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A big thank you to @gigajosh for the recommendation on NetFront mobile browser from Access Company because it’s how I found the Iris mobile browser by Torch Mobile. While I will review NetFront before the end of its beta phase, but for now, I’ll dive into Iris.

For an installation file larger than SkyFire 1.0, clocking in at 3.35 MB versus SkyFire’s 679 KB, Iris  v1.1.8 was a quick install on my AT&T Tilt running WinMo 6.1. After opening faster than any other mobile browser I’ve used, I was ecstatic to find out that the tabbed browsing in Iris is quick and responsive! Iris gives the user full control over tabs and doesn’t open tabs automatically in the background, thank goodness. There’s even an overall view of all currently open tabs where I was able to quickly flip back and forth between tabs much like the “Cover Flow” view in iTunes but on a much smaller scale. The browser history is displayed in the same way.

I ran the browser through a small battery of sites, including YouTube, Hotmail, GaiaOnline.com, and Google Reader, which Iris handled very well. Embedded Flash items displayed well, but I couldn’t seem to get embedded video on YouTube to play within the browser. Websites automatically display in mobile mode automatically when available, and if there is not an option to display a site in regular full-mode, then I was stuck in mobile mode. There are different viewing options within the browser itself, but they just set the overall zoom of a website. Zoom can also be toggled by a simple double-tap, which also brings up a view finder in the upper left-hand corner that resembles the view finder in  Adobe PDF Reader.

Settings, such as accepting cookies, defining the size of the cache, cache location, enabling JavaScript, plugins, and popup windows, are accessible through the options menu. There’s even a setting to enable a traditional mouse cursor on-screen during browsing for the nostalgic out there. Another neat detail is a “bubbling out” visual effect that confirms when links are selected.

Other than a few strange instances where the browser closed on its own, there were no major lagging or freezing issues while running Iris. Other than SkyFire, I will definitely keep Iris on-hand as an alternate browsing option.

Download the Iris Browser at TorchMobile.com.

Marilyn Torres (40 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Marilyn Torres is a contributing blogger for Mobility Site. She also blogs about movies, books, comics, and recipes at her personal blog, marit.vox.com. Marilyn has a Bachelor of Arts in English and currently lives with her other half, Cavalier-Poodle, and tabby cat in Central Florida.