There are two ways to change your default browser in iOS, the first one uses jailbreak… of course.  There are a few tools already that do this, but I just tried one that popped up on the great iphone jailbreak feed and used that.  Go to Cydia  and then tap Manage > Sources > Edit > Add, and type rpetri.ch/repo.  Once installed you can go to settings and select the browser you want.

Now if you do not have jailbreak, never fear, there is a way you can kinda do it.  Its kinda of a pain, but if you are really into Chrome, it may be worth it to you. A jailbreaker named Jon Abrams has published some JavaScript code that will allow any webpage to be opened in Chrome.  You are not exactly opening first hand in Chrome, but if you have a few pages you like to save on your desktop, then this will work.

Following is the step-by-step guide through which you can make this happen :-

Step 1: Copy this Javascript code to clipboard : javascript:location.href=”googlechrome”+location.href.substring(4);

Step 2: Open up Mobile Safari on your iOS device, navigate to any webpage, save it as a bookmark and give it the name ‘Open Chrome‘.

Step 3: Now select that saved bookmark and tap ‘Edit‘ option. Edit the saved bookmark by deleting the URL string from within it and paste in the copied JavaScript code string from step 1 and then save it.

Now whenever you want to open a link on Chrome, first Safari would open that link and upon it opening, select the option  bookmark and tap “Open Chrome” which would pass the current webpage to Chrome.

Now before you panic and uninstall FireFox, try uninstalling a few plugins.

This is directly from the help people at mozilla help..

To downgrade to Firefox 3.6 first uninstall Firefox 4, but do not select the option to “Remove my Firefox personal data”. If you select that option it will delete your bookmarks, passwords and other user data.

You can then install the latest version of Firefox 3.6 available from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html – it will automatically use your current bookmarks, passwords etc.

To avoid possible problems with downgrading, I recommend going to your profile folder and deleting the following files if they exist – extensions.cache, extensions.rdf, extensions.ini, extensions.sqlite and localstore.rdf. Deleting these files will force Firefox to rebuild the list of installed extensions, checking their compatibility, and reset toolbar customizations.

For details of how to find your profile folder see https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles

Google search seemed to work ok, and newsSnacker.com worked ok.  Again, they were both slow for VERY light sites.  I then gave CNN a try and it came up pretty quick. But navigation was slow.

So there you have it. After 10 min, I gave up on it.  Shame.  Ah well, from what I’ve heard, if you have the right phone for it, its pretty good.

Cl

I’ve already talked about Opera on the iphone, so there is not much more to add but to say I will be checking the app store allllll day for this.

And tell the truth. I’m still suprised.  How did they get this through?  The Opera browser is CLEARLY reproducing functionality with the safari browser that comes with the OS.  Ah well.  I think we are all used to the strange ways Apple moves.  Now I’m not sure I should read into this, but they clearly did not list the iPad in the press release.

“We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod touch users… ”  http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2010/04/13/

I’m guessing the app needs to be modified to run on the iPad?  But they know it was coming.. Why not have it ready in one go?  Hmmm…

Here is video in case you missed it last time.

Surfing on the iphone has been a major drag since day one.  No page memory, having to reload every time I leave the browser or if I have too many windows open, or just plain short on memory.  From the demo I saw, almost every issue I have with iphone web browsing (with exception to not having flash) seems to have been answered.

Now given the coolness of using this on the iphone, image it on the iPad!  With the grid like mini explorer of saved pages, the popup controls at the bottom, the memory management so that you do have to reload??  This will be the experience we are expecting on the iPad that I already know the current iphone  OS just cannot provide.  Check out the two videos below.  Magic!!

NewsSnacker.com

Web browsing on the iphone is a good enough experience with one exception.. ok, 2 exceptions.  The iphone’s browser crashing on me is a bit annoying, but that is another post.  So back to 1 thing.  When I open new pages, normally from clicking on a link, and then try to go back to the original page, more often then not, the original page is forced to reload. For example, I use newsSnacker.com to read the latest news from twitter.  Fast and timely.  If there is something interesting I want to read, I click on the link and it opens a new window. Now if I want to go back to newsSnacker, I sometimes have to reload the page. Quite annoying when it takes time to reload the page AND have to scroll back to where I left off AND if I lost connection, which happens, especially on the subway I lose it altogether.  A really simple fix for this would be to save the web page locally. Can’t do that. At least not completely.  So, here is a little trick I use to save pages for later reading.

When you open a new page, press and hold over an empty space on the web page within the text.  This will bring up the copy option and select all of the text. Copy the text and paste it into the notebook.  For some reason, this does not work on all sites, so in those cases, select 1 word, get the copy controls up and then manually select all of the text.

Unless you have backgrounder, once you pasted your text into the notepad and return to the browser, it will refresh, so you want to do this while you still have good wireless access.  So I’ll spend a few min before I get on the subway (BART) and load up a few stories I might like to read.  Same thing if I’m a passenger in a car about to go on a long drive or entry the many cell pergatory spots we have here in SF. Once I sit down to read to read the stories, they are all saved and I can go from story to story with no problems.

There are other solutions out there, but so far, instapaper seems to be the only other clean solution, however, setup is a pain. At some point, I’ll write a follow up to this and review instapaper.

From the site:

TUIO is a simple but powerful emerging protocol for multitouch control for live music and visuals, as used on the powerful live tangible synth reacTable. Apparently no one told Apple, however. While the App Store rubber-stamps useless toys like fake cigarette lighter flames, they bizarrely rejected a powerful application by a leading digital artist that would enable standardized TUIO control – for free. 

Get the full story here..

..and for you 420’s out there.  Enjoy the video.

MSAFluid for processing (Controlled by iPhone) from Memo Akten on Vimeo.