Google I/O 2012 recently brought quite a few new things to the table. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean was finally unveiled as was a new tablet. Alongside these major announcements, Google also announced the availability of Google Chrome’s browser for iPhone and iPad.
Google Chrome, an extremely popular browser used by millions on computers and Android devices will undoubtedly be welcomed by iOS users and will offer Apple’s native Safari some stiff competition. One reason for this will be that using Google Chrome allows users to sign in with their Google account and subsequently have access to all their bookmarks and open tabs as well as the ability to send pages from their PC to their iOS device. A more consistent experience will also be afforded as users will be able to use the same browser on multiple devices and start on one device where they left off on another thanks to syncing.
One obvious downside to this? You can’t set Google Chrome as your default browser. That’s where a jailbreak tweak comes in for the rescue, as usual and enables you to set Chrome as your default browser. So when you open something, instead of everything defaulting to Apple’s mobile Safari, it’ll actually open in Chrome.
This free tweak is named BrowserChooser. To get it on your iDevice, simply add this repo to Cydia by navigating to Manage > Sources > Edit > Add: rpetri.ch/repo.
Next, look for BrowserChooser and install it. The setup is rather simple. Simply go to the Settings menu and tap BrowserChooser. Next, tap the browser that you want to use instead of Safari when opening links from within any app. After doing this, all links, even if labeled ‘Open In Safari’, will open in Chrome or some other browser, if you opted for it.
This jailbreak tweak is available for free in developer Ryan Petrich’s repo. Needless to say, your device will need to be jailbroken.
If, however, your device is not jailbroken yet and you have no intention of jailbreaking it either (or can’t, for some reason), there is a way around that too. Although not as flawless as BrowserChooser is, you can follow a few simple steps which will enable you to allow any webpage in Mobile Safari to be directly passed on to Google Chrome instead. The process uses JavaScript and we have developer Jon Abrams to thank for it.
All that you’ll need to do is copy a bit of JavaScript and paste it into a bookmark in Mobile Safari. Whenever you’re using Safari but would prefer to use Chrome, you can simply open this bookmark and be re-directed to Chrome without changing the page that you were on. Here are the step by step instructions:
Step 1: Copy this code: “javascript:location.href=”googlechrome”+location.href.substring(4)”. Make sure this code is copied to your device’s clipboard.
Step 2: Now open Mobile Safari. Then, navigate to any webpage and bookmark it.
Step 3: Rename the bookmark to something like “Open in Chrome”.
Step 4: Open the bookmarks page in Safari and choose the Edit option. Delete the URL and paste the JavaScript code string that you copied back in Step 1.
Step 5: Save the bookmark.
That’s all. Thanks to the developers, both jailbroken and otherwise devices can now use Google Chrome easily. If you haven’t used Google Chrome on iOS yet, you really should – there’s a reason the app has already reached the Number 1 spot on the list of most downloaded free iOS apps. The general opinion about the two browsers is that Chrome is far better than Safari. And with BrowserChooser and Abram’s solution, it should prove to a better and far more unified browsing experience.
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