Database Info

Emulating HP’s calculators on Windows Mobile

Hewlett-Packard’s calculator series, while in no way as popular or standardized as the emulators of Texas Instruments (please see THIS for the one and only COMPLETE overview of emulating the latter calculators on Windows Mobile), indeed have their place under the sun. What is more, they have way better emulators under Windows Mobile that TI.
Note that, as with the above-linked TI article, you may want to read this roundup and actively follow the for example Wiki links. Higher-end HP calculators (as with those of TI) can easily be better than any native calculator and/or unit converter on Windows Mobile (WM for short), let them be traditional touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC's (Windows Mobile 6 Professional / Classic models) or no-touchscreen Smartphones (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) devices. Furthermore, which should also be taken into account, the majority of these emulators can freely be used (as opposed to mostly commercial native WM calculators) – with the highest-end HP models even when you don’t actively own the original calculator. I provide you with all the necessary manual links so that you can easily find out more information on a given model – that is, you don’t even need to own the (original) manuals. Hats off to HP (as opposed to TI) for being so generous and providing the ROM image of their best calculators and allowing for using them even if you don’t own the original calculator!
As usual with most of my roundups, you simply won't find a better, more thorough source of the subject. This is particularly true of my first-hand information on MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) compliance. That is, if you're lucky enough to have a newer, high-resolution (QVGA) Smartphone and look for a decent calculator compatible with your device, make sure you read this article - you won't find "hacking" tips like these anywhere else.
Let’s start with the most popular 48/49 series, which many consider even better than the top-of-the-line Texas Instruments calculator series, the TI-89.
1. Emulating HP-38G/39/40G/48GX/48SX/49G
The HP-48 and HP-49 series are no doubt the best calculators ever manufactured by HP. They are not only graphing calculators, but also support CAS (read THIS for more info on this very subject). Should you want, in addition to, say, the Wiki pages, a guide to the different models and their target audience, also check out hpcalc.org’s Calculator Buying Guide.
Also note that, in 2000, HP ACO allowed the use of the HP38, 39, 40, 48, 49 ROM's even if you're not an owner of this calculator type (see for example THIS for references); that is, you are free to use this emulator even if you don’t have the original calculator(s). This is great news, particularly given that the manuals of the calculators are also available online.
Fortunately, the Pocket PC emulation of all these models is very strong (no bugs, hi-res VGA support, object export/import supported on Windows Mobile too etc.), as opposed to that of TI calculators.
1.1 Download, installation, configuration
First, you must download and install the original Emu48CE (alternate download HERE; homepage HERE. Here, click Emu48CE on the left and, then, Downloads at the top.) Emu48 is THE emulator for these models. It’s so good some have even tried to sell it on Handango (needless to say, it’s free).
Make sure you install all the ROM’s you want to use on the when prompted as, by default, it only installs the 39G ROM’s as can be seen in HERE. Note that you MUST untick the “Install Emu48 on PDA (required)” checkbox as can be seen in here (it also shows I’ve enabled installing all the other ROM’s). (If you forget to untick this checkbox, don’t try to click the newly created GNU Emu48CE icon in Start/Programs. Instead, just go to Start/Settings/System, click Remove Programs and select "GNU Emu48CE V1.23". Click Remove and, then, Yes.)
Note that the ROM files are installed by separate CAB installers; therefore, you won’t want to automatically dismiss the “Please check your mobile device screen” dialog of the desktop ActiveSync installer before the installation of each module is finished to avoid messed-up installment (for example, ROM images installed to the built-in storage instead of the storage card because the default setting under WM5+ is the latter).
Now, go to the Christoph Giesselink’s (the leader of the emulation project) homepage HERE. You’ll need to download at least (two if you have a QVGA device) two files:
E48MB113 (should the direct link be broken, just go back to the homepage and look for something like “The executable package of Emu48 v1.13 for Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003 (SE) and 5.0 (ARM platform).”, where 1.13 will be increased.
the ZIP file linked at the end of the description of the same program (“Already patched KML files (from Emu48CE without bitmaps) can be found here.”)
Decompress the contents of both ZIP files. Copy the decompressed files to the home directory of the emulator (it’s \Program Files\Emu48 when installed to the main storage – note that you will want to prefer installing the emulator to storage cards on models with little built-in storage because the ROM images take up a lot of memory). Make sure you overwrite ALL the original KML files!
Now, on a file explorer tool (for example, the built-in File Explorer) go to the same director right on your handheld and tap the just, manually transferred Emu48.ARM.CAB. This will create a new, Emu48 icon in Start/Programs (with WM5+ devices; with pre-WM5 ones, it’ll be right in the Start menu) – you can tap it right away.
Upon starting the emulator (or, when you choose File / New), you’ll be offered the choice of selecting a new so-called 'KML script'. I’ll elaborate on these scripts a bit more later; now, suffice it to say that they tell Emu48 which ROM to load and what keyboard bitmap to use. Note that the default files are optimized for QVGA (I’ll elaborate on VGA issues later) and most of the titles also contain the emulated model version; that is, it’ll be pretty easy to select one. (Of course, you can always experiment with the alternatives as the more popular and recent calculator models (48/49) have more than one KML file, all with different layout. That is, do experiment with them - it's certainly worth it.)

Let’s assume you want to emulate the 49G; therefore, let’s select one of the alternatives, “HP49G for Emu48”:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Now, click the OK button at the top right of the dialog (to the left of the X button). If nothing seems to happen, repeat this. You’ll be presented the results of the script compilation; if everything is OK, you’ll also see no error messages at the bottom of the scrollable text area and another OK button. The GUI loads and you can start working right away.
The KML script compilation process may encounter problems, particularly if you download additional KML scripts. You will want to do the latter to, for example, have a high-resolution VGA button layout on your VGA handheld, not just a low-resolution, ugly, blocky QVGA one. The two most common errors are the lack of the ROM file to load and the lack of the keyboard bitmap files:
When the ROM is missing, you will get the error message “This KML Script doesn't specify the ROM to use, or the ROM could not be loaded.”. If you don’t want to do some blind guesswork, just look into the associated KML file (with “HP49G for Emu48”, it’s in the file hp49.kml – just look for the “Title” at the top of each KML file to quickly find the associated source file) and look for the section defining the ROM; that is, the Rom parameter in the Global group at the top:
This states that, for the KML file to work, it needs a "ROM.49G" file in the same directory. Look around for the file – for example, reinstall it using the Emu48CE installer.
Missing bitmap files, for example, the lack of a “hp49.bmp.png” file in the home directory of Emu48, will result in receiving the compile error “Cannot Load Bitmap hp49.BMP” Fixing this problem, in general, only involves reinstallation and/or Googling for the given BMP layout file.
Finally, you may also encounter warnings (NOT fatal errors! That is, the compilation succeeds!) like “Patch BEEP.49G is Wrong or Missing”. These warnings can safely be ignored as these beep files only add beeping capability to the emulator – something you don’t necessarily want. If you DO need these files, however, you may find them all in the official, free HP SDK (details HERE, should the direct link refuse working) and copy emu\beep.48 / emu\BEEP.49G to the home directory of the emulator. Note that, alternatively, you can also find these beep files in the additional VGA skins, explained in the following section.
1.2 Additional KML files (a must for VGA users!)
The default keyboard skins coming with Emu48CE are QVGA only. If you have a VGA device, you’ll need to download the following skins:
Wombat3 for 48 SX and GX
HP49VGA for 49g
Just unZIP these files and transfer all the KML and bitmap files to the home directory of the emulator. After this, upon selecting a new KML file, you’ll also be shown these files as can be seen in HERE (Beemer’s 49G skin) and HERE (the Wombat3 GX skin). In action, they are indeed very cool as can be seen for example in HERE and HERE. Much prettier than low-res QVGA skins, aren’t they?
Note that if you don’t like the original (white) Wombat3 48GX script, you can also give a try to the dark, much more "natural" Juan Pardo scripts HERE. It’s not only more “natural”, but also contains some new, useful buttons in the upper left area of the screen. Example screenshot HERE.
There are several Landscape skins too (unfortunately, not in VGA – that is, for example HTC Universal / Athena users are left in cold. By default, the VGA skins aren’t Landscape-compliant.)
1.3 Usage
After all the hurdles of the installation (and, if you’re a VGA user, the additional installation of VGA skins), you can rejoice: the rest is much easier and there are no known problems with the emulator running on a Pocket PC (WM Classic / Professional), unlike with the TI emulator.
If, on the other hand, you only have a MS Smartphone, don’t expect much: while (after manually extracting and installing the files) the emulator itself starts, you can’t go any further from the KML selector screen (tested on the QVGA HTC Vox in both orientation modes; screenshot HERE and HERE).
The emulators can be used in exactly the same way as the original calculator. The only difference is the lack of the “physical” expansion like SD cards / connectivity. However, there is connectivity emulation in the emulator.
1.3.1 What if you don’t know the original calculators?
The documentation / manuals of all these models are available online. See the following links:
49G+ / 48II docs
It’s also linked from this generic page, with manuals of previous models too (note that the HP39 link doesn’t work; use the one HERE instead). I especially recommend the HP48 manual HERE if you’d like to more closely learn more about the system. Note that, however, you don’t necessarily need to read it; my tutorial will be sufficient to get you started and even load third party apps into the emulator. Only check it out if you really want to learn more about these excellent calculators.

