Database Info

::OFFICIAL:: Internet Browser Reviews

i made this thread to:
1)Discuss Mobile Browsers ONLY
2)Review These Browsers
3)Give Download Links To Them
4)Because We Needed It Lol
SO lets try to keep it organized on KEEP IT ON TOPIC. Dont spam my thread lol. Keep these rules in mind. Also, if a browser has been reviewed already, you CAN give it another review JUST MAKE SURE that you DONT have the same service as the reviewer did AND/OR you used a DIFFERENT data type.
Follow my simple rules and it should be all cool
Organization:
1)Browser Name
2)Phone Model and Service
3)Type of Data (EDGE, Wifi, 3G, etc)
4)Browser Review (and web pages tested)
5)Rating (1-5 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest)
6)Download Link
And well......Why make the thread if i dont intend on posting something. So here we go:
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Opera Mobile 9.5 (Buile 1004)
T-Mobile Wing (HTC Atlas) with...of course...T-Mobile
Using WiFi (high speed lol)
Well lets see, Ive used Opera Mini for a long time and i decided i needed an upgrade. Then i remember hearing that Opera Mobile 9.5 was leaked. So i visited my favorite torrent site, gave it a quick search, downloaded it (its only like 4-5mb so it took like 2 minutes for bittorent to finish it) and installed it on my phone. Opera Mobile 9.5 has an extremely nice UI and its easy to use. I like the fact that the page goes to full screen when i tap on the background and i can bring up th menu to change the settings, bookmark the page, etc all easily.I visited this site (30 seconds to fully load), Myspace.com (took 50 seconds to fully load), and Google.com (took 7 seconds to fully load). Also, at first (for myspace) it loaded a form of portal. It gave me the option to load the full page of myspace, or the mobile version. The portal took 9 seconds to fully load and the mobile version only took an extremely short 4 seconds to load.
Opera Mobile 9.5 gets a definate 5/5 from me. It was fast, easy to use, and its Opera lol you cant go wrong with this browser.
Unfortunately, i cant provide a download link. Its leaked, google it lol. Dont want to get in any kind of trouble
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Picsel Browser
T-Mobile Wing.....using T-Mobile
Using WiFi (of course)
Well welll well.......Its labled as "iPhone style web browser" in the herald forum. So i thought i would give it a try. It was actually a pretty decent browser. Easy to use, simple UI, and its speed was decent. Unfortunately it handles memory like a ***** and it got annoying after 20-30 minutes of browsing. But i still liked it. I tested this site (loaded in 39 seconds), myspace (loaded in 1 minute 33 seconds) and google (loaded in 15 seconds) But unfortunately, some of the pages were odd looking (myspace and this sites)
So enough said. Its a pretty nice browser but the memory control needs to be improved and loading big sites like this, myspace.....well basically any site with alot of links and/or images causes the page to come out weird. This browser gets a 4/5
Download Link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=329787 (SEE POST 1)
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Microsoft Internet Explorer Mobile A.K.A Pocket Internet Explorer A.K.A PIE
T-Mobile Wing.....do i need to even say the service again?
Wifi.....duh lol
Well here is the default browser your Windows Mobile device will come with. Not much to say. If you have ever used Internet Explorer, this one is no different. If your still using Internet Explorer.....something is definately wrong with you lol. Still testing the same 3 web sites. This sites (1 minute 4 seconds) myspace (1 minute 27 seconds AND IT DIDNT EVEN LOAD THE FULL PAGE.....WELL IT DID BUT YOU CANT SEE ANYTHING!!!!!!) and google (7 seconds)
And again, it loaded the myspace portal (taking 12 seconds to load that) the mobile page (in an amazing 5 seconds)
Well enough of that, lets give this browser a score......this browser gets a 2/5 (go figure )
Download Link:...............I wont even include it. Internet Explorer is that horrible of a browser. I have yet to try a worse browser (saving it for the 1/5 mark) but if i dont find one, this will get a 1/5
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well thats all the browser im doing for now

I find PIEplus vastly improves the default version. even makes it almost usable, apart from that ive tried all the mobile browsers and until firefox devs pull theyre finger out opera mobile beats the rest hands down and if it wasnt for a few limitations imposed by the fact that its java then operamini would be just about perfect.
I remember a hacked version of OM 3.1 which had ponyential back a year or 2 ago but 4.1 lacks some basic functions.
just my 2 cents

download links to any opera browsers?
im on a wing and all I currently have is pIE ;/

^^^^^
Here is the link to the Opera Mobile Browsers
http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/
The latest build is 8.65
Oh yeah P.S:
Just got Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 1184
And TomTom Navigator 7.459.9028 repack 2
And EVERY Spb Product
Free of course lol. Think of it as borowing their products. Why pay? They will make the money from some other sucker who doesnt know how to get them for free

Midian said:
^^^^^
Free of course lol. Think of it as borowing their products. Why pay? They will make the money from some other sucker who doesnt know how to get them for free
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because some people who work to provide you with these fabulous softs need to eat, too... Would you work for free..?

