3D super browser SurfCube updated to fully support Windows Phone 8

By Sam Sabri
last updated

While the majority of you are perfectly content with the default Internet Explorer browser on your shiny new 8X or Lumia 920, others like to be contrarian and use something else. For those folks, SurfCube has been a popular browser since Windows Phone 7 first hit the market. Since then it’s had a few updates, the latest bringing some new features just for Windows Phone 8.

The thing that makes SurfCube different from Internet Explorer is its unique 3D interface. Oh, and ‘private mode’, for when you want to buy you’re buying an ‘anniversary gift’ for your significant other. Since most of you are familiar with SurfCube, check out what is new in the latest version for Windows Phone 8:

  • Optimized for WP8
  • Support for HD phones
  • Fast App Resume
  • Added loading progress indicator
  • Temporarily disabled Bing due to it launching the built-in Bing app instead
  • Context menu is working again

SurfCube Screenshots

The biggest updates are fast app resume and the HD support. Now, exiting the app won’t result in having to start from square one if you don’t launch it from the app switcher. Assuming the app is still in the backstack you can pick up where you left off by just opening it. Small upgrade, but makes a huge difference in day to day use. The HD support is welcome news for all high resolution displays. Owners of the 8X had been complaining about the display before the update.

If you haven’t tried SurfCube yet, give it a shot. It’s a nifty little browser that brings some features to the table that we wish were included in IE by default. For example, SurfCube allows you to lock the orientation via settings in the app.

The app has a free version that is supported by ads or a paid version for $1.99 that removes those ads. You can download SurfCube from the Windows Phone Store (free or paid), use the QR codes below (free on left and paid on right), or swipe right in our Windows Phone Central app.

qrSurfCubefree

qrSurfCubepaid

36 Comments
  • "Oh, and ‘private mode’, for when you want to buy you’re buying an ‘anniversary gift’ for your significant other."
    Right... more like for when you want to hide those naughty naughty sites haha
  • Or when "you're buying an 'anniversary gift' for your significant other." -- and don't want your wife to know.
  • Shhhh ;)
  • You guys got it all wrong. The way I see it, the women are supposed to take us men out to eat, out on a date, out and buy us something nice. Well, I say this because I get asked out on dates very frequently and I usually have to turn a few of them down. It's sad I know, but somebody has to turn these persistent women down.
  • Does it offer the ability to set Homepage? I cannot understand why Microsoft would leave this important feature of their IE10 in WP8
  • Maybe because it doesn't need one. You can easily Pin a start screen tile to whatever u want. Opening up the IE tile always loads the last state.
  • Yeah, I pin my fantasy basketball team to my start screen, but I don't care abotu a home page. I don't do browsing on my phone in a way that makes use of one.
  • Even better - you can pin the tabs that you have open to your start screen. You can have more then one "Homepage" this way. What's more is you can have more of these pinned icons, for example one for your WP news needs, one for social, etc - each of which can open multiple tabs.
  • Probably due to the nature of its live tile/pinned sites features... ;)
  • I wouldn't think of that as an important feature.. it just wastes bandwidth and costs time, i.e. if you wanted to check a site that isn't your homepage..
    Not to mention that you can easily set a default page just by pinning a page to the start screen instead of the IE-Tile.. ;)
    //edit: allright, I was too late :D
  • Use Habit Browser. It supports Homepage.
  • Those Contrarians sure are a strange and adversarial race... 8-)
  • Is there a back button
  • I believe the back button is located near the bottom left corner of the phone. ;)
  • Going to try this as my primary browser. I kind of like Explorer, but can't go wrong with two browsers :)
  • Would be nice if the bug was worked out that doesn't allow you to browse. Seriously, after trying out the joystick and then turning it off, I'm stuck on the settings page. I can rotate the cube to the left and see the browser page but it won't stick and rotates back to settings as soon as I "let go" of the screen. Pressing the back button has the same effect, it just bounces to the browser and back to settings immediately. Fast resume works against me now since I can't close the app and it always resumes back to settings. I want to try and like this over UC Browser (despite the awesome back and forward buttons I would miss) but the app doesn't seem to want to let me try :/
  • Sorry you had a bad experience. After switching the joystick off, do you have any other means of navigation on? We don't let you leave the settings until you have at least one way of interaction enabled (joystick, edge grab, menu or phone flicking).
    If you need further assistance, please send us an email to the support address (apps at kinabaluinnovation dot com), and we will do our best to help.  
  • Sorry you had a bad experience. We do not let you turn off all navigation modes (joystick, menu, edge grab and flick) at the same time. If this was not your problem, please send an email to our support address (apps at kinabaluinnovation dot com), and we will do our best to assist you.
  • Sorry for the multiple posts, it looked like nothing was posted for minutes. :(
  • It still uses the IE engine with a different GUI correct? Its not say based off of Mozilla code or anything?
  • Yes, it uses the IE engine. Before WP8, it wasn't possible to use anything else, and I still doubt that a small team such as ours could adopt another browser engine and make it fast and fluid enough.
  • I find absolutely nothing wrong with IE's engine. Just speculative. I know on iOS Safari is garbage so I use Chrome on iPod touch and iPad. So in the future we could see Firefox and Opera Windows Phone 8.x apps probably not chrome since google hates M$FT and all.
  • I get problems with mobile Facebook QUITE often using the IE engine. I wonder, does its UA say MSIE 10 as well?
  • Yes, it does. Do you have facebook issues with SurfCube or the built-in IE?
  • I really love this browser but there is a disability in its capabilities. For some reason, it's unable to play streaming video except for embedded YouTube vids. For example, I frequent twit.tv and often view the Windows Weekly podcast, but if you click on the play button, the mp4 file starts to download, instead of playing. I presume that it'll start playing after the download is finished, but I haven't had the patience.
  • Hi,
    We are aware of this issue, and will address it in an upcoming release. It's not trivial though, and wanted to get out a WP8 update as soon as we could.
    Thanks for understanding,
     
