsides the ones I like best. Firefox though, has the most useful features, and add-ons enough to make it feel like a desk top.
"This app has access to:
Device & app history
read your Web bookmarks and history
Identity
add or remove accounts
find accounts on the device
Contacts
find accounts on the device
Location
precise location (GPS and network-based)
Photos/Media/Files
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
Storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
Camera
take pictures and videos
Microphone
record audio
Wi-Fi connection information
view Wi-Fi connections
Other
download files without notification
read sync statistics
install shortcuts
control vibration
use accounts on the device
draw over other apps
control Near Field Communication
read sync settings
connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
create accounts and set passwords
toggle sync on and off
prevent device from sleeping
view network connections
modify system settings
full network access
uninstall shortcuts"
...Hey, here's an idea - how about network and storage access and nothing more?
Some of those make sense.
About a 1/3 of those could be easily covered by a typical Facebook user. Take photos, geo-location, access storage, bookmarks and many more.
Prevent from sleeping? Watching a video?
But I agree, many are dodgy.
"Crashy" is an understatement - try insecure. Test the browser at SSLlabs / Fortify and Panopticlick. Then use Firefox with appropriate addons - Adblock Plus, Blender, Canvas Fingerprint Blocker, Ghostery, H264ify, HTTPS Everywhere, No Resource URI Leak & No Script. Miraculously the internet speeds up a lot!
Atlas is a great Android browser, but it's in abandonware land now. No updates for nearly 2 years, alas. I still use it, because the single-click to disable JavaScript is the best (paid version lets you save sites that should default to JS-disabled). It's also got a decent ad-blocker built in. And it's very light.
I wish the writer would revitalise it, because it does have some slight bugs that need fixing - it crashes on me maybe once a month. And there are probably some security holes (not that I use it to logon to anything other than comment forums).
I tried FF again recently, but meh. As is Chrome.
It's often a case of horses for courses I find with browsers.
Access to camera/location/mic/accounts etc features across many of the mobile browsers.
- Boat Browser 24mb - used to be very good for flash but has many of the permissions listed above
- Fennec FF 43mb from F-droid has fewer and F-Droid advise against FF for droid. Again though - camera/mic (this was for uploading pics, wasn't that the idea behind the camera permission? and install shortcuts.. Issue with that is what exactly?
- Lightening 6.2mb (again on F-droid) - 5 permissions (location, read bookmarks, modify SD, network access & shortcuts). These are toggleable and it does have a 'Remove headers' option , built in Ad blocker, inbuilt support for Orbot Proxy support and I2P
- mBrowser (super lightweight 1.8mb) Only has SD card and Network access
- Puffin - 43mb Won't play iplayer flash, cos it runs it through their non UK proxy - 7 permissons. Including 'Google play licence check' so that's a phone home you may not like. 'Record Audio'.....!
- Tint browser 1.73mb - 3 permissions
Orfox itself for the Para - 37mb - 6 permissions but part of Orbot (Tor)
And my Desktop and now droid fav. Still very partial to Lightening (tiny and does stuff) but I don't understand the Navigation as well. Good combination of things it will do (flash) and features is..........Palemoon for Android. It's only recent really this one - 30mb. Again 10 permissions including camera but I just 'trust' it and the Dev.
As I say though, some will do one thing and not another so you end up with several. I'm tempted to give Opera another whirl, just 'cos... the little guy. More impressed with their Dev desktop offering of late.
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