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Jimmy Guphanti

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 29, 2011
341
8
You must get it. It is an amazing browser with flash that runs so smoothly that you can't even tell you are on an iPad. It is better than it's competitors such as Photon for example. The penguin is cute too.
 

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
It is better than it's competitors such as Photon for example.

I wouldn't be SO sure about this statement - for example, Photon is clearly better at the audio dept than Puffin. Let me cite some of my benchmarks and real-world test results from the update section of my earlier article (hence the "UPDATE" tags):

UPDATE (06/13/2012): Frash couldn't run any of the test Flash video / animations I've thrown it at under 5.1.1 (tested on the iPad 3). The test videos included those of QVC (homepage). BTW, speaking of QVC, I've checked the videos with Photon (AppStore), iSwifter (AppStore) and SkyFire (three Flash-enabled browsers in the AppStore). SkyFire didn't recognize videos at all; of the other two, iSwifter was the better one (and it has a free trial).

UPDATE (06/22/2012): I've conducted another series of tests with THIS video (also see THIS and THIS thread). As expected, Frash didn't work. Neither did SkyFire, the first ever Flash player to hit iOS. Unfortunately, it seems to have pretty low compatibility rate lately and I, therefore, don't recommend it at all any more.

UPDATE (07/12/2012): today, answering THIS question, I've tested the Java applet compliance of the Flash-capable Web browsers.
Unfortunately, remote emulation-based, inexpensive browsers like iSwifter (which is just a proxy to a server-side Firefox) can't run applets at all.

Neither can SkyFire, Puffin or Photon, the other three, known remote desktop and/or stream transcoding-based browsers. That is, your only choice is full remote terminal access. For example, the above-introduced AlwaysOnPC runs the applets at http://java.sun.com/applets/ just fine.

UPDATE (07/14/2012): upon a reader's request (thread), I've tested the subscription-based German sports streaming page, http://www.fohlen.tv/. It works with all three recommended Flash browsers (but, as you may have guessed, not on SkyFire), that is, iSwifter, Photon (this after explicitly switching to Flash mode with the thunder icon) and Puffin.

UPDATE (07/28/2012): helping another user (thread HERE), I've tested the Flash audio players at http://www.theraa.com/media/ and http://music.cbc.ca/ in the Flash-capable browsers. Based on the results, the Flash players' playback quality is in strictly the following order (from best to worst):

Photon: most recommended: it transfers stereo sound as opposed to iSwifter and Puffin!

iSwifter: mono, no problems

Puffin: mono, minor problems (static noise from time to time etc.)

Finally the non-working ones:

SkyFire, as could easily be predicted (after all, it's for video playback only, not the more generic full Flash emulation / streaming), doesn't recognize and, therefore, can't play back the audio tracks.

Media2Go has turned out to be useless – as always in my previous tests. It does not support any kind of audio transfer; in this case, the theraa.com/media/ Flash widgets just don't exit the „Buffering” mode (and there's absolutely no audio with the music.cbc.ca player either, of course).

UPDATE (08/29/2012): I've run tests to find the best browser to watch / listen to TV and radio broadcasts on Finnish Broadcast Company's (still) Flash-only and, therefore, non-iOS-friendly video / audio archive. The results are exactly the same as with the previous update: Photon turned out to be the best. While Puffin delivered the same framerate as Photon when playing videos, it did have audio problems, just as during the previous tests. iSwifter had a somewhat lower framerate when playing videos. SkyFire couldn't recognize the video player at all. Unfortunately, none of the usable (Photon / Puffin / iSwifter) browsers have a local server in Finland; therefore, programs restricted to Finnish audience can't be played back with them, not even with the listener being situated in the country.
 

Jimmy Guphanti

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 29, 2011
341
8
I wouldn't be SO sure about this statement - for example, Photon is clearly better at the audio dept than Puffin. Let me cite some of my benchmarks and real-world test results from the update section of my earlier article (hence the "UPDATE" tags):

UPDATE (06/13/2012): Frash couldn't run any of the test Flash video / animations I've thrown it at under 5.1.1 (tested on the iPad 3). The test videos included those of QVC (homepage). BTW, speaking of QVC, I've checked the videos with Photon (AppStore), iSwifter (AppStore) and SkyFire (three Flash-enabled browsers in the AppStore). SkyFire didn't recognize videos at all; of the other two, iSwifter was the better one (and it has a free trial).

