Google Chrome
Features
- Unlimited browser "tabs"
- Syncs with your Google account to provide you with Chrome data from other browsers, including passwords, bookmarks, and more
- Saves sessions so you can access sites on your mobile on the desktop, and vice-versa
- Instant search
- Easily navigate with helpful gestures
- Private browsing mode
Where It Excels
Google
Chrome for iPhone inherits the goodness of its desktop counterpart.
Chrome's syncing abilities truly make it wonderful, allowing you to take
pretty much any data associated with Chrome and your Google account and
have it on every single device the browser supports. That means you
always have your bookmarks, passwords, history, search shortcuts, and so
on. Google really does sync well, and that's where Chrome shines
beyond Apple's Safari. That said, its other features pretty much stack
up evenly. You might prefer its user interface or that of any other
browser. Its feature set doesn't set it above a variety of other
third-party options. When you want to know why Chrome is the best, just
look at its syncing abilities. That's where it wins.
Where It Falls Short
Chrome
doesn't have a lot of features. It doesn't beat out mobile Safari in a
variety of areas for this reason. As mentioned in the previous section,
we like Chrome because it syncs so well. No other browser—including
Safari—does such a great job. If you use Chrome on the desktop, you'll
probably want it on your mobile. If you don't, however, you lose its
main advantage. When it comes to a mobile browser, you generally want
to match yours with your choice on the desktop to keep data in sync. We
think Chrome does the best job on the desktop so naturally we feel you
ought to make it your browser of choice on your iPhone as well.
The Competition
Atomic,
our previous top pick, has just about every feature you could possibly
want in a mobile web browser (or a desktop web browser for that matter).
You can clear history, cookies, and all sorts of other crap you don't
want lying around on your mobile. In fact, Atomic will do it for you on
quit so you don't even have to remember. You get proper tabbed browsing,
which can be extended into kiosk mode (full screen) to make more room
for the web page. Atomic even has advanced features like a download
manager that can decompress zip archives, an ad blocker, and the ability
to save web pages locally. It's easy to use, endlessly customizable,
stable, and only costs $1 for the full version. It's really a fantastic
browser with a great balance of all the things you'd really need, but
might feel cumbersome to those who don't want a desktop-like experience.
Perfect Web Browser
is a common alternative to Atomic, offering many of the same features
and a fairly similar interface. It attempts to provide a desktop
experience on your iPhone, but it definitely achieves that better on the iPad
thanks to the extra screen real estate. It costs the same as Atomic
(unless you want the iPad version, too, in which case Perfect will cost
you an extra $4) and there's very little different, but we've used both
for some time and just prefer Atomic. You may disagree, and at $1 each
there's little risk in trying them both out.
360 Browser
has an interesting user interface with lots of navigation shortcuts and
adds support for Flash. Yes, Flash—that thing Apple basically banned
from your iDevice. It also has support for Firefox sync so you can
easily grab all your bookmarks, tabs, and passwords. Like the others,
it'll only cost you $1.
Previously mentioned Meteoric Download Manager
is technically not advertised as a web browser, but it works as one
just the same. You won't get a desktop-like browsing experience, but if
your focus is downloading and managing files it is an excellent option.
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