1.3.2 Uploading third-party software in the emulator
Get the software title, start the emulator, make sure it doesn’t do anything and, in the desktop version grab the binary distribution (it’s, in most cases, ends in .lib file) to the emulator image. In the Windows Mobile version, select Edit / Load Object and select the file. Note that as, on Windows Mobile, Emu48 uses the system-level, default file dialog box, you may want to put your files in either \My Documents or in the root / the first subdirectory of your storage cards in order to be seen. Alternatively, you may want to install Mad Programmer’s free, excellent File Dialog Changer as is explained in for example HERE. In here, I’ll go on with showing you desktop Windows screenshots; after loading an object, it must be saved into the local memory using exactly the same steps as on the desktop Windows.
In this example, I show how the single PSYCH13.lib file of the HP-48GX version of Psychro needs to be deployed.
To make absolutely sure a given program file can be deployed in the emulator with simple (object) drag and drop, look into the beginning of the file. If it is indeed binary and starts with HPHP as for example in this example:
then, it’s compatible with this transfer model. (Otherwise, for other types of resources like additional GIF files with, say, games like the 48 port of Prince of Persia, you must use the MUCH more complicated terminal emulation. I don’t elaborate on the latter as most math libraries – the files that you most probably want to run, as opposed to games – come as standard LIB files deployable this way.)
After dragging, you’ll see something like THIS.
Now, you will need to store the uploaded program in one of the so-called “ports”. It’s how HP refers to different memory types. Port 2 is, for example, the emulated SD cards in the 49G+ (and the 50G), the highest-end 49-series model(s). With other devices, only port 0 and 1 are accessible; of the two, you’ll want to use the latter.
To do this, just press 1 and, then, STO (the second button in the second row on the 48GX). The stack list will be cleared, showing the object was indeed saved.
Now, switch off the device (the green button and ON; both are at the bottom right) and, then, again on (the lower left ON button). Press the green button again and, then, 2 (LIBRARY). You should see the title “PSYCH” in the title area at the bottom (also see where the mouse cursor stands in the screenshot!). You can click it (two times) to start it (screenshot of the running app HERE).
You can add a lot of other apps in the same way: when no program runs, just drag-and-drop the program, click 1 and STO, switch off and on the machine and voila: the new program is ready to run and listed in the Library section, next to earlier deployed libraries (screenshot of running HERE).
1.3.3 Downloading additional software
The best source of additional software is the archives of hpcalc.org. See THIS for HP48 and THIS for HP49 software.
Just an example of some famous libraries directly deployable on a 48 (from the Symblic Math category)
Erable 3.024
ALG48 4.2
In addition, there are other pages to acquire software from; for example, that of Savage Transcendental Studios. This page contains some additional database / Japanese studying 48GX/49G(+) apps. Some of them are simple libraries (for example, the 48G version of Kana Tutor and Psychro), which can be loaded straight into the desktop emulator via simple drag-and-dropping and, to the Windows Mobile one, by simple object importing. These programs are also accompanied with PDF files explaining how this needs to be done.
2. HP-41; dedicated website
There is only one, free emulator to emulate these old, alphanumeric calculators, eV41. It’s currently at version 0.93 and it’s highly unlikely it’ll be developed further (it was last modified over five years ago). Not that it’d be THAT important: for example, it supports loading user code even in current form.
Note that in order to access the WM version, you’ll need to register yourself! Also note that this distro also contains the desktop Windows emulator.
Fortunately, using this emulator is pretty straightforward and there are no known problems / bugs running it on any platform, except for the lack of Landscape (don’t try relying on scrolling because, as with the TI emulator, it’ll result in bitmap problems as can be seen in HERE) and Smartphone (a “hacked” version of ev41 doesn’t find some DLL) support.

3. HP17B/17BII/19BII/27S/28S/42S: emu42
(current desktop and Pocket PC version: 1.09 and 1.08, respectively; note that the page at hp42s.com lists OLD versions. HERE is the manual.)
As with later calculators (the above-introduced emu48 and the HP38/39/40/48/49), there is an all-in-one emulator for the HP 17B, 17BII, 27S, 28S (1988, semi-graphical: 137*32), 42s (weaker Wiki page HERE; released in 1989; still WAY worse than the TI-89 – for example, no real graphing).
It uses exactly the same approach to KML files / skinning as emu48; that is, if you do read the emu48-related first chapter, then, you won’t have problems deploying for example new, additional skins from the homepage (for example, the VGA 42S skin, SKN42SMV - since version 1.02, it also supports VGA resolution). Fortunately, as opposed to Emu48, it requires no tricks when installing – no need to manually copying KML files etc.
Note that, unlike with Emu48CE, you must download the ROM’s from your calculators manually – they aren’t available on the Web (don’t even try to run a Web search for the ROM names in the KML files.) If this is a problem and you need to emulate the 42s, I have some great news for you: there is another 42s emulator, Free42, which does not require a ROM image.
4. HP42s: Free42 1.4.36.
As has already been mentioned, as opposed to Emu42 discussed in the previous chapter, this emulator does not require a ROM image and may be used even if you aren’t a rightful owner of the original emulator.
There are two versions of the emulator: decimal and binary. The latter is much faster but, because of the internal representation differences, may not work with some legacy applications. If this is not a problem, install the binary version (copy and execute it there to install). Also see the section “What's the deal with the "Decimal" and "Binary"?” in the README.txt coming enclosed in the ZIP archive. The two versions can co-exist without problems on the same machine and, therefore, you can always go back to the decimal version, should a given application refuse running.
(the same with the “realistic” skin, which is pretty blurred because of the low resolution)
Note that, as with the ROM’s, the original, official manual of the 42s isn’t available on the Web either (as opposed to the 39G/40G (CAS)/41C/48G/49G+ series with manuals online); however, there’s an unofficial ‘fan’ manual HERE. The latter manual is very easy to understand – actually, I’ve found it much easier to comprehend than HP’s official manual.
Compatibility-wise, you can use the numeric keys of devices with built-in keyboard. It’s not compatible with the Landscape mode. It’s capable of importing / exporting programs. And, finally, good news for QVGA Smartphone users: if you copy the executable file(s) (after manually extracting it/them from the CAB file(s)) to your phone, it’ll run flawlessly. The numeric (phone) keys will work OK; for the rest of the keys to access, you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper. Example screenshot or it, running on my HTC Vox / s710 (the cursor is that of SPHelper):
Of course, this only applies to QVGA Smartphones - traditional (176*220) models will only show part of the skin and are, consequently, useless.
5. HP-16C
This calculator, mainly meant for computer programmers needing for example binary / hexa conversions, was manufactured between 1982 and 1989. Also see THIS for an intro to this model. It only has one emulator, CP16 (direct download links HERE); the current version is 0.326.
Installing and using this emulator is pretty easy: you download the above-linked ZIP file, extract cp16_ppc.exe from it, transfer it to your Windows Mobile device and start it from File Explorer (you can, of course, put a link to it into \Windows\Start Menu\Programs).
Compatibility-wise, it’s not Smartphone-compliant. It has built-in support for Landscape (View / Landscape); for it to work, you must start the calculator in Portrait mode because the emulator only rotates the GUI for itself, not on the OS level. This also means you won’t be able to use it in left-handed Landscape mode (the native mode for the Universal, Wizard, TyTN / Hermes and all other Pocket PC’s with a slide-out keyboard) unless you use a third-party hack to rotate the Portrait screen with 180 degrees before starting.

6. HP-10B Plus (business), HP-12C (financial; is still being manufactured (since 1981)) and HP-15C (advanced scientific)
I elaborate on these three calculator models in the same chapter because they are emulated by very similar, commercial emulators by Lygea Calculators. They are self-standing applications meaning you won't need to hunt for / download ROM images.
These emulators are as follows:
Pocket 10B SE Business Calculator 2.0; ($19.95) (WM6 VGA screenshot)
Pocket 12C SE Financial Calculator 1.61; $23.95 (WM6 VGA screenshot)
Pocket 15C SE Scientific Calculator 1.22; $20.95; WM6 VGA screenshot:
Using and the compatibility / features of these three emulators are pretty similar. For example, all of them support the Landscape orientation (example of the 10B emulator HERE) and use hi-res on VGA devices and, generally, look “cool”.
Note that all these emulators store their resolution-dependent resource DLL’s into \Windows, which isn’t the best news for users of some non-native WM5 models updated to WM5; for example, the HP iPAQ hx4700. Unfortunately, relocating these files to the app’s home directory won’t work (haven’t tested the same with relocating to another directory on the System Path - it might work).
Smartphone compliance-wise, the hacked (EXE + DLL’s in \Windows) version, unfortunately, doesn’t display the three bottom icons for going further (and clicking around won’t help either). That is, while you can enter the reg. number (with a cursor emulator like SPHelper), you just can’t go further. This means no (hackable) Smartphone compliance.
6.1 Pocket BizCalc by Odyssey Computing, Inc. 4.0.09
The 12C is also emulated by Pocket BizCalc by Odyssey Computing, Inc. It’s pretty OK and considerably cheaper ($14.95) (but much uglier, non-Landscape-compliant and not making advantage of hi-res resolutions) than the Lygea emulator.
Note that Michu’s Emupage only lists the H/PC and the Palm-size PC versions. You won’t want to get any of them: the H/PC version has major screen rendering problems (for example, the original LCD screen is invisible; see THIS and THIS if interested) and the latter is MIPS / SH3-only; that is, it won’t work on ARM devices, meaning any PPC2k2+ Pocket PC’s manufactured in the last 5-6 years.
Also see HPC:Factor’s review HERE if interested.
Smartphone compatbility-wise, after manually extracting and transferring the pbizcalc.exe file to the QVGA smartphone, it’s more or less usable. However, the right and the bottom side of the GUI will be hidden. This, unfortunately, means the multiply, addition, substraction, division and addition operations (along with some more advanced memory operations) won’t be available to “click” via a cursor emulator like SPHelper. (Screenshot HERE)

