Attack of the mobile browsers

The browser scores relatively well on HTML5Test.com, pulling in 206 out of 400 points. Basic support for local data and canvas drawing is available, but there are gaps where some of the more exotic features like Web Workers should be.

The other notable feature is the collection of privacy functions that help limit the amount of information that the browser records. Both the cache and the cookie database can be cleaned or turned off entirely.

The paid version (99 cents) includes a collection of other features, like the ability to read the page source, change the user agent, and store your favorite font size on a site-by-site basis.

Mobile browser No. 10: Mercury Browser
Mercury Browser is another option for the iPhone or iPad user who is a bit tired of mobile Safari. The principle enhancements are a collection of multifingered gestures and a slick menu that pops up in response. The feature that caught my eye the most was a small, gray icon that flashed on the screen whenever the browser detected a gesture. This lessened the confusion somewhat.

Mercury Browser also scored 206 on HTML5Test.com, like many of the other iPhone browsers. It is presumably using the UIWebView to handle the hard work of parsing the HTML and laying out the content. The changes are just in the interface.

There aren't many differences between the free Lite version and the 99-cent Pro version. The only one I can identify by running the documentation through a diff filter is the ability to save your files to Dropbox.com.

There's not much to the documentation that I could see. This made it a bit tricky to understand exactly what the icons and the neat circular menu would do. A mobile browser doesn't support mouse-over events like the desktop, so there's no way to give hints. Nonetheless, I was able to figure out most of the gestures.

More mobile browsers: Evernote, Flipboard, and Instapaper
If the browsers were perfect, these options wouldn't exist. Flipboard is a very pretty way to browse through the news, and there's no reason why the major papers shouldn't be able to imitate it -- but they don't. I'm not sure why. The transitions are all available, and the browsers support them.

The same might be said for Instapaper. All of the desktop browsers have allowed us to save the HTML and JavaScript in files known as Web archives for years. Yet this is still too confusing for people, so Instapaper has found a foothold. Click a button in Safari, and Instapaper saves Web pages to your iPhone for reading later.

Along the same lines, Evernote is a tool that tries to "capture everything," including Web pages and screenshots of Web pages, as well as notes, photos, and audio recordings. It's a simple tool that serves as a thoroughly modern file folder.

All three of these are far from complete browsers. If anything, their lack of ability to act like a complete browser is part of the charm that supposedly draws people to them. They aren't loaded down with tabs to make it easier to juggle all of the windows, and they don't seem wedded to the idea that they should reproduce the content exactly the way that the original designer wanted it to appear.