UPDATE (06/22/2012): I've conducted another series of tests with THIS video (also see THIS and THIS thread). As expected, Frash didn't work. Neither did SkyFire, the first ever Flash player to hit iOS. Unfortunately, it seems to have pretty low compatibility rate lately and I, therefore, don't recommend it at all any more.

UPDATE (07/12/2012): today, answering THIS question, I've tested the Java applet compliance of the Flash-capable Web browsers.
Unfortunately, remote emulation-based, inexpensive browsers like iSwifter (which is just a proxy to a server-side Firefox) can't run applets at all.

Neither can SkyFire, Puffin or Photon, the other three, known remote desktop and/or stream transcoding-based browsers. That is, your only choice is full remote terminal access. For example, the above-introduced AlwaysOnPC runs the applets at http://java.sun.com/applets/ just fine.

UPDATE (07/14/2012): upon a reader's request (thread), I've tested the subscription-based German sports streaming page, http://www.fohlen.tv/. It works with all three recommended Flash browsers (but, as you may have guessed, not on SkyFire), that is, iSwifter, Photon (this after explicitly switching to Flash mode with the thunder icon) and Puffin.

UPDATE (07/28/2012): helping another user (thread HERE), I've tested the Flash audio players at http://www.theraa.com/media/ and http://music.cbc.ca/ in the Flash-capable browsers. Based on the results, the Flash players' playback quality is in strictly the following order (from best to worst):

Photon: most recommended: it transfers stereo sound as opposed to iSwifter and Puffin!

iSwifter: mono, no problems

Puffin: mono, minor problems (static noise from time to time etc.)

Finally the non-working ones:

SkyFire, as could easily be predicted (after all, it's for video playback only, not the more generic full Flash emulation / streaming), doesn't recognize and, therefore, can't play back the audio tracks.

Media2Go has turned out to be useless – as always in my previous tests. It does not support any kind of audio transfer; in this case, the theraa.com/media/ Flash widgets just don't exit the „Buffering” mode (and there's absolutely no audio with the music.cbc.ca player either, of course).

UPDATE (08/29/2012): I've run tests to find the best browser to watch / listen to TV and radio broadcasts on Finnish Broadcast Company's (still) Flash-only and, therefore, non-iOS-friendly video / audio archive. The results are exactly the same as with the previous update: Photon turned out to be the best. While Puffin delivered the same framerate as Photon when playing videos, it did have audio problems, just as during the previous tests. iSwifter had a somewhat lower framerate when playing videos. SkyFire couldn't recognize the video player at all. Unfortunately, none of the usable (Photon / Puffin / iSwifter) browsers have a local server in Finland; therefore, programs restricted to Finnish audience can't be played back with them, not even with the listener being situated in the country.

I'm not trying to play videos in Finland. It works great.
 

info

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2011
80
1
Bay Area
Puffin Bookmarks Backup

Hello Folks,
Is there a way to export Puffin's bookmarks to a file or to save them on a cloud service somehow? I have used the export function to upload bookmarks to the app's servers and downloaded them to other devices, but it seems these only keep on the CloudMosa servers for only twenty-four hours. Does anyone know a way to save them in a more permanent way?

Thanks for any help with this...
 

east85

macrumors 65816
Jun 24, 2010
1,343
495
I have no idea about the bookmarks. I just came here to say that for the most part Puffin is my main iPad browser and it has not worked perfectly. Then again, nothing really does (everything is capable of having flaws I suppose). There have been a few times it has crashed and all of my settings and bookmarks got reset. This seems to have stopped completely since the last update, but yeah. Other than that it's a great browser in my experience, like user experience is definitely up there. I've only found one website that rejects Puffin and that is Hulu (IP address blocking).
 
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