Demokiroxx said:
Because some people who work to provide you with these fabulous softs need to eat, too... Would you work for free..?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very true!

Demokiroxx said:
Because some people who work to provide you with these fabulous softs need to eat, too... Would you work for free..?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i already do. lol. i volunteer to work in anything in my church. Ive subbed for choire members, for band members, janitors, etc
And i have a new summer job that pretty much rapes me of my money with all these stupid charges. Even though the minimum wage increase happened, im still walking about with practically nothing.
and food is soooo over rated. Get some kiva juice. Its made to "fill you up" even though its just juice/shake/whatever you got and its only like $5. You can easily live off of $5 a day........... ive done that for a solid month.
but still, none the less they will make it up.

Charts showing Instant Messenger power usage...

Hey everyone... Recently I've been looking for an instant messenger that I can leave on and have the smallest impact on battery possible. I looked around online and couldn't find any definite information... so I tested it out myself.
I tested Agile messenger v84, fring v3.24.3.157, IM+ v4.58, Jive IM v0.9.1.0, Mundu v4.0231, Palringo v08.04.29 and Slick v0.42
I have a Cingular 8525 running Wm6.0. 3g is on, hsdpa is OFF, screen brightness 100%, battery charge 100%, on usb power. Push email is turned off and I have today agenda, gprs monitor, phonealarm and acbtaskman running.
I soft reset the device and logged in to yahoo, aim, msn and google and measured the data usage and averaged the mA drain sitting idle for 10 minutes without having the device go to sleep.
Here is what I got.
Baseline (no im):
test1 10minutes - 0.00 data, 92.9 avg mA, 25.7mb memory used
test1 chart - no chart sorry
Agile:
test1 10minute - 0.07mb data, 179.7 avg mA, 27.4mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen005.png
Fring:
test1 10minute - 0.03mb data, 105.95 avg mA, 28.5mb memory used
test2 10minute - 0.03mb data, 111.19 avg mA, 28.2mb memory used
test3 20minute - 0.12mb data, 106.35 avg mA, 28.7mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen006.png
test2 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen012.png
test3 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen015.png
IM+:
test1 10minute - 0.06mb data, 231.26 avg mA, 26.7mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen009.png
JiveIM:
test1 10minute - 0.01mb data, 122.63 avg mA, 30.1mb memory used
test2 20minute - 0.04mb data, 157.68 avg mA, 32.3mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen007.png
test2 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen014.png
Mundu:
test1 10minute - 0.18mb data, 277.31 avg mA, 32.1mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen011.png
Palringo:
test1 10minute - 0.02mb data, 146.16 avg mA, 25.3mb memory used
test2 20minute - 0.02mb data, 138.88 avg mA, 25.5mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen008.png
test2 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen013.png
Slick:
test1 10minute - 0.25mb data, 226.44 avg mA, 28.4mb memory used
test1 chart - http://geekmatrix.com/battery/Screen010.png
Conclusions:
Agile messenger - Agile used to be my favorite im client until it went commercial. I haven't used it since then. I always did like the features it offered, but I didn't find it worth the price they were asking per month. Now that I can quantify it's power usage... I find that it is right in the middle of the pack. Overall it would drain the battery less than IM+, Slick and Mundu, but it's still not low enough to leave on all the time.
Fring - what can I say? I was very surprised and impressed by this application. Very low additional drain on the battery. Connections available with twitter, skype, gizmo and any other sip based voip. Not too mention I can use my GrandCentral account with Gizmo to make free Voip phone calls to landlines and cell phones (very very cool!). I have decided that this is going to be my everyday chat program. There are certainly no bells and whistles... you can't set your status like you can with some of the other apps... you can't send files... there is no message history, but it allows you to keep it on all day with minimal impact to your battery performance. That works for me... and hopefully in the future they will make some of these essential additions (hopefully without changing the power consumption).
IM+ - This was an old staple for me for a long time. I used this chat client exclusively when Agile Messenger went to a pay per month model. I never really understood why it sucked my battery down so fast, which turned into the reason that I rarely logged in to chat from my phone. However... now I can visually see what was going on behind the scenes. IM+ likes battery power more than I do obviously... and has no issues with putting me in the inconvenient situation of needing to find a place to charge up. See ya later IM+ ... as a recognized leader in this particular sector of mobile software... you fail.
JiveIM - Jive is currently in beta and seems to be a very promising chat client. I still think it has a bit of a way to go as far as features are concerned, but it's got a good start and though it's not a battery sipper... it is far from the battery glutton that say Mundu is. I will keep my eye on this one as the providers are actively developing it.
Mundu - OMG! That's all I have to say to sum it up. In 10 minutes of sitting idel... this app managed to transfer 1351 packets. Sure some of those packets were used to check my gmail... and I'm sure it has some other nice features, but c'mon - 1351 packets?
I will admit I didn't look into it too much to find out what all the benefits were to Mundu, but ultimately I figured it wouldn't matter because there was no way I would use it. Just sitting idle this app is like being on a connected phone call. This is really a program that is greedy for juice... and given the opportunity, would suck a battery dry before you had a chance to chat with anyone. Mundu - You are the weakest link... goodbye.
Palringo - I think Palringo is great. It's decent on battery - not great, but if I were ranking these apps... Palringo would be 2nd for battery efficiency and 1st in features and usability. I figure I will keep this one installed and use both Palringo and Fring as my chat clients of choice.
Slick - Finally there is Slick. Made by Lonely Cat, the same ones to bring you ProfiMail, there was a lot to like right off the bat with it's simple clean design. Nice features like native file sending and typing notification... there was a lot to like about this program. But after about 30 minutes of using it... I realized while it's on my battery floats like a cannonball (ref. damien rice).
================
I know this is not 100% definitive by any means, but it's a good place to start I think. I couldn't find any information so I figured I'd do some investigating myself. Hope it helps someone out there.
** Note... I was going to try Nimbuzz, but it wouldn't start. Also... OctroTalk was a possibility, but I didn't like how it uses transports for Yahoo, Aim and MSN... So I skipped it.
Post some comments... let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Mark

