If you thought the Android app store (er, Play Store, sorry Apple) couldn’t find place for yet another browser alternative, Habit Browser would like to say you were wrong, and it’s got enough skill and panache to prove it to you.
Perhaps the most glaring feature of Habit Browser is that when you’re viewing a webpage, there is a complete lack of onscreen buttons. No menu button, no back button, no address bar, nothing at all. Inspired by gestures from Ubuntu Phone OS, all the controls are hidden away and can be brought up by swiping from the right edge of the screen to the center. Called Quick Menu, this is the default and only method of accessing these controls, and is pretty similar to Quick Controls found in the stock Android browser.
The quick menu includes all the necessary action shortcuts that you would expect – open address bar, back, forward, find in page, bookmarks, or switch to next or previous tab. Drag your finger to the bottom from the quick menu and you can access the menu options instead, which includes shortcuts to settings, translation, all the controls from the quick menu, as well as a quit button. Being hidden away from sight means you always get a full view of the webpage without any buttons or controls interfering.
Habit Browser is also quite fast as well. Webpages scroll smoothly and without hiccups no matter how fast you try to scroll, though there are a couple of times when it might become a bit jittery (but never a nuisance). Switching between quick menu and webpages, closing or opening tabs, it all runs along with nary a slowdown, which is impressive considering all the features and customization packed into the browser.
Speaking of customization, you’ll find plenty to customize in Habit – you can decide what happens when the volume keys are pressed, change behaviour of long pressing on various items while browsing, change the location of downloads (and automatically play music and videos after downloading), and even an inbuilt ad blocker. Changing user agent, enabling/disabling JavaScript and Flash, etc is all possible as well, which are the usual features you’ll find in any browser. Last but not the least, you can even set individual sites to run with a particular user agent (PC, Android, iPhone et al).
All in all, Habit Browser really is one of the most powerful browsers for Android out there, with regular updates and fixes thanks to a quick and responsive developer. The massive amount of features and fast performance make it a strong contender in a browser market filled with other great browsers such as Dolphin, and it is certainly one you should take for a spin.
Habit Browser can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.
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