iOS Web Browser Latency

Apple’s anti-competitive practices are well documented. This has allowed Apple to maintain a paltry mobile web experience with minimal effort.

iOS Safari is a pathetic offering. Regardless, I’ve never bothered until recently with other iOS web browsers because they’re all Safari in a trench coat. I don’t need features, I just want to load web pages fast. Apparently that is too much to ask of Apple these days!

My iOS web experience has been one of endless latency woes. That was until I found a browser immune to the problems present in Safari and others.

iOS Safari

Safari on iOS is practically unusable for me. The first connection hangs for up to ten seconds before loading any page. Subsequent page loads in a session are fine. I’m not sure what constitutes a “session”, only that if I stop using Safari for a while the issue returns.

It doesn’t matter what domain I visit. It’s only ever the first connection to the first website I visit in a session. It happens once and then everything is fine.

I don’t browse on my phone for extended periods. I use it for quick singular tasks like checking the footy scores. That means the “first connection” in a session can be every connection throughout a normal day. This makes Safari infuriatingly to use. It has driven me crazy. Searching online for Apple related issues is impossible due to content farming.

iOS Vivaldi

I wanted to like Vivaldi. I’m still happy with it on desktop. Vivaldi on iOS doesn’t share the same first connection bug as Safari, although the video below appears that way. Vivaldi is just randomly slow with latency spikes.

Vivaldi typically loads faster than the demo above. It’s just generally slower than it should be, occasionally hanging on a resource mid-to-late page load. (Vivaldi also suffers from janky scroll in my experience.)

iOS Orion

Orion is hilariously buggy but not in a way that cramps my actual browsing. What I care about works. iOS Orion has no latency issues for me; pages just load.

Did you see that? The page just loads! Why does Orion work fine when both Safari and Vivaldi suffer from delays and latency issues? I have no idea.

Conclusion

After this highly scientific investigation I have observed:

• Safari hangs on first connection
• Vivaldi has sporadic latency issues
• Orion loads reasonably fast

Which is only my experience; the only one I care about!

Vivaldi is worse overall but Safari is most annoying. I’m back to using Orion as my iOS web browser because it’s the only one I’m willing to suffer in Apple’s walled garden.

I don’t believe the problems are DNS related because they all use the same DNS setup. I assume, maybe they don’t? The issues persist regardless of network. LAN; same problem. Cellular; same. Starbucks; same. VPN; same. I used bbc.co.uk to demonstrate but domain does not make a difference.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what might cause latency in Safari and Vivaldi? What is Orion doing, or not doing, to work without issue? Is there an iOS setting I can play with? Am I holding it wrong? Is this planned obsolescence from Apple? Perhaps the content blocker in Orion is doing wonders? Are the other browsers getting stuck trying to phone home, or phone a friend?

Any hints are welcome! And I would be absolutely thrilled if you @ me saying you don’t experience these issues (that is sarcasm).

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