URLs not working in Safari or Mail after iOS 9.2.1

I had none of these problems until a couple of days after I upgraded from IOS 9.2.1 to 9.3 last week on my iPhone 6S, 64 GB. Links in most browsers, mail & many apps don't work & also freeze up most of them. I cleared the website data & history in Safari browser, which did nothing. Then I disabled JavaScript in Safari & links worked in Safari browser for about 1/2 day, but then stopped working again. It was no help what-so-ever with using links in mail. The mail app just freezes whenever I tap on a link.

Another browser I tried, Sleipner, works like a charm. If the link is on the same website, tapping the link brings you right to that page. If the link is to another website, just press & hold the link & it opens another page alongside others at the bottom of the screen, then just tap on that page or any other one that you want to open. Sleipner opens websites pretty fast too, which is nice.

As far as mail, that app is useless now. So far I've had success opening links from mail accessed through Gmail app. Thanks to those who also suggested using the Outlook app.

All that said, this problem is obviously a nightmare for many iPhone, iPad users, and for what Apple charges for their 'superior' products, it's totally unacceptable for these assinine problems to even be happening in the first place, nevermind how they are dragging their butts to fix these issues that basically render their devises useless.

This works. Guys, just uninstall the booking.com app and restart the phone.

Problem solved!

I don't have the booking.com app on my phone - never have. Seems that a 'fix' that works for some people doesn't work for others. There's no apparent rhyme or reason to any of this, or at least not anything that some like me who are not tech-savy enough to grasp.

Unfortunately, some of us never had booking.app installed, and we still have the same issue. Likewise, some have been seeing this same issue since prior to 9.2.1. I am one of those people. It is so widespread that it is not associated with a specific iOS nor a specific app. it is a good thing for you that you've identified the problem (booking.com app) as a culprit in your situation. Perhaps this is the case for some others but certainly not for all. We will just have to try whatever workaround (if any) that works for individual situations, and wait for Apple engineers to deploy a fix that addresses this issue for everyone.

I need to add that my problem started right after downloading booking.com app. But the app has been removed and the problem is not gone yet.

I have the same problem reported in spite of still being on 9.2.1on both iPad air 2 and iPhone 6s. I have tried all the suggested fixes and the only one that helps a bit is disabling Java. Basically my iPad is only useful as a doorstop at the moment. To add insult to injury some of the links which don't work (in spite of disabling Java) are posting in this forum and contacting Apple support, is this Apple's way of reducing the number of cases referred to them?!

My own fix about deleting the booking.com app didn't finally work, my phone is still not opening any links.

:-(

I am having the same problem with my iPhone 6 plus. Apple, when are you going to fix this big bug????? This bug has rendered my iPhone almost unusable.

A lot of these 'fixes' turn out to be short-lived. Ridiculous. What's going on, Apple?!!!

"my iPad is only useful as a doorstop at the moment".

You hit that nail right on the head!

Rollback to 9.0, Apple.....so you can fix this issue. No more point releases until, you are sure everything is working.

Completely hopeless - iPad and iPhone rendered ineffectual for internet use. Tried many of the workarounds suggested in this forum and on other news stories:-

Deleting Booking.com app - nope

Hard reset - nope

Try different search engines - nope

Switch to airplane mode - turn off reboot etc etc - nope

Turn off javascript - hardly helpful since most websites use this for their functionality - nope

Apple need to communicate on this issue and get a fix sorted - I'm sure they;re trying by the way but even so....a bit of communication would be helpful!

Same problem hit me. Mail locks up when I click links and links in Safari plain don't work. This is a huge pain in the butt. I am on 9.3 On an iPhone 6S..!

+1

APPLE NEEDS TO TALK TO US!! GIVE US A PROGRESS STATUS OR SOMETHING. Really proud to be part of the Apple "family"...

Looks like the media is picking it up. There an article up on Arstechnica detailing the problem, and the cause is in fact Booking.com.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/03/poorly-behaved-app-causing-crashes-and-link -problems-for-some-ios-9-x-users/