7. HP-10B II (Business; Wiki stub)
A similar (but definitely weaker – see below!) calculator, Moravia Advanced Financial Calculator 1.0 (direct Emupage download link; can’t be found on PenReader’s homepage any more), is available (but, given that PenReader doesn’t seem to support it any more, it’s rather dubious whether it’s worth paying for).
As can be seen, this calculator is definitely inferior to the original one – just compare the functionality it offers to that of the original (see the buttons in the screenshot above and those of the originals at the MyCalcDB page. It’s not a 10B emulator either (see the original page HERE).
Smartphone compliance-wise, if you extract the one and only EXE file from the original CAB file, it’ll run flawlessly on QVGA models in Portrait mode as can be seen in the following screenshot (just press the Action button when you’re shown the license agreement to get rid of it):
Unfortunately, you must use a cursor emulator even for inputting numbers – the numeric keys won’t work. And, of course, don’t expect compatibility with traditional 176*220 Smartphones either because of the skin size (screenshot).
8. What next?
This is the second instalment in my thorough article series on Windows Mobile calculators, the one on Texas Instruments calculators being the first. I'll soon publish the third instalment on native (non-emulator) Windows Mobile titles. Stay tuned
9. Other discussions of HP emulators
Some links for readers wanting to know what others think about the emulators.
Hp 48g/48g+/48gx/49g/49g+/49gx
Tutorial: HP48G calculator on your Axim.
Emu98CE; also quickly elaborates on emulating other HP models
Engineering Software
HP48 Emulator with 2003?
Cool! HP48GX Emulater
RPN Calculator (also discusses other, earlier HP models)
Need a recommendation for a calculator (mostly on other, non-HP models)
Graphing calculator - advice?? (mostly on TI’s calculators)
good scientific calculator... (generic)
Graphing Calculator for Axim? (generic)
Calculator Software
Math apps! (Calc. Emulators, Plotting, Physics, etc.) - PLease! (generic; note that the VGA 49 link doesn’t work any more)
Calculators (general; mostly about TI)

Browsing the Web on MS Smartphone (WM Standard) devices & Review of Opera Mini 4 beta

Browsing the Web on MS Smartphone (WM Standard) devices & Review of Opera Mini 4 beta
UPDATE (08/17/2007): a new version is in the brand new, general Smartphone forum HERE. That is, go there to read the latest version of the article. I, however, keep this version of the original article because of the responses.
(end of update)
In my recently-published, well-known Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible I’ve elaborated on how Pocket PC’s can be used to browse the Web. Please make sure you DO read the review even if you don’t have a Pocket PC. You will learn a LOT from there and, in addition, I do NOT elaborate on many questions like Web standards compliance or additional Opera Mini features in here. In the current review, I “only” elaborate on questions ONLY concerning the MS Smartphone platform. The only exception is the review of Opera Mini 4, which is a generic one and can be used by Pocket PC users as well.
Now, it’s time to review
how you can do the same on MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) devices (SP for short); what browsers you should use, what bugs you should be aware of etc.
the brand new and REALLY NICE, HIGHLY recommended Opera Mini 4 platform. This section will be of interest to not only SP users, but also those of the “big brother”, the Pocket PC – and, for that matter, any Java-capable mobile phone.
As you’ll see, on the SP platform, there’re far fewer really usable browsers and there are (currently) absolutely no Java and real Flash support. This, fortunately, makes one’s life far easier – generally, you only have three browsers to select from: either Opera Mobile, Opera Mini or the really promising newcomer, jB5. The two Operas are, as you may have already guessed, generally superior to the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile.
However, let’s start with the latter as it comes built into the operating system of all SP devices.
1.1 Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM)
Unfortunately, the SP version of the built-in IEM, even as of Windows Mobile 6 Standard (that is, the latest SP operating system version), is considerably inferior to the Pocket PC (PPC) version shipped with WM6. For example,
while the PPC version of IEM has received file uploading capabilities some two years ago (with the initial release of WM5), not even the latest, just-released, WM6 version of IEM is capable of the same as can be seen in HERE (showing the results of my traditional file upload test page – see the previously linked page for more info on what the screenshot should show). Note that the SP version of Opera Mobile has no problems with file uploading (1 2 3 4)
it also has major problems with some HTTP / scripting constructs never having caused any problems to the Pocket PC brother; most importantly, it has problems with posting to Smartphone Thoughts and Pocket PC Thoughts forums from IEM. (The PPC port of IEM has no problems with posting to these sites; neither do Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on the SP platform.) Interestingly, this is NOT a problem on several models (even including WM6 ones) - and, in some occasions, it even worked on my Vox. I don't know why - it probably depends on the size of the message. Also see for example Mike Temporale's posts and links in THIS thread.
it doesn’t support tabs and, as you may have guessed, none of the known, Pocket PC-only PIE / IEM enhancers (MultiIE, PIEPlus, Spb Pocket Plus, ftxPBrowser etc.) work.
just as on the Pocket PC, you can’t make use of the hardware buttons (except for the “Back” button) AND the dialpad buttons (except for the 2/4/6/8 buttons for page scrolls) of your Smartphone. In this respect, both Opera Mini and Mobile are better. Fortunately, the most common functionalities are accessible, in general, with two or three (depending on whether you start from full screen mode) key presses. Fortunately, there are some registry hacks that - at least to a certain degree - fix this, which I’ll later, in a subsequent section, elaborate on.
download-wise, it’s really different from the Pocket PC IEM: it’s only CAB files that can be downloaded (if at all – see later), nothing else. This is in stark contrast with both the PPC version and Opera Mobile on the platform, which uses the same, vastly superior download-specific code as the PPC version. You must do some manual, extensive Registry editing to fix this problem - and, even then, you will need to do this for each file type you'd like to see downloaded. I too address this issue in a later section.
Note that isn’t not only files that have no local, associated programs to operate on are refused to be downloaded, but EVERYTHING, even registered and, by default, supported file types like ZIP and PDF files (fortunately, Office files are supported if your device does contain Office Mobile – an example of an XLS file is HERE).
Some examples of these cases:
non-associated RAR files (for example THIS). Upon trying to download files like these, you get THIS error message (unlike with Opera Mobile).
PDF files with the, on the HTC Vox, associated, built-in Adobe Reader LE. An example PDF file is HERE
ZIP files, like THIS, associated with Resco File Explorer.
Furthermore, the old problem with CAB files served as of unknown type is present in this version too. For example, while THIS CAB file is server as binary and, therefore, offered for download, THIS one, which is returned as of unknown (text/plain) type, results in the well-known, useless textual representation (while Opera Mobile downloads it just fine). The CAB problem has always been a major problem with the PPC version as well, as is also explained in the Download Bible.
Note that I’ve also had downloading problems on my WM5 HTC s310 (Oxygen) upon trying to download a 2.5M Byte CAB file (the Smartphone version of Opera Mobile HERE) via an EDGE connection. No matter where I tried to store it (the device had about 10M free built-in storage), the transfer would stall at 300-600 kbytes (I’ve tried to download the file several times), while, under exactly the same circumstances (the same network coverage, the same file etc), my WM5 HTC Wizard Pocket PC downloaded the file without problems. I haven’t encountered similar problems on my WM6 HTC Vox (s710). I don’t know whether this was a temporary problem or generally a problem with WM5 SP IEM’s over slow(er) connections and large(r) binary (in this case, CAB) files. Just keep this in mind if you have similar problems.
As far as the WM6-specific fixes are concerned, the WM6 SP version of IEM, fortunately, supports iframes as can be seen in HERE. (It’s suffering from the same width problem as with the PPC version, though – even in Single column mode. This isn’t an issue on Opera Mobile and Mini.)
All in all, I do not really recommend IEM for regular Web browsing on SP’s if you don't apply the above-mentioned (and below-explained) registry hacks. Go for either Opera Mobile (which is, as far as the new, 8.65 beta is concerned, free until Oct. 1. Of course, being free until October doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support the company – do purchase for example their 8.60 version to support their continuous efforts to give us the BEST Pocket PC, Smartphone and, in my opinion, desktop Windows browsers) or the absolutely free and excellent Opera Mini.

