In case you have been left out in the dark, Mobile Safari gained the Nitro JavaScript engine in iOS 4.3. The Nitro JavaScript engine in iOS 4.3 made Mobile Safari capable of loading JavaScript up to two times faster than Mobile Safari in iOS 4.2.1 could. One of the biggest beefs with third party Web browsers from Apple's App Store is that they lack this Nitro JavaScript engine because Apple doesn't allow the developers to tap into it.
If you’re a hardcore fan of iOS applications such as Facebook or Google Chrome, maybe it’s time you get some Nitro JavaScript love added into the mix to help increase your speed. A new jailbreak tweak called Nitrous by iOS developer Joe Jordan gives third party applications access to Apple’s Nitro JavaScript engine by adding the dynamic code-signing entitlement to third party applications.
Displayed above is a screenshot of the jailbreak tweak’s preferences pane, which can be found in the Settings application just after you install the tweak from Cydia. From the preferences pane, you can enable all of the third party applications you want to take advantage of the Nitro JavaScript engine. Turning them back off again will disable the Nitro JavaScript engine for the applications you turn off.
As shown above, the jailbreak tweak does increase your speeds by quite a good amount. The browser used in the example is Google Chrome for iOS and before installing the tweak, Google Chrome scored 11614.3 milliseconds in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test. After installing the tweak, the test benchmarked 3587.4 milliseconds, which is a substantial drop in loading time.
If you wouldn’t mind the extra performance boost that might help you load pages a second or two faster in third-party applications than the other guy, then you can grab Nitrous from the Cydia store right now for just 99¢.
Name: Nitrous
Price: 99¢
Version: 1.0-1
Requirements: iOS 5
Repo: BigBoss
Developer: Joe Jordan
Editor's Rating: 4/5
Sources: Cydia
Reply
