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Comment by talos | Hacker News Reader

This is nuts. On a sidenote, any suggestions for an equivalently fast, secure browser for Android 4.2 on a relatively old phone? Not gonna use AOSP anymore!

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I use Firefox on my Android phones, it's come a long way since its first release and is pleasantly stable and comparably quick to chrome.

Firefox mobile works great, give that a look.

Chrome/Firefox. Not AOSP stock browser.

Just tested all browsers installed on Android 4.2.1 tablet:

    Opera Classic  OK
    Opera Mini     OK
    Tint           Vulnerable
    Default        Vulnerable

Opera has usually worked OK, though sometimes rendering is a bit off. Better than the default browser, especially now.

Chrome?

Opera Classic is great. The new Opera works very much like Chrome, since it's based on Chromium.

You can try Opera Mobile Classic, it's important to use classic version since the new Opera Mobile uses the same engine as chrome so it might have the same vulnerabilities.

AOSP != Chrome, right? ...

Right, the AOSP browser is not Chrome. The AOSP browser is deprecated and is not installed by default on recent versions of Android.

Correct. Chrome is a separate project from the AOSP.

That said, Android 4.4 and later use Chromium for their WebViews, the source for which is developed along with Chrome as a part of the Chromium project - it does not live in AOSP.

Presumably the stock browser that is in AOSP 4.4+ wraps Chromium, which more or less means the AOSP browser is Chrome...but not the other way around. :)

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