1.1.1 Fixing the binary file download problem
The difference between the SP and the PPC version of IEM is pretty simple. While the latter doesn't require a given file type to be registered in the local Registry to be downloaded, the former does, and also requires a specific flag (the fifth "bit" in EditFlags) to be set to one.
This is why "unknown" file types like RAR or known file types that don't have the EditFlags value are refused to download. You can, fortunately, fix it. In here, I describe both the manual and the automatic, much easier way of doing this. The former includes heavy Registry editing, but might prove useful in cases you'd like to allow for downloading more file types than the automatic way offers.
1.1.1.1 Manually enabling downloding a given file type
Let's assume you want to enable ZIP file downloading. To do this, first, you have to fire up a registry editor (I recommend that of Resco - it's well worth the price).
First, as ZIP files end in .zip (that is, have the file extension 'zip'), you need to navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.zip to see what full name it references (it's the latter that you will, later, create a new EditFlags DWORD in). As can clearly be seen in THIS screenshot, it refers to another Registry entry, Resco_zipfile.
Go to the given extension, still under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and select Menu / 1 File / 1 New / 5 DWORD Value
enter EditFlags in the “Name” field
enter 65536 (that is, hexa 10000) in the DWORD Data field; press Done (left softkey)
now, the new entry should be visible and the ZIP download working (Similar screenshot with EXE files HERE and with PDF files HERE)
Incidentally, if you've read my past EditFlags-related remarks & explanations (for example HERE), you know the uppermost "bit" has a special download-related meaning. If it’s 1 as in HERE, the file will ONLY be downloaded to the main memory and you’re not presented the usual download screen where you can also set the target – instead, the download will start at once. That is, make double sure you don't set it to 1!
Wasit complicated? Certainly it was! Rejoice: now comes the much easier / safer, automatic way! If you're a newbie to Windows Mobile (and/or Registry editing), you will want to prefer THIS registry import file I’ve created for you. It sets the PDF, ZIP and EXE download associations. Note that the latter assumes you’ve installed Resco Explorer and PDF requires the Adobe Reader LE 2.1 (for example, the one shipped with the Vox). You will - after installing Resco Explorer, along with its Registry support - just click the file once you've transferred it to your PDA. After (re)starting IEM, the changes will be visible - and the files downloaded.
Finally, should you need support for even more (not just PDF, ZIP and EXE, but also rar, doc, mpeg, mpg, mp3 and avi) file types, you will want to check out THIS MoDaCo thread (the CAB file installer by rcperez). All you need is running the PIEPlugin.cab file (note that the Download Plugin for PIE Updated.zip file contains the same PIEPlugin.cab also separately downloadable file) linked in the first post. You won't even need to have a Registry Editor. (Note that there are some, similar threads for only one extension type: ZIP, EXE. However, make sure you prefer rcperez's hack.)
1.1.2 Adding more functionality to the phone dialpad
MS Smartphones have something that (most) traditional Pocket PC's don't have: a phonepad: consisting of 10 numeric keys, the # and the * buttons. Knowing the most common functionality a Web browser user wants to have access to (quick scroll up/down, to the top/bottom of the page; reloading; - with multi-document browsers - switching to the previous / next tab; quickly switching between the different rendering and layout modes; quickly changing the character size / zoom percentage), many of this functionality can be quickly accessed by making use of the 12 extra buttons.
As has already been pointed out, IEM only makes use of the '2' and '8' keys by default. These two buttons can be used to do page scrolls, as opposed to the link scrolls accessible on the D-pad, combined with fast scrolling introduced in later WM5 AKU's, should you continuously depress the D-pad. You can, fortunately, assign (some) functionality to all the other remaining ten buttons.
Unfortunately, there are far fewer functions you can assign to the buttons, but even this is definitely a step forward. Let's have a complete list of the functionalities that can be accessed (note that I'll explain the numbers later, when discussing how the Registry should be modded):
Functionality (Registry values):
1 - Page Up (default under (later?) WM5 / WM6)
2 - Page Down (default under (later?) WM5 / WM6)
3 - Top of page
4 - Bottom of page
5 - Page Left in non-one column view / modes
6 - Page Right in non-one column view / modes
7 - Page FULL left in non-one column view / modes
8 - Page FULL right in non-one column view / modes
9 - Default Layout
10 - Desktop Layout
11 - One Column Layout
12 - Full Screen Toggle
13 - Show Pictures Toggle
As can clearly be seen, there're no goodies like "Refresh" in here. However, even then it's pretty much useful.
Now, let's see what these numbers are for. To understand their meaning, I elaborate on how the Registry stores the keypad button - functionality pairs.
In the Registry, it's the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ KeyMaps] key that stores values (NOT subkeys!) connecting keys with functionalities. In general, it's done in the following way: the value name's the keycode and the value of the value is one of the above-listed functionalities.
The keycodes are as follows (that is, the Registry value names):
48: 0
49: 1
50: 2
51: 3
52: 4
53: 5
54: 6
55: 7
56: 8
57: 9
119: *
120: #
I've created a registry import file that assigns most the available functionality (except for "Page FULL right in non-one column view / modes"). All you need to do is importing it (with, say, Resco Registry Explorer) and (re)starting IEM. The effects will be seen at once. The registry import file is available HERE and has the following key assignment:
0: full screen (12)
1: Show Pictures Toggle (13)
2: Page Up (1)
3: top of page (3)
4: Page Left in non-one column view / modes (5)
5: Page FULL left in non-one column view / modes (7)
6: Page Right in non-one column view / modes (6)
7: default layout (9)
8: Page Down (2)
9: bottom of page (4)
*: Desktop Layout (10)
#: One Column Layout (11)
For more (not mandatory) info, also see THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS.

1.2 Opera Mobile
(a QVGA screenshot; note that, as with IEM and Opera Mini, Opera Mobile is perfectly usable on low-resolution, 176*220 Smartphones too)
Currently, this really excellent browser is even more usable on the Smartphone than on most Pocket PC (that is, Pocket PC’s without a dialpad on the face of the phone – an example of PPC models with a dialpad is the ASUS P525) because of the functionality shortcuts assigned to these buttons. As has been pointed out in the Web Browsing Bible (which is a good read even for people that don’t own a Pocket PC), currently, it’s not possible to assign any otherwise assignable functionality – for example, page up/down, jump to beginning of page etc. – to Pocket PC hardware button. The situation is entirely different with the Smartphone platform.
This is all topped with the traditional Opera Mobile strengths: speed, standards compliance, being multi-tabbed (of course, tabs aren’t displayed in the SP version; however, it’s very easy to quickly (!) switch between loaded pages), no binary download-related problems, upload support etc.
There are some minor (!) bugs with the SP version, as opposed to the PPC one. These are in no way as bad as the problems with IEM, though.
The Register can’t be browsed without zooming out and/or switching to Landscape mode on QVGA screens. This is because, for some reason, one-column mode is just hidden when browsing The Register. Screenshots: 1 2
The standard Smartphone "Back" button doesn't work in the cache setting text input field, which makes it impossible to change the value (other than adding, say, a new number in front of it, which is NOT recommended in any way for a reason I elaborate on later). The "Delete" key on built-in QWERTY keyboards (when they exist), on the other hand, do work. This is a minor problem on models with no built-in QWERTY thumb/keyboard. Tested on both the Vox (has a QWERTY keyboard) and the Oxygen (no keyboard). Note that you can always manually edit (with a file explorer tool) the Size value in the [Disk Cache] section of \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini if you want to change this value.
If you install Opera Mobile to a storage card, the file associations won’t work with HTML files and URL’s (for example, links in e-mails) as can be seen in HERE. The problem with PPC version 8.60 was the same; unfortunately, the registry script (see THIS article) I’ve created for the latter doesn’t help with the Smartphone version.
Has some minor problems with image handling. When the browser is presented with more than, say, 7-8 images in a page, it may not download them all (or, for that matter, any of them). Give a try to THIS page to see this in effect - on my QVGA Vox, it didn't render any images. The situation was pretty similar on the old(er) Oxygen (with other pages).
When you manually enter a URL into the "Go to" text input field on the Vox keyboard, you can't enter a string longer than the screen estate size (give a try to entering, say, the above link!) This problem can only be fixed by trying to visit the part that can still be entered and, then, returning to Action / Go to, finding the first part of the URL already entered and going on with entering the latter part(s). Dunno if this problem is caused by the OS or Opera Mobile.
If you define a HUGE cache (to bring down data usage costs), the responsiveness of the browser REALLY decreases. For example, on my Vox, I had a cache with about ~10M files (in the main storage). With that, Opera takes over a minute (!) to start and, after loading a new page (WITHOUT images!) about 10-15 seconds to flush it to the cache, during which you can't for example scroll up/down to go on reading. That is, you need to stick with the default 2M cache to get rid of these problems.
If there is little RAM memory left, the Smartphone dialpad keys (2, 6, 9 etc.) stop working. Instead of their default functionality, they result in reloading pages / moving elsewhere. In these situations, an error message like "Due to RAM memory shortage, the requested action couldn't be done." could be shown.
Again and again, this is more of nitpicking – Opera Mobile for the MS Smartphone still stays THE best Smartphone Web browser. For example, it still supports even saving images (in the Image mode – see the explanation in the usage chart).
Probably the only really annoying bug is the fact that, as of 8.65 beta released on 06/01/2007 and usable until October this year, it only remembers HTTP proxy servers during the first page request after starting; the other requests are directly sent to the HTTP server. To test this, give it a working (for example, at the time of writing, 82.204.47.120:8080 was one of them) proxy address in \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini (as is explained in the Toonel-related section) and, then, after restarting Opera, go to WhatIsMyIP.com. Upon the first invocation, you’ll see the proxy’s address as the originating address. Upon later invocations (for example, after just refreshing the page), however, it’ll switch to direct access – and the IP address it displays will also reflect this.
This, unfortunately, means currently you won’t be able to local proxy-based bandwidth usage reduction solutions like Toonel with Opera Mobile. Neither will you be able to use external proxies to either conceal your real IP or get outside of a corporate network.
1.3 Opera Mini 4.x
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(VGA PPC screenshot running under the Intent midlet manager (hence the non-used command bar at the bottom); a QVGA Smartphone screenshot HERE)
I’ve often reported on Opera Mini, which, as of the current 4.x series beta, has become a serious contender to even native Windows Mobile Web browsers, particularly on the touch screen-less Smartphone platform, where the lacking features of Opera Mini (for example, lack of context menus or copy / paste capabilities) aren’t a problem because of the lack of the touch screen. (That is, you couldn’t use these features on IEM either – it’s only Opera Mobile, with its excellent link / image context menus even on the SP platform, that still offers a bit more functionality than Opera Mini.)
1.3.1 What’s new with the brand new, 4.x Opera Mini series?
Nokia’s having pioneered the quick zoom functionality in their excellent S60 series 3 Web browser, Windows Mobile browsers quickly followed suit: first, NetFront in the second Technical Preview of their forthcoming 3.4; then, Microsoft in their (beta-stage and still far from being finished) DeepFish.
Opera, the, in my opinion, by far the finest (give a try to their desktop browser, particularly if you have an (W)SXGA+ or (W)UXGA screen – you’ll love it!) browser developer company, soon followed suit. In addition to announcing the forthcoming Opera 9, which is a native Windows Mobile application, with similar capabilities, they have also added full page view & quick zoom capabilities to the brand new series of Opera Mini, their Java Midlet-based, small, but still VERY powerful multiplatform browser.
Just visit THIS page (the SWF file, should you want to directly download it, is HERE) and see what Opera has come up with. It’s indeed very cool, isn’t it? All this in a VERY small package (90 kbytes), with almost unmeasurable runtime (dynamic RAM) memory consumption. Compare this to the memory consumption of traditional Web browsers – yes, they consume orders of magnitude more memory. Note that there are a some other, cool videos on Opera’s homepage running the browser in reality – those videos are far more instructive than my static screenshots.
This browser, as has also been pointed out in the Web Browser Bible, runs great on Windows Mobile, on both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones, in both common factory-default midlet environments, the Intent (the industry standard on almost all WM5-based PPC and SP phones, except for the Esmertec-based HP iPAQ hx6915) and the Esmertec (shipped with many natively WM6 phones like the HTC Vox / S710) midlet managers.
It’s by far the best J2ME (Java midlet) browser: other Midlet-based browsers are far worse in every respect. For example, jBrowser can’t even display middle-sized pages like the PPCMag blog page, the PPCT main page as can be seen in HERE and, for smaller pages, it will never finish loading.

