
Opera Touch is a solid alternative to Safari on the iPhone - BeqaP
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/02/opera-touch-ios/
======
King-Aaron
I feel it's safer these days to assume any digital product that's owned by a
Chinese parent company is compromised, than assuming it isn't.

~~~
maaaats
But for many of us, the aspect of having a NSA backdoored US product is
probably more scary.

~~~
King-Aaron
Also true. Not to mention for those of us in other the 5-eyes nations the
movements that governments are making towards other invasive policies.

------
newscracker
After the recent Chrome debacles, I removed it from my systems (not that I was
using it much before). On iOS, my go to browser is Firefox Focus, a single tab
browser that you treat as a private tab and erase quickly when you're done. It
comes with a built in ad blocker too. Next in line for my use are Brave and
Firefox. They're different, have good interfaces, and support multiple tabs.
Last on my list is Safari.

The only thing that sucks about browsers on iOS is that extensions are not
supported by the platform. I'd love to have Firefox extensions work on it, but
that seems as unlikely as having another browser/JS engine on the platform.

~~~
pgm8705
What are your main problems with Safari?

~~~
michael_h
"A problem occurred with this webpage so it was reloaded"

~~~
eridius
All browsers on iOS must use the same WebKit rendering engine, and the error
you quoted is quite rare in practice (I can't even remember the last time I
saw it on iOS).

------
reustle
Is Opera Touch also owned by Opera's Chinese parent company? I couldn't see
anything mentioned in the few articles I checked.

~~~
singularity2001
Yes I would not trust them just as I don't understand how people buy Chinese
spy phones

~~~
dmpk2k
Okay, so there are a lot of accusations of spyware on Chinese phones. Can
someone link concrete evidence of this?

I ask this out of genuine curiosity.

~~~
anonawayoct3
They have adware, but spyware is harder to say.

------
pilif
On iOS, there can’t really be an alternative to Safari because there is no way
to change the default browser system wide.

No matter how careful you are, eventually some app somewhere will open an URL,
causing Safari to open, but now that it’s not your default browser, all your
login state, your favorites and, heck, even just the familiar UI will be
missing.

No. Until iOS allows setting a default browser, there is no point to accept
this kind of friction and at least I myself feel much better off just using
Safari and getting a consistent browser experience even if an app opens an
URL.

~~~
kennydude
Also Apple doesn't allow any 3rd party browser engine in the App Store

~~~
bodas
Apple doesn't allow third party JIT. They allow third party rendering engines.
Blink+JSC would be acceptable but I doubt anybody wants to put the work in to
make that a reality.

~~~
Jyaif
Not even:

"2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and
WebKit Javascript."

( [https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/](https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/) )

------
keypress
This link is so bare.

Can anyone improve on the horse's mouth:
[https://www.opera.com/mobile/touch](https://www.opera.com/mobile/touch) ,
which also says practically nothing.

Opera seem to be great at adding features, and yet very poor at promoting
them.

------
dhimes
Anybody else trying Firefox Focus on iPhone? It seems pretty nice but I
haven't used it much yet.

~~~
newscracker
Firefox Focus has been my go to browser on iOS since the time it launched. The
premise is a single tab, which you use and then erase all data from once
you're done. As it says, rinse and repeat! If you want multiple tabs, this is
not the browser for you (though Firefox iOS could be).

I use Firefox Focus more than any other app, including for browsing and
reading through HN comments. It's got a good ad blocker (though not the
fastest [1]), but no options to control ad blocking on a per site basis.

The browser has been improving over time. It also includes an extra layer of
passcode/biometric protection that can help prevent others from seeing what
you've opened in it. The only issue I've noticed is that it sometimes forgets
the page you've loaded after sometime (may be because it doesn't save them to
the disk, and when iOS removes it from memory, it starts out again as a blank
slate).

