Why is the web browsing experience so sub-par on Windows Phone 8?

[David A Smith]

Wow. On a whim I decided to delete my browsing history. After an hour of deleting, it still wasn't done. So I hit the back button to end the process, went back into IE, deleted the history again, and this time it finished immediately. And what do you know, my browsing speeds are an order of magnitude faster. Google comes up in about 1.5 seconds.

 

[generic_fatalis]

I have the same problem with my 925. i just cannot load pages and i wish i had never bought this phone.
for example, it cannot acces YAHOO! dont complain about my provider. i was standing right beside my
wifi router and the galaxy phone standing right beside my nokia, i was just dissappointed about the IE all the way.
may i ask, did you fix the browser issue or did you sell your phone?

 

[smurfercom]

WPC has always had issues with wp8 devices with explorer. Keyboards not sticking, ads taking you into error pages when you click on a link, and also not being able to read posts because ads obscure the paragraph posted. Wpcentral is not WP 8 friendly at all using built in explorer it's the only site where the keyboard may or may not work to post a message.

 

[Moiz Mian]

I have the same problem with my 925. i just cannot load pages and i wish i had never bought this phone.
for example, it cannot acces YAHOO! dont complain about my provider. i was standing right beside my
wifi router and the galaxy phone standing right beside my nokia, i was just dissappointed about the IE all the way.
may i ask, did you fix the browser issue or did you sell your phone?

What do you mean you can't access Yahoo. I don't understand what all the complaining about IE is...it has the fastest javascript engine and is extremely fast. The only downside is that Google webpages don't load well since Google redirects windows phones to ****ty versions of it's sites. But aside from that, IE on wp is extremely fast.

 

[Cryio]

I'm scratching my head. The 521 performance should be the same as the 920 and 925 and any other Windows Phone 8 device. It has the exact same CPU and a lower resolution.

Someone help me out.

It has half the ram and while it may have the same CPU architecture, it's just 66% of the speed. Dual Core 1 GHz compared to the L920 Dual Core 1.5 Ghz.

 

[o0Nighthawk0o]

I have no problems browsing the web with IE on my L920. Granted, there are a few features I would like to see implemented like a forward button but I also remember that this is a phone and will not be the same experience as a desktop or tablet.

One thing I did notice is that yesterday I was showing a co worker my wife's new L2520 when he started complaining about his iPhone and being able to get web sites in desktop view instead of the mobile site. Apparently Safari doesn't allow this where IE does. I have been to a few sites where the mobile version sucks. Facebook, MSN? And being able to switch to a desktop view is a huge plus.

 

[AndrewL920]

I wish they put back/and forward in IE

 

[Cinderella RT]

It's almost 2016. Browsing is still **** on my Lumia 720. Windows central is still the worst performing website. IE still randomly exits week pressing back even though you got there from a Google search and it should go to back to the search, not exit. UC, Maxton, Opera mini still crash randomly. Surfy still has no context menu show up when you long tap something. Last night I tried all of those to search something on Google, open two links from the search results and read them. It is impossible to do this on my Windows phone in a reasonable, timely fashion.
I'm amused how there are always people who say it works just fine for them, but never mention they only open one site per browsing session and just recommend mobile apps for the sites that do not work. Ok, IE just gave up in the middle of writing my comment and I cannot even select words to edit them.

Awesome web experience on WP8.1!