Dolphin Browser HD 4.0 – Spice up Your Web Browsing Experience

One of the most popular web browsers for Android-based smartphones, Dolphin Browser HD has been upgraded to version 4.0 one week ago. The new features and improvements added make it a great alternative to the integrated Web-kit browser. In addition to the long list of bugs and issues fixed, Dolphin Browser HD 4.0 has added a few interesting features that will be detailed in this review. The first new feature is called Page Management and enables users to access multiple options by long pressing on the address bar. From the contextual menu displayed, users will be able to choose Add bookmark, Find on page, Select text, Share page, Copy page URL and Save page. The saved page will be stored on the SD card in a folder called “Download”, but users can also download a dedicated add-on (MyPDF), which automatically converts webpages to .pdf files. Clicking on the address bar while the on-screen keyboard is displayed will enable users to copy certain parts of a link. Long pressing the address bar will open up another quick menu that gives users the possibility to change between input methods (depending on your device). Dolphin Browser HD 4.0 introduces Bookmarks Folder support, which gives users the freedom to manage their bookmarks to suit their needs. Basically, you will be able to create, edit and delete Bookmarks folders. Swipe to the right to display the Bookmarks folder, or click on Bookmarks at the bottom to see the list of folders. To add a new folder, simply click on the Menu button of your smartphone and choose Add. Moving bookmarks between folders is easily done by dragging the bookmark into the folder or by editing the bookmark and choosing another folder. Benchmarks did not reveal any noticeable performance improvements in terms of page loading speed, but did show that Dolphin Browser HD surpasses the native Android browser. The swipe action issue, which allowed the Add-on bar or the Bookmarks bar display to be triggered too easily or by mistake, has been fixed as well. The developers also added multi-language support for 12 languages: German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Danish, Czech, Japanese, Korean and Traditional Chinese. The only annoying downside that I noticed is the fact that every time you install a new add-on the browser closes automatically. As a personal note, I would prefer the tabs to be smaller, so switching between windows would be easier. A tab small enough to display just the icon of the website you're visiting should suffice, especially since the current tabs aren't showing the full site name anyway. Dolphin Browser HD 4.0 is only compatible with Android 2.0 or later devices. More add-ons can be found here.