[1]: [https://brooksreview.net/2018/09/safari-content-blocker-
eval...](https://brooksreview.net/2018/09/safari-content-blocker-
evaluations-92618-edition/)

~~~
cpeterso
Once I started using Firefox Focus, I was surprised at how rarely I actually
needed to browse the web un-anonymously. I don't need to be logged in to
search, use Wikipedia, or read news online.

Focus is perfect for bite-sized browsing. Read and then throw the session
away.

~~~
thanatropism
Requires iOS 11. I don't want to update my iPhone SE -- it's fine as it is and
I don't need it slower; I made that mistake with a previous iPhone.

~~~
newscracker
It’s a bad thing that Apple doesn’t allow older versions to be downloaded.
Firefox Focus was there before iOS 11 too, though it’s not as feature rich as
the latest one. If you had downloaded it on iOS 10, you could still continue
to use it or redownload that version.

------
space00
Opera is controlled by Qihoo 360, China a notorious rogue company.

------
ryanmarsh
I would love to use other browsers on iOS, including Brave, but I can’t.

All the browsers on iOS suffer from one fatal flaw, they crash, often. As I
have been told this may have something to do with the OS’s health & safety
precautions by killing apps that run away with CPU or RAM use. I don’t know
that for certain and I haven’t tried to dig into it further.

Here’s a simple test, find a site that grinds safari to a near standstill,
then try that site in Chrome/Edge/Brave on iOS. Chances are it will crash
them.

I’d really love to see a healthy ecosystem of browser rendering engines on iOS
as well. I understand and have benefited from the walled garden that is iOS
but I’d really like Apple to figure this out. Isn’t it ironic how Microsoft
got in trouble for anti-competitive practices against Netscape but Apple can
block other rendering engines?

~~~
titusjohnson
Ironic? No, not at all. Why would it?

------
em0ney
I know that nobody is asking for alternatives, nor my opinion, but Brave
browser is great. Cool project

~~~
app4soft
> but Brave browser is great

For what platforms?

~~~
thrower123
It's a must-have on Android. Makes the web actually usable on shaky mobile
data connections.

I tried it on Windows, but I have decent adblockers there, and need JS enabled
for too many things to bother fiddling with whitelisting sites.

~~~
app4soft
> It's a must-have on Android.

So, if Brave is free & open-source, is "must-have on Android", why it still
not added in F-DRoid repo?

As for me, at this moment _FOSS Browser_ with disabled JavaScript — is better
option for Android users.[1]

Fully must-have on Android should be _links2_ [2] throw _Termux_ [3] — this is
what I claim right way for get "usable on shaky mobile data connections".

Browsers with enabled JavaScript is much less secure than those without JS
enabled.[4]

> _" Those browser's vulnerability to those attacks are entirely based on the
> fact that they execute JavaScript. Thus, if your browser doesn't execute JS,
> it's immune."_ © userbinator[5]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_\(web_browser\))

[1]
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.baumann.browser](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.baumann.browser)

[2] [http://links.twibright.com](http://links.twibright.com)

[3] [https://github.com/termux/termux-
packages/pull/2317](https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/pull/2317)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16191843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16191843)

[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16192006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16192006)

------
Paraesthetic
I love Opera, I've been using it for about a year now. Its leagues ahead in
most things, although I've started using edge on android because its
significantly faster load times.

------
albastru
They rushed to get it out of beta without making sure that things like sites
with self signed certificates are rendered.

Just visit

[https://badssl.com/](https://badssl.com/)

and see what happens when browsing that site.

------
hidiegomariani
Safari iCloud Keychain sync makes the all browsing experience a beast compared
to anything else

~~~
sildur
You can now use other password managers in iOS 12.

~~~
ssijak
The best feature of ios12!

------
jxdxbx
this app does one thing I like—it launches with the keyboard active. at least
sometimes. I use Drafts specifically because it has this feature. Firefox
Focus does too. I wish the Google app would always launch with the keyboard
up.

------
webdevetc
>and there’s the company’s usual protection from cryptojacking

is this a common problem nowadays?