As has already been pointed out, the best new feature the new version offers is Zoom-in / full page view functionality. Its “let’s crunch the text into the viewable screen estate” works just great – much better than I’ve expected or what most of the other browsers do.
You’ll REALLY love the new page view functionality if you want to check out for example
THIS is the desktop rendition of the Finnish stock exchange in a tabular form. Now, let’s take a look at them in the default, pre-series 4 one-column mode:
and this is how the new, full page layout mode renders it (zoomed in):
and zoomed out, showing the entire page:
A big difference in usability and readability, isn’t it?
Of course, in most cases, if you don’t want to browse tabular data like this, you won’t necessarily need the new mode. Then, you may safely stay with the old, one-column mode.
In addition to providing a page view & zoom-in mode, the Opera folks have come out with something unprecedented in the Windows Mobile world: smart text finding. Let me show you an example with an XDA-Developers thread:
In THIS screenshot, I’ve just started browsing and, therefore, the selection frame is in the upper left corner. Now, let’s press the Down key several times (or, even better, 8 for much quicker navigation downwards). As soon as I’ve reached the body of the text, the selection was automatically (!) scrolled to the right so that no screen estate remains unused on the left side of the screen as can be seen in HERE. Pretty smart, eh?
Now, let’s press Action to read it. As can indeed be seen, the text is very intelligently flowed in a way that no horizontal scrolling is necessary. It’s also really-really superior to how most other browsers handle non-one column modes. Thumbs up Opera, you’re indeed the BEST Web browser developers out there – and this is stated by somebody that knows a LOT about Web technologies and protocols!

1.3.2 Shortcuts
Opera Mini is pretty much similar to Opera Mobile in that it makes extensive use of the phonepad (dialpad) common on all SP models (and, as has already been stated, also available on some PPC models). Unfortunately, the default hotkeys are different, which you, if you often switch between the two browsers, will find pretty inconvenient. (But, then, just edit \Application Data\ Opera\ input.ini to make it similar to the Opera Mini shortcuts. See my other, Opera Mobile-related articles on how this can be accomplished.)
Please see section 1.5 (Shortcuts) to see what shortcuts the two browsers (and, in addition, IEM) offers. They REALLY make browsing MUCH faster – it’s really worth using the dialpad to access them.
1.3.3 Bugs, annoyances in Opera Mini 4.0 beta
The new, 4.0 series being in beta state, it has some, in most cases (if you DO use a compatible Midlet environment), non fatal bugs / annoyances not present in previous versions:
Big minimal font size (as opposed to the current 3.1.* version) and (comparatively) huge gaps between rows. A lot of people have complianed about this; in my opinion, this doesn’t hamper the usability of the client.
Cookies are not necessarily kept (as opposed to the current 3.1.* version – you may end up having to logging into your account much more frequently than with the 3.x series)
You may encounter crashes on Pocket PC’s and on Smartphones running other Midlet managers than that of Esmertec. On my Vox, using the factory-shipped Esmertec midlet environment, I haven’t encountered ANY crash over the last month of active (!) usage. See for example THIS XDA-Dev thread on PPC users’ reporting shutdowns / crashes. Most (if not all) of these users use the Intent midlet manager (which, again, is also the default midlet manager on many Smartphones.)
Let me, again, emphasize that while on my brand new WM6 HTC Vox (s710), using the Esmertec Jeodek 20070115.1.1 midlet environment, I have never encountered any Opera Mini 4.0 beta crash (while having been using it at least 2-3 hours a day!), other midlet environments may behave differently. For example, the Intent midlet manager common on most WM5 Smartphones AND Pocket PC's is known to frequently crash on OpMini4 users - it did once on me too when I (quickly) tested OpMini 4 on my HTC Universal (the latter running the 10/1/7/554 / 20060502 version of the Intent manager.) Should you encounter crashes like this, consider switching to either the IBM J9 midlet manager (according to holg HERE, it works just great with Opera Mini 4) or look around in the XDA-Developers forums for help in getting the, again, stable and reliable Esmertec Midlet manager. (I don't know whether it's separately sold; I seriously doubt it.)
The full page layout takes a LOT of memory. If you stay with the one-column mode, unless you load HUGE pages (say, hundreds of kilobytes originally), you, in general, will be able to make use of all the 30 page slots without having to reload any of these pages. If you, on the other hand, switch to the original page (as opposed to the one-column one) layout view, this will be reduced to two or three concurrent pages at most, regardless of the size of the original pages. If you often switch back to already loaded, just-browsed pages and don’t want to reload them because of the time / bandwidth requirements, you will want to stick to the traditional, one-column mode.
Note that the two versions can easily co-exist with each other. That is, if the first three problems become annoying, you can just switch back to the old versions. Unfortunately, as the favorite lists aren’t shared between the two versions, favorites that you add / edit in one version won’t be visible in the other.
1.3.4 Other (non-4.x-specific) problems
There’re still some problems with Opera Mini that may be a showstopper for you.
It’s still unable to render ANY kind of italic text (see for example THIS for a more thorough elaboration and my demos showing displaying italic text is indeed possible on Smartphones, regardless of the midlet manager in use). This is a MAJOR pain the back. I’ve already contacted the Opera folks on this matter; hope they fix this problem.
Binary download support-wise (as it’s using the IEM engine to do the “dirty” stuff; that is, to download files off the Web), it’s suffering from exactly the same problems as IEM:
CAB files with text MIME type are just rendered as text (like THIS); bigger ones (like THIS 1.5M CAB file) result in an out of memory error
non-CAB files with (correct) binary MIME type (like THIS PDF file) are correctly passed to IEM. Unfortunately, as the execution is fully supervised by IEM, you won’t be able to download any of these files because of the well-known problem already outlined in the IEM section.
Finally, CAB files with the binary MIME type (like THIS) are both correctly recognized by OpMini and, then, correctly downloaded by IEM.
And, of course, the other minor annoyances / restrictions (no file upload, no any kind of access to the IEM / Opera Mobile favorites, no URL copying etc.) – you can see them all in the original Web Browser Bible.
1.3.5 Verdict
Currently, while Opera Mini 4 is at beta stage (as is also emphasized in the documents), it’s already highly recommended if you have a SP model.
1.3.6 More information
Opera Mini 4.0 wishlist thread
Opera Mini forum