It's funny you mention "transports" for AIM and others. I assume you mean the messages go through a third party server before they are sent to the AIM server.
As far as I know, IM+ and the official AIM client are the only instant messenger programs for Pocket PC that connect directly to the AIM servers. For all the others, I could either not find information about whether they did, or they mentioned channeling the messages through their own servers.
In my opinion, direct connections, phone friendliness, and notifications are most important. IM+ excels in these areas, and I have not been able to find another client that comes close.

Jason_25 said:
It's funny you mention "transports" for AIM and others. I assume you mean the messages go through a third party server before they are sent to the AIM server.
As far as I know, IM+ and the official AIM client are the only instant messenger programs for Pocket PC that connect directly to the AIM servers. For all the others, I could either not find information about whether they did, or they mentioned channeling the messages through their own servers.
In my opinion, direct connections, phone friendliness, and notifications are most important. IM+ excels in these areas, and I have not been able to find another client that comes close.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand what you are saying about direct connections. Im sure agile, jiveim, palringo and probably most are server based connections to the im accounts. However with OctroTalk I believe it is a Jabber transport which feels a little clunky and requires you to authorize people all over again.
As for the direct connection... I havent found that to be so important especially when you consider the amount of data and mA thrashing that it seems to do.
In either case I just figured a chat app that doesnt run the battery down is a program that I will actually use. Doesnt matter about direct connections and what not if you cant maintain a presence for an extended period time. At least that is my experience.
Fring seems to be the best option for me... but of course ymmv.
Mark

Fring FTW!

