Posts tagged browser

After toying with the lite version for a day or so, I happily dropped a dollar for the full version of Atomic Web – an alternative browser for the iPad. Where the Opera Mini browser differs from Safari on the iPhone in speed (and, er, variety), Atomic Web differs from Safari on the iPad in features.  Yes, yes – the iPad isn’t a laptop, but its screen is a lot bigger than its smaller cousins and that in and of itself makes the lack of features in Safari even more evident.

Firstly, there’s full screen mode. Granted, it’s only a half an inch here and a quarter inch there, but that real estate adds up when you’re used to a 15″ or 17″ (or bigger) screen. Atomic Web is highly configurable, including themes, ad blocking and private mode, and 2-finger gestures and a 3-finger tap that can be assigned to over 15 different shortcuts. It also comes packed with the ability to save a web page and view source.

I’m a big fan of the Facebook and Twitter integration (and come to expect it, really), though it seems as though the biggest crowd-pleasing feature is tabbed browsing. For all of the thought Apple puts into UI, I think they dropped the ball by not even including tabs as an option.

I haven’t found the browser to be buggy, and the closest thing to a complaint I have is that you can’t make it your default browser – something I don’t think Atomic Web has any control over at all.

Atomic Web has replaced Safari as my iPad browser of choice – for now at least.