Android devices browsers are very fortunate to have really good browsers compared to other smartphones. They are the closest equalvalient to the browser used on a desktop computer with flash support and fast rendering. Over the years as Android evolved over the years, the system becomes even faster at rendering of web pages even on the same device.

In this article, I will list some of the best Android browsers that you can download on your Android device. There are 2 that supports flash and 2 that do not. All these browsers will definitely be more satisfactory when it comes to performance.


Android 2.2 Browser

This is the built in browser in every Android device. The icon of this browser looks like the firefox flock browser. It started off as a very basic no frills browser just for plain surfing. But now this browser is able to render Flash, handle Javascript and HTML 5 support that will allow the phone to access the phone’s camera in Web applications.

It can load flash objects and is even able to play flash games. Even though it is a basic browser, it supports multiple windows if you need to load multiple websites. Switching between different windows are not as convenient as tabs since it requires you to switch windows by accessing the menu.

Dolphin Browser HD

I love this browser for it’s speed, graphical user interface and ability to render flash. Despite being a free browser, it supports add-ons and has a browser compatibility mode. There is also a Google bookmarking sync feature for you to sync all your Google bookmarks with this Android device. It even has a feature called finger gestures. Swipe your finger from right to left across the screen with a tick upwards and the page will return to the previous page. You can also configure the hand gestures to your own preference.

Overall surfing experience is very smooth and fluid and has support for double tapping to zoom in or you can do the pinching inwards and outwards for a manual zooming. I particularly liked the way that this browser is able to rotate the screen with respect to how you are holding the device. I was able to load the video posted by my friend via facebook directly off the browser and rotate the screen to view the whole video in landscape mode and zooming in further until the video fills the whole screen. This experience is so real and unlike the iPhone that has to close the page to load a Youtube app.

Firefox 4 Mobile Beta 2

Firefox may be one of the top favourites for desktop computers, but it seemed to be a little way short of being a full fledged capable browser. Unable to render flash is a total let down by Mozilla since even the default built in browser is able to render flash, I don’t understand why such a big name in browser world is unable to do so.

This browser is actually the creation of the prototype “Fennac”, which has not been impressive either in its inital test launch period. But this Firefox 4 Mobile is a very much improved version with a smaller file size to begin with and a fast start up. It is also able to support add-ons, multi-tab browsing and bookmark synchronization.

The menu options are hidden away at the left and the right side of the screen, so you have the full browser window to yourself. Some may think that this concept is totally similar to the Dolphin Browser HD, but I give credit to Mozilla, this idea was already there when I tested the pre-release of the “Fennac” browser. Perhaps, great minds think alike. This Firefox 4 Mobile has a mode that will emulate itself to appear as other browsers like iPhone’s safari, desktop’s Firefox and Internet Explorer. This is to serve as a work around in case web sites refused to load since they do not support Firefox Mobile.

Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta

I have been using Opera Mobile browser for all my mobile devices be it Nokia or Windows Mobile for one thing, this Opera Mobile is one of the fastest mobile browser with the best user interface that you can find for a mobile smartphone. The only disappointment is that it does not support flash.

Basically, this is a very decent browser for road warriors. If you are the sort of user who needs a browser that does not require a lot of aiming when it comes to web surfing. Opera is for you. It has a speed dial start up page, similar to many desktop browsers like Chrome, Safari and Opera. You will get to see a page with 9 icons that you can choose to set it to your favorite sites. Like if you are a person who checks stocks and read news all the time, simply set one of those speed dials as those sites. Then every time you start opera, hit one of the 9 tiles and you go straight to your favorite page.

The menu icons are also pretty large and squarish for big thumbs. I also liked the auto zoom and aligning of text. If you want to zoom in and read some text, simply double tap somewhere where the text is and it will zoom in and fit every thing in a single screen. And all you need to do is flick your finger up and down or some phone models, you can use the volume up and down key to scroll up and down.

That’s some of the best Android browsers for now and I hope you guys enjoy this article.