1.4 jB5
(another screenshot, now with an image)
Now, this is a really promising browser! While decidedly slower than even IEM and lacks highly useful features like FastBack (upon pressing Back, rendering the page from the local memory cache and NOT downloading it again, unlike both jB5 and NetFront) and does NOT offer multiple document capabilities (unlike the two Operas), it’s (as of the current, tested version, 5.0.56) already pretty powerful (for example, it's the only Smartphone Web browser to offer in-page text search: see it in action: 1 2 3) - much more usable than, say, the next-to-useless Minimo. What is more, it's free.
As it's in beta stage and will surely receive an ever better version, I do not thoroughly review and compare its features / standards compliance to the alternatives because the info would be outdated VERY soon. I will, however, definitely review it as soon as it gets into final (or Release Candidate). Make sure you check it out and get your free copy - if you can put up with the somewhat slower page loading / scrolling speed and the lack of multi-tabs / FastBack, you may like it very much.
1.5 Additional technologies
In this section, I elaborate on the Toonel, Java applet and Flash support on Smartphones. Again and again, CHECK out the original Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible for more info on them. In here, I only give you strictly Smartphone-related information, not generic one you might want to also know.
1.5.1 Flash
Unfortunately, unlike on the desktop, where there is a more or less solid and compatible (albeit pretty slow) official Flash implementation from Adobe (ex-Macromedia; from now on, I only refer to it as “Adobe”) itself (and the alternative, albeit a bit worse and much more CPU-hungry player integrated into NetFront), Smartphone users have always been left in the cold. Much as Adobe has been addressed several petitions (see for example THIS one at MoDaCo), the Smartphone still haven’t received a real Flash player.
There is some light on the horizon, though. Adobe is working on Flash Lite (current version: 2.1), which is already accessible HERE. (If you don’t have an account, make sure you check in “No, I will create one now” as the bottom so that you can register. Registering can be done quickly; only after that will you be able to access the downloads. Note that, should you not want unwanted Adobe mails, you don’t need to check in any of the “I’m a developer / content creator” radio buttons – you can safely set all of them to “No” instead of the default “Yes” – you’ll still be provided access for the download).
Both IEM and Opera Mobile supports this plug-in (see screenshots below). Note that it doesn’t run MOST currently available Flash animations. For example, most games out there won’t run (unlike under the Pocket PC version). Some examples of them are Bomberman and Play with fire (this is what you’ll be shown: 1 2; IEM screenshot).
Incidentally, I’ve tried to „hack“ Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
1.5.2 Toonel
Toonel, the transparent compressor proxy, is a GREAT way to save data usage costs. If you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you really should check it out by, first, reading my related article & tutorial HERE. I’ve published several articles and tips on Toonel; the just-linked one is the one to start with.
While, it seems, it’s not possible to make the native Windows Mobile version work, the Java versions does work on Smartphones.
As far as the native Windows Mobile version is concerned, according to the folks HERE (thanks for the link to the Toonel folks; it's Russian - Babel "translation" HERE), some people managed to make the native (.NET CF) version of Toonel run. I haven’t succeeded in this on either of my Oxygen or Vox.
Fortunately, the Java version works. In general, you’ll only need the (brand new) CrEme 4.12 (download the TI OMAP version of the 4.1 series if you have a TI OMAP-based Smartphone) and THIS JAR file (version 0.45 - do NOT use version 0.50!). Install CrEme (you can do this on the storage card too – then, however, you’ll need to modify the link file I give you), copy the JAR file to the root directory of your handheld (you can, actually, copy it anywhere – but, then, you’ll need to modify the link file I will give you soon) and, then, copy THIS link file to \Windows\Start Menu. Then, just click the latter to start Toonel in the background. Upon start, you should see THIS screen. If you see THIS (note the bind() failed message!), it shows Toonel is already running.
Note that the CrEme process takes quite a lot of memory (but, fortunately, little CPU time – about 1-2% - when inactive) as can be seen in HERE. Beware of this fact – the operating system may kill the CrEme (Toonel) process in the background, particularly if you start other, memory-intensive programs. Then, you will just need to restart the proxy by clicking the startup script.
As, currently, the SP version of Opera Mobile (as with old 8.60 Pocket PC builds) doesn’t have internal support for entering proxy servers, you must enter the proxy information in the config file by hand. However, as with the old PPC betas, you can easily configure the proxy server by just editing \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini and adding the following section:
[Proxy]
Use HTTP=1
HTTP server=127.0.0.1:8080
Enable HTTP 1.1 for proxy=1

A screenshot of the Web admin interface of the locally running Toonel on my Vox:
As can clearly be seen, there was about 80% (fourfold!) bandwidth usage saving during the active session. This alone makes Toonel really worthy if yours is not an unlimited data plan.
A quick visit to WhatIsMyIP also shows it’s through the Toonel server that you’re connected (85.25.148.242 is one of the IP’s of the Toonel servers).
It’s VERY important to remember that, currently (as of 07/10/2007), the SP version of Opera Mobile does NOT reliably support proxy servers. Therefore, if you absolutely must use Toonel (or ANY external proxy server), you MUST use IEM and forget Opera Mobile.
As IEM, as with the PPC version, also depends on the operating-system level proxy settings (unlike other browsers), you must also configure the system to access the Net differently than before. That is, do the following:
in IEM, go to Menu / 9 Tools / 3 Options / Connections, untick “Automatically detect settings” and select “Work” in the list as can be seen in HERE
in the system-level Settings, go to 6 Connections / 6 Proxy, press Action on New and create a new record as can be seen in THIS screenshot (as can be seen in HERE, just leave “Type” on “HTTP”). You can name the proxy setting anything; in here, I’ve called it ‘t’. That is, all you need to do is setting “The Internet” to “Connects from”, “Work” to “Connects to” and entering “127.0.0.1:8080” in “Proxy (nameort)”.
Note that, after this, you will need to configure your other programs also using the system-level settings to use Toonel instead of a direct connection. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to configure the built-in Messaging to use the built-in POP3 proxy support of Toonel (as opposed to the Pocket PC Messaging). Also, remember that, should you have the built-in Live (or MSN) Messenger, defining the proxy will also render them useless.
Unfortunately, it seems it’s not possible to make these programs work with a proxy defined in the above way. That is, you will need to delete the proxy every time you want to access your mail. It seems there are no other ways of disabling it - for example, setting the source / target networks to something else doesn’t work.
Again, keep in mind that you can have Toonel activated for IEM (that is, using a system-level proxy setting) AND still access your mail (both compressed, via Toonel, and uncompressed) via other, Smartphone-compliant mailer clients; for example, FlexMail. With the latter, you can safely use the compression offered by Toonel too and the mails downloaded just OK.
1.5.3 Java applets
While the IEM plug-in of the just-released CrEme 4.12 (the only Java Virtual Machine to be compatible with the Smartphone AND have an applet plug-in) can be registered, it doesn’t seem to be working, unlike on the Pocket PC.
Neither the applet-based Radar Weather test nor the local demo applet (Cube) shipped with the system work: the JVM plug-in just keeps showing "loading applet". Example screenshots: 1 2 (Vox); 3 (Oxygen).
1.6 Keyboard shortcuts
I’ve compiled a chart of the three SP Web browsers showing how a given functionality can be accessed. As can be seen, in general, Opera Mini requires the least button presses to do something (assuming IEM and Opera Mobile run in full-screen mode, which also means double initial softkey presses instead of just a single one to access something in menus only – that is, not having a direct dialpad shortcut).
Keep in mind that, if you extensively use the dialpad (for example, to directly enter the number of the menu item you’d like to activate – these numbers are shown in all menus and I also reproduce them here), you can navigate MUCH faster than using the D-pad to scroll up/down a menu.
You can find the chart here - make sure you check it out, you’ll find it REALLY useful!
2. Non-working or not recommended browsers
2.1 Thunderhawk 2.0
Unfortunately, this browser wasn’t updated for WM5. This means neither the SP2003 (1 2) nor the SP2002 version (these are the two versions available for download) can be installed on WM5/WM6 SP models. All in all, forget about it for the time being.
2.2 NetFront 3.4 Technical Preview 007
No MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard)-compliance: while the CAB installer can be installed on a WM5+ Smartphone, the main GUI isn’t displayed when you start the browser. (tested on the HTC Vox/s710 in both orientations).
2.3 Webby
Unfortunately, it doesn’t run either. While it can be installed, it refuses to run (1 2 3).
2.4 Minimo 0.2
(the latter is a 176*220 screenshot; as can be seen, only the last, Menu (…) icon is invisible; however, transferring the focus to it will also work. Too bad it turned out to be pretty unreliable on my WM5 AKU3 s310 (Oxygen)– even more so than on my QVGA Vox. For example, it didn’t even finish loading the SPT homepage as can be seen in the above screenshot.)
While it can be installed on SP’s, on this platform it’s far from perfect and, in general, useless, for the following reasons:
it has HUGE memory usage (the biggest problem with the 0.2 version on the Pocket PC platform too). After loading, it consumes about 12Mbytes and, when you load additional pages, this decreases even more, leaving little (if any) RAM memory
accessing the icons (to, for example, bring up the address bar) at the bottom can only be done using the right softkey. This, on the other hand, first, iterates through ALL the links in the page (yes, ALL of them), and only after this moves down to the bottom icons. A mouse emulator like SPHelper doesn’t help (to directly click the icons at the bottom) – Minimo just doesn’t sense the mouse clicks (that is, left softkey presses)
the browser often crashes (mostly if you run out of memory) and is generally slowish
All in all, I don’t recommend it. Also see for example THIS and THIS for more info / user opinions.
Note that the other available version, Minimo 0.16, isn’t installable on Smartphones at all.