    András  
  • . .
  • Very awesome app! Just a few suggestions: please remove the splash screen, add suggestions as I type a website and make scrolling smoother. Otherwise, I really like this browser and I've just bought it too
  • Thanks for liking SurfCube! Unfortunately, we cannot remove the splash screen unless launch time can go below 1 second. We are at about 3 seconds now with the WP8 version. But - you haven't quit the app, it should relaunch immediately as long as it is still in memory. Suggestions for websites is on our todo list. I haven't seen any issues with scrolling on WP8, and barely any with WP7 - what kind of phone are you using and what site do you experience non-smooth scrolling?
  • Ok, if you can't remove the splashscreen, I think the splashscreen could look better (no offense).  It think it would look better if it was only the surfcube logo and the word surfcube; no slogan and "loading" word.  Basically make it look like the splashscreens you see on Windows 8 metro apps; they look clean and simple.
     
    As for the scrolling, it's not bad at all.  But I do notice it's not as "perfectly smooth" as the native IE browser.  I'm using the 920 and I notice it on all websites.  It's actually so minor that I barely notice it, but if you look closely, you do notice that it isn't as smooth at IE.
     
    Otherwise, I really like the app!  I actually went ahead and bought it and I'm using it as my default browser. 
  • Thanks for loving SurfCube! The reason the splashscreen has the loading... text on it is that we used to get bad ratings since the app loaded slowly (5+ seconds) on WP7, and people thought that we were deliberately showing the splash screen longer than needed in order to burn it in their minds...
  • I may just have to give this app a try. I'm an ex Android user used to lots of options and so this interests me for sure. Currently using the Lumia 920.
  • I know this is an old battle but, if it had flash support, I might try it...
     
    it sucks but, sites I use, still use flash for some things....I was flash would go away so I would not want/need it...
  • Even Adobe does not support Flash anymore on ANY mobile platform. Sorry, but it is just not feasible to implement Flash in any decent way for a small team - and even if we could do that, it would probably be useless on the phone due to differences between a mouse / keyboard and a touch screen.
  • How do you clear browser history
  • On the top face of the cube, swipe to "history". You will find the "delete history" button at the bottom.