If you like to browse the internet, the chances are that you like to do it in a timely manner. Take a look at these tips and tricks that will make web browsing on your iPad 2 a breeze.
Keeping the Bookmarks Bar visible
An often overlooked feature of the iPad is the Bookmarks Bar, which allows you to surf quickly to your favorite websites. It's easy to miss because, by default, the bar only appears when you open a new tab and then disappears again when you go to a website. You can make it stay visible by going to Settings on your Home screen, selecting Safari and setting "Always Show Bookmarks Bar" to "ON". You can add bookmarks to the bar by tapping the "+" sign to the left of the address bar, tapping "Add Bookmark" and then "Add to Bookmarks Bar".
Placing bookmarks on the Home screen
You can add a bookmark for a website - a webclip - to your iPad Home screen by surfing to the page you want to bookmark in Safari, tapping the "+" sign and selecting "Add to Home Screen". The webclip, which you can rename, is added to your Home screen and will automatically open to the area of the web page you had displayed when you bookmarked the site. Webclips are backed up by iTunes, but are not synced by either iTunes or MobileMe.
Syncing Safari bookmarks
If you use either Safari or Internet Explorer on your PC, you can synchronize your iPad´s Safari bookmarks with the ones on your computer by using iTunes or MobileMe. To sync them using iTunes, connect your iPad to your computer and select the iPad in the sidebar of iTunes. Select the Info tab, scroll down to the Others section, tap "Sync Safari bookmarks" and then "Apply". Bookmarks are synced both ways, from your computer to your iPad and vice versa. If you are a MobileMe subscriber, go to Settings, select your MobileMe account and tap "Bookmarks".
Changing your browser
If you're not satisfied with the limited options that Mobile Safari offers you, there are several alternative browsers available for the iPad, like Atomic Web Browser ($0.99) and Terra Web Browser, which will provide you with a browsing experience similar to the one you are used to on your desktop PC.
Atomic Web allows you to keep several different tabs open and toggle easily between different websites, customize the interface and the search engine, search for text within a web page, block adverts and save bandwidth by choosing not to download images. Atomic Web also comes with Twitter and Facebook integration and support for multiple search engines. The free version, Atomic Web Browser Lite, misses a few convenient features of the full version, like the ability to reload previously open tabs when you restart the application and the possibility to save web pages for later reading, and the amount of tabs you can have open is capped at 6, but it still provides you with an enhanced browsing experience. The iPad always uses Safari as the default browser, but you can install an Atomic Web bookmarklet (go to Atomic Web's Settings and tap "Install Bookmarklet") which, when clicked, launches the application and reopens the web page you had open in Safari.
Terra Web Browser has very similar features to Atomic Web, but the application has a less cluttered interface, and it allows you to surf in "incognito mode", which keeps your browsing history clean and your browser cookie-free. Terra Web also enables you to alter your browser identification and choose between iPad, Mac OS Safari, Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox; this is handy if you don´t like being automatically redirected to the stripped-down mobile version of a website.
Browsing offline content
You can´t always be online, but you can always keep up with your favorite websites by using an application like Offline Pages or Instapaper Pro (both $4.99) to browse websites offline.
Offline Pages allows you to save all kinds of website content (including all page formatting, images of all types, PDF and Word documents and secure HTTP) for offline reading by tapping a button - the application bookmarklet - at the top of your screen while you're casually surfing. It also allows you to share links with several other applications like Facebook, Twitter and Instapaper. An upgrade to Offline Pages Pro ($9.99) enables you to save entire websites for offline reading, automatically update your favorite sites, tag and mark the pages as read or unread, and use "intelligent download mode", which saves only important links. Offline Pages can be used on Mac, PC or iPhone.
The main difference between Offline Pages and Instapaper is that the latter minimizes on bandwidth and download time by saving only the important text and inline images found on the web page. The page is reformatted into something that looks more like a newspaper page, avoiding the distraction of ads and sidebars. Instapaper interfaces with several different apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Evernote Safari, Google Reader and NetNewsWire. Instapaper 3.0 also allows you to "Like" an article and browse through a list of articles your friends have recently liked.
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