Did you try the hacked version of AIM 2.0? That's what I use and I would like to know how much battery it uses in comparison to these programs.
If you need the CAB i'll post it here

Sirgatory said:
Did you try the hacked version of AIM 2.0? That's what I use and I would like to know how much battery it uses in comparison to these programs.
If you need the CAB i'll post it here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry... I use all of the major im services so anything that is not a multi service messenger didn't make it on my list of programs to test. I suggest you test it yourself and you can compare them to these results, maybe that would help you?

nice review thanks for taking the time to do it i'm currenlty a im+ user been using them for about 2 years or so now
i've liked the program but i've been interested in checking out jiveim one of my friends uses it on his blackberry and raves about how good it is and from your power test it looks like jiveim uses less resources
i do like fringe though that looks like it will be a good prospect also i'll probably check that out too
i also have a grandcentral account and free calls sounds like a plus

[Q] are WM apps capped from using 25mb+ RAM?

hey fellow XDA WM devs and users and forum people,
Greetings,
so I am asking whether not WM devices are capped on using 25+mb of RAM for each app...
If so, can I assume that this is the reason why we cannot have stunning graphic games just like the other compatitor platforms (iOS, Android) ??
also, a reply tweet from one of my favourite game dev:
http://twitter.com/Isotope244/status/16152606483
any comments or answers are greatly apprerciated
Kind Regards

Processes in winmo can only access 32 mb of virtual memory (with a max of 32 processes). There's normally at least 7 mb or so of memory allocated to dll's for all processes (sometimes more). 32-7=25 mb. I think that's what the developer is talking about. This is changing with WP7, where all process will have full access to 1 GB of virtual memory (limited by the amount of availabe RAM).

Farmer Ted said:
Processes in winmo can only access 32 mb of virtual memory (with a max of 32 processes). There's normally at least 7 mb or so of memory allocated to dll's for all processes (sometimes more). 32-7=25 mb. I think that's what the developer is talking about. This is changing with WP7, where all process will have full access to 1 GB of virtual memory (limited by the amount of availabe RAM).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks farmer tad for your reply....
now its all clear to me
thanks.
(oh lol... then what's thhe point of phones having all those extra RAM while the OS cannot use them, at all?)

The Price of getting mobile versions written

Hello,
Bit of background...
I built and run taxiroute which is a taxi fare calculator for the UK.
It's been up and running as a website only since 2008 and will hit £13m of enquiries this year.
The problem is that it only currently exists as a website and I think it would get much more traffic if I could get mobile versions of it launched.
To enable the mobile apps to plug into my system I have written a fully functional SOAP/XML Webservice which contains all the business logic for the system. This means that the mobile apps will have very little code in them as all they have to do is call my webservice.
So, with my API under my arm I started to approach a couple of mobile development companies with a view of getting the apps built.
I managed to find a development company in London who appear pretty unique as they have custom software which enables them to write the app once and port it across to all the other platforms. Which sounds perfect.
My problem is getting my head around the price they are asking for the development of the apps. They are asking for about £18k.
The work I see them having to do is the following:
1. Develop the design of the screens and graphics.
2. Develop the screens to talk to my API.
3. Get the application into the app stores for each platform.
To me, it appears a little excessive and I was looking for opinions really?
I love the idea of getting the one company to do all the development but I cannot seem to work out how they think it's going to be 36 days work, guessing that they charge £500 a day for developers etc...
Any thoughts?
Thanks
Trev

Looks like you have already done the main graft getting the webservice to work.
In .NET CF use an XmlTextReader class to go get it.
Substitute "here" and "there" with the real values your service expects.
Code:
XmlTextReader xtr = new XmlTextReader("http://www.yoursite.com/yourservice.xml?from=here&to=there");
xtr.Read();
// Until you get to the return value line(s) when xtr.Name will contain the result.
// Do with it what you will.........
xtr.Close();

stephj said:
Looks like you have already done the main graft getting the webservice to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hopefully so. even written my own windows mobile version to double check functionality. looks crap but works perfect.
£18k. wish i had it.
trev

[Q] Is there an XDA made app for Weight Watchers?

My Wife and I are doing this Weight Watchers thing. I've found THIS (post #5) to calculate WW points; I am wondering if there is an app that XDA knows about that will keep track of points.
I have also found THIS, but it is for Android. I am using M$ Excel to keep track now, but something like the last link would be more ideal.

Hey there,
Never heard of an "app" for wm so to speak, but WW do this as you've probably seen.
There does seem to be several progs that use WW method/points system such as seen here for example.
Google bought up this (which you probably did too )
Cheers.

I too would like to find a calculator for weight watchers for windows mobile. They support apps for iphone and android, and they even say soon for windows 7. But I cannot find anything for windows mobile 6. It looks like weight watchers is not going to support windows mobile. They changed the points system very recently, so everything I find is based on the old system. The new system is not based on calories, fat, and fiber. It uses fat, fiber, carbs, and protien. Hopefully soon someone will make a calculator for the new points system.