UPDATE (later the same day):
in THIS thread, MoDaCo forum member holg posted something definitely worth reading - it, for example, explains how you can directly start Opera Mini from the alternative, by me, often-discussed midlet runner environment, the IBM J9. It also shows how external proxies can be used with this environment.
SPT frontpage
UPDATE (07/11/2007): Article heavily updated: added the two IEM Registry hack sections; added the jB5 section.

The following is the brand new section I've just added to the original article. Sorry for not reposting the entire article again - I hate slicing it into pieces so that they become under 10k in size.
1.5.1.1 Hacking REAL Flash on Smartphones
I’ve tried to "hack" Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
Fortunately, other hackers had better luck. XDA-Developers forum member jockyw2001 has managed to hack the REAL Flash player onto the SP.
(IEM playing back a YouTube video in One Column mode on the HTC Vox)
(other screenshots: Opera Mobile on the Vox doing the same in Desktop mode with 50% zoom, with the SPHelper cursor for controlling the on-screen controls; the same on my 176*220 Oxygen, with 25% zoom)
His thread is HERE (you will NOT need to read it to complete the steps below!) Note that you MUST apply the hacks on an application unlocked phone - it won't work on locked phones. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to unlock your phone (see for example THIS article for some links). Also note that the hack worked just great on both my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and WM5 AKU3 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310). Some people, however, reported problems with other models (see the above-linked thread). I'm pretty sure it's because they have messed up something that the plug-in doesn't work on their devices.
First, get THIS file (it's a slighlty rearranged version of jockyw2001's original. For example, I've collected the registry import files into one file and separated the files into directories named after the steps you need to do). UnRAR it with, say, WinRAR. Now, do the following:
If you've already installed Resco File Explorer (along with its registry plug-in) and at least once started the latter, copy All.reg from Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Go to the Step 3 - flash6 directory on your desktop and the \Windows\Macromedia directory on your SP. Overwrite flash.dll on your SP with the one on your desktop.
Go to Step 4 - regserv and copy regsvrce.exe anywhere on your SP. From inside File Explorer (on your SP), execute it to register Flash. To do this, enter \Windows\Macromedia\flash.dll in the Full pathname... text input field (176*220 screenshot). (To make this easier (to avoid entering the path on the phonepad / keyboard of your phone), I recommend for example Pocket Controller on the desktop. If you can’t use Ctrl-V to paste to there (the case with the version 5.06 + HTC Vox combo, but NOT with the Oxygen), use ViTO’s excellent CopyPaste on the Smartphone to copy the contents of the clipboard to the input field.)
Then, just press OK and “Yes” in the confirmation dialog. After some 2-3 seconds, you’ll hear another bell. Now, start regsvrc.exe again; you’ll immediately see a confirmation (success) dialog (176*220 screenshot).
On the desktop, go to Step 5 - Flash7 and copy flash.dll to \Windows\Macromedia on your SP in order to overwrite the in step 3 copied Flash 6 version with the new, Flash 7 one.
Now you can start enjoying REAL Flash content!
The plug-in works great (additional screenshot); you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper to click labels / buttons like in THIS screenshot.
Note that both IEM and Opera Mobile are able to make use of the plug-in. The two programs have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses.
First, IEM can't make use the up/down arrow keys; that is, if you would like to, say, play a game depending on these two directions, they will be unplayable. In these cases, you MUST use Opera Mobile. Second, as far as playing back YouTube videos is concerned, while IEM (unlike on the Pocket PC – it’s pretty strange the SP version of IEM is better in this respect) you will want to prefer Opera Mobile because it’s slightly faster at playback. You will still want to overclock your phone - if it’s a TI OMAP-based one, with OMAPClock.
Under Opera Mobile (as opposed to IEM), in the default mode, the flash plug-in size will be really tiny as can be seen in HERE. (Therefore, you’ll want to switch to Desktop mode and use a Zoom level of, on QVGA machines, in general, 50%, and, on 176*220 models, 25%) Unfortunately, you will still have problems with scrolling down / right – in the default, link scrolling mode, you will only see the top left part of the page and won’t be able to scroll anywhere (not even clicking the scrollbars with SPHelper). To fix this (and to scroll down to the Flash animation), you MUST switch to Image (scrolling) mode. With Opera Mobile, the up/down arrows do work, unlike with IEM, as can also be seen in THIS screenshot (otherwise, I couldn’t have been able to go down).

UPDATE (07/18/2007): Upon popular demand, I've added a section on installing the Flash hack on a storage card.
Again, it's available at http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2084&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

1.1.3 MultiIE
The well-known Pocket PC IEM enhancer, MultiIE, is also compatible with (WM5+ only; sorry, no pre-WM5 compliance) MS Smartphones. The standard WM5 installer works on both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones. Let’s see how it compares to the Pocket PC version!
Unfortunately, it’s far inferior, feature-wise, to the Pocket PC version. Basically, you can only expect it to add multi-tab functionality.
1.1.3.1 Differences between the Pocket PC and the Smartphone version
1.1.3.1.1 Goodies missing - a generic overview
It’s fully impossible to save images in the SP version. The same stands for the excellent, additional features offered by, for example, address bar macros. They are ALL missing from the SP version, which is, more or less, only lets for multi tabs, softkey-based D-pad scroll mode and full screen switching, HTML saving and source viewing and keeping backlight on.
There are a LOT of features just not accessible in the SP version. In addition to basic functionality like the already-mentioned ability to open a link in another tab, the lack of saving images or saving full Web pages (as opposed to only saving plain HTML files without in-line images and, preferably, CSS/JS files), a whole set of other features are also missing: for example, address bar macroing, the excellent location-based services offered by the PPC version, the ability to quickly reformat a Web page through online Web compression / reformatting services like Skweezer etc. Fortunately, at least “Keep Backlight On” works.
1.1.3.1.2 Setting dialogs
Unfortunately, a lot of menu options accessible on the PPC are just not accessible in the SP version. For example, assigning shortcut buttons to MultiIE functions (PPC screenshots: 1 2) isn’t even offered by the SP version. On the Screen tab, it’s not possible to switch off the, on the Smartphone, useless (because you can’t tap them on a touchscreen-less device) corner icons (PPC SP).
1.1.3.1.3 Impossible to open a link in a new tab
While it’s available in the SP version of Opera Mobile (where you just traverse the focus to the link you’d like to open but, instead of pressing Action, press the right softkey and select “1 Open in new window”), it’s not possible to dynamically set where (in what tab) a new link should be opened to. This, of course, is also possible in the PPC version of MultiIE as can be seen in HERE.
You can surely try to redefine the default functionality in the Open link: Tap default action to, say, Open in new back window as can be seen in HERE, but it won’t work at all (and won’t stick). This means you can NOT open links in another tab in any way without opening a new tab in Menu / 9 MultiIE / 3 Open New Window and, in there, select the link you want to display in this tab.
1.1.3.2 Compared to Opera Mobile…
The inability to open a link in a new window, as has already been pointed out, is a big problem with MultiIE – as opposed to OpMob.
Switching between open tabs also requires significantly more button presses than in Opera Mobile. In the latter, you only need to press ‘2’ once to bring up the list of open tabs, where, after selecting the right one to switch to, you only need to press Action once. In MultiIE, you need to press Menu / 9 MultiIE and, if there are not more than 3 open tabs (in Portrait mode on QVGA devices; on 176*220 ones, even two open tabs will result in the same), select the tab at the top. If there’re more tabs open (QVGA screenshot with 4 tabs) or, you’re in Landscape, there will be another level of redirection (1 Windows), making it necessary to issue another keypress.
There is, however, something MultiIE is better at: saving web pages do work. Unfortunately, you can’t fine tune what should be saved – unlike in the PPC version, where not only the page HTML itself, but also all the related resources (by selecting a full save instead of the HTML-only).
1.1.3.3 Other bugs & problems
In addition to the already-mentioned ones (for example, the Open link: Tap default action settings’s not being sticky) it has several other bugs. For example, it sometimes hides the tabs (1 2) on QVGA devices (but not on 176*220 ones). This might particularly be a case with pages using frames, after maximizing one of these frames using Expand Frame (left softkey); for example, the MultiIE page itself.
The menus may be a bit messed up (but still usable) on QVGA devices because of the too large fonts. On low-res 176*220 ones, they’re OK (screenshots: 176*220: 1 2 3; QVGA: 1 2)
While the tabs can be re-displayed after a screen rotation (if the particular device supports rotating the screen – for example, the Vox does), rotating back to the original rotation will result in not using the entire screen estate. This won’t be an issue if you NEVER rotate the screen but stay in either Portrait or Landscape all the time.
As far as the options dialog screens are concerned, the “Plugin” dialog is also different: first, as it is lacking a scrollbar, you don’t see anything under Presets / Shown on open more menu on both 176*220 and QVGA Portrait phones. On QVGA Landscape ones, however, the scrollbar is displayed and you can scroll down, revealing the lowermost GUI widgets. Not that it’d be of any use: NONE of the features work in here. That is, you can’t even set the User-Agent to be used to “disguise” your browser as a full desktop Windows browser. This is also a very bad disadvantage, compared to how it behaves on the Pocket PC.
Still in this dialog, the address bar search configuration (PPC screenshots: 1 2) don’t work either: an “Option not available in alpha” is displayed.
1.1.3.4 Tips & tricks
By default, to view the source of a Web page, it tries to use \Windows\notes.exe, which doesn’t exist on any MS Smartphones.
Unfortunately (if you have a phone with a built-in keyboard – non-QWERTY phones don’t have this program!), if you redefine this link to \Windows\TextNotes.exe as can be seen in HERE, Menu / 9 MultiIE / 6(+) Page Tools / 3 View Source will not work either.
Therefore, if you have a Windows Mobile 6 Standard phone (which come with Office Mobile built-in), you’ll want to prefer Word Mobile (\Windows\pword.exe) to view the sources. To make this word, configure MultiIE to use it as the default viewer. With that, watching sources will work just fine:

1.1.3.5 Verdict
All in all, don’t expect much of the current version of MultiIE for Smartphone. It’s WAY worse, WAY harder to use and definitely more buggy than the Pocket PC version. The Smartphone version of Opera Mobile is far better thought-out (support for dialpad buttons; menu-based link / image context menu support etc., making it far easier to, for example, open a link in a new tab instead of the current one; far faster to switch tabs; allows for saving images etc.). If you, however, absolutely need to stick to IEM and do need a multitab solution for it with some goodies (for example, Opera Mobile still doesn’t support saving pages; MultiIE does; the same stands for quickly swapping between the three scrolling modes, should you want to exclusively use the D-pad for scrolling and leave the 2/8 phone buttons alone), currently, MultiIE is the only way to go.

UPDATE: Just added a new section on MultiIE in the IEM-related chapter. Worth a read!

UPDATE (10/20/2007): I've published a review of Opera Mobile 8.65 Final (PPC/SP), Picsel 1.0.5 (PPC/SP) and the brand new Spb Pocket Plus 4.0 (PPC). A new version of jb5 (PPC/SP) has been released and a brand new, albeit very simple IEM add-in Web Viewer for WM5 (PPC). Also, I’ve linked in some of my recent reviews of some new (not very important) Web browsers: TeaShark (PPC/SP) and UCWEB (PPC/SP). Finally, I've published some genuine, never-before-published tips and tricks on utilizing the Pocket PC hardware application buttons to control Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. It's a MUST for any serious Pocket PC user - you'll LOVE my new tips & tricks. See THIS. Cross-posted to: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo.

UPDATE (11/12/2007): the final version of Opera Mini 4 has been released. I've written a VERY thorough tutorial on installing and using it; it's available HERE; cross-posted to PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers -1, XDA-Developers -2, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums - 1, HowardForums - 2, SPT, MoDaCo, official Opera Mini forum. Note that it also links in my brand new MIDlet Bible, which will be a god-send anyone wanting to run this EXCELLENT browser on his or her handset.

Menneisyys said:
Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
[*]Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
REF: STEP2...
When I try to copy my WINDOWS folder from SP to Desktop, I get error: "Cannot copy index: There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use." This error is while copying from "Content IE5" I feel I didn't understand that instruction correctly. There are 1136 objects in Windows folder on route.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

markanthonypr said:
REF: STEP2...
When I try to copy my WINDOWS folder from SP to Desktop, I get error: "Cannot copy index: There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use." This error is while copying from "Content IE5" I feel I didn't understand that instruction correctly. There are 1136 objects in Windows folder on route.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do you want to copy from there? To copy the local cache?

Menneisyys said:
Why do you want to copy from there? To copy the local cache?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Menneisyys, Thank you for your reply. I made reference to Step#2 of your post#9 on this thread in regards to installing/hacking Real Flash in order to view YouTube videos. While it is true that YouTube now has a mobile version, I still can't see the videos with their mobile version. Its why I was trying to follow your instructions to install Real Flash.

markanthonypr said:
Hello Menneisyys, Thank you for your reply. I made reference to Step#2 of your post#9 on this thread in regards to installing/hacking Real Flash in order to view YouTube videos. While it is true that YouTube now has a mobile version, I still can't see the videos with their mobile version. Its why I was trying to follow your instructions to install Real Flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OIC.
"Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP."
This means you need to copy from the desktop to the phone, not vica versa.
(sorry for the misunderstanding - 1. my mother tongue isn't English 2. given that I write a *lot* (much more than anyone else) of Bibles /articles on Windows Mobile, I have very little time to actually double-check my articles before submitting them)

ERROR!
Menneisyys said:
The following is the brand new section I've just added to the original article. Sorry for not reposting the entire article again - I hate slicing it into pieces so that they become under 10k in size.
1.5.1.1 Hacking REAL Flash on Smartphones
I’ve tried to "hack" Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
Fortunately, other hackers had better luck. XDA-Developers forum member jockyw2001 has managed to hack the REAL Flash player onto the SP.
(IEM playing back a YouTube video in One Column mode on the HTC Vox)
(other screenshots: Opera Mobile on the Vox doing the same in Desktop mode with 50% zoom, with the SPHelper cursor for controlling the on-screen controls; the same on my 176*220 Oxygen, with 25% zoom)
His thread is HERE (you will NOT need to read it to complete the steps below!) Note that you MUST apply the hacks on an application unlocked phone - it won't work on locked phones. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to unlock your phone (see for example THIS article for some links). Also note that the hack worked just great on both my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and WM5 AKU3 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310). Some people, however, reported problems with other models (see the above-linked thread). I'm pretty sure it's because they have messed up something that the plug-in doesn't work on their devices.
First, get THIS file (it's a slighlty rearranged version of jockyw2001's original. For example, I've collected the registry import files into one file and separated the files into directories named after the steps you need to do). UnRAR it with, say, WinRAR. Now, do the following:
If you've already installed Resco File Explorer (along with its registry plug-in) and at least once started the latter, copy All.reg from Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Go to the Step 3 - flash6 directory on your desktop and the \Windows\Macromedia directory on your SP. Overwrite flash.dll on your SP with the one on your desktop.
Go to Step 4 - regserv and copy regsvrce.exe anywhere on your SP. From inside File Explorer (on your SP), execute it to register Flash. To do this, enter \Windows\Macromedia\flash.dll in the Full pathname... text input field (176*220 screenshot). (To make this easier (to avoid entering the path on the phonepad / keyboard of your phone), I recommend for example Pocket Controller on the desktop. If you can’t use Ctrl-V to paste to there (the case with the version 5.06 + HTC Vox combo, but NOT with the Oxygen), use ViTO’s excellent CopyPaste on the Smartphone to copy the contents of the clipboard to the input field.)
Then, just press OK and “Yes” in the confirmation dialog. After some 2-3 seconds, you’ll hear another bell. Now, start regsvrc.exe again; you’ll immediately see a confirmation (success) dialog (176*220 screenshot).
On the desktop, go to Step 5 - Flash7 and copy flash.dll to \Windows\Macromedia on your SP in order to overwrite the in step 3 copied Flash 6 version with the new, Flash 7 one.
Now you can start enjoying REAL Flash content!
The plug-in works great (additional screenshot); you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper to click labels / buttons like in THIS screenshot.
Note that both IEM and Opera Mobile are able to make use of the plug-in. The two programs have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses.
First, IEM can't make use the up/down arrow keys; that is, if you would like to, say, play a game depending on these two directions, they will be unplayable. In these cases, you MUST use Opera Mobile. Second, as far as playing back YouTube videos is concerned, while IEM (unlike on the Pocket PC – it’s pretty strange the SP version of IEM is better in this respect) you will want to prefer Opera Mobile because it’s slightly faster at playback. You will still want to overclock your phone - if it’s a TI OMAP-based one, with OMAPClock.
Under Opera Mobile (as opposed to IEM), in the default mode, the flash plug-in size will be really tiny as can be seen in HERE. (Therefore, you’ll want to switch to Desktop mode and use a Zoom level of, on QVGA machines, in general, 50%, and, on 176*220 models, 25%) Unfortunately, you will still have problems with scrolling down / right – in the default, link scrolling mode, you will only see the top left part of the page and won’t be able to scroll anywhere (not even clicking the scrollbars with SPHelper). To fix this (and to scroll down to the Flash animation), you MUST switch to Image (scrolling) mode. With Opera Mobile, the up/down arrows do work, unlike with IEM, as can also be seen in THIS screenshot (otherwise, I couldn’t have been able to go down).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest flash player.
...meaning NOT working.
Is this smartphone only?
Still no flash solution!

The one and only MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible

In my recently-published, well-known Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible I’ve elaborated on how Pocket PC’s can be used to browse the Web. Please make sure you DO read the review even if you don’t have a Pocket PC. You will learn a LOT from there and, in addition, I do NOT elaborate on many questions like Web standards compliance or additional Opera Mini features in here. In the current review, I “only” elaborate on questions ONLY concerning the MS Smartphone platform. The only exception is the review of Opera Mini 4, which is a generic one and can be used by Pocket PC users as well. Finally, in addition, as so many times in the past, I present you some genuine Registry hacks fixing annoyances / bugs in both IEM and Opera Mobile never before published.
Now, it’s time to review
how you can do the same on MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) devices (SP for short); what browsers you should use, what bugs you should be aware of etc.
the brand new and REALLY NICE, HIGHLY recommended Opera Mini 4 platform. This section will be of interest to not only SP users, but also those of the “big brother”, the Pocket PC – and, for that matter, any Java-capable mobile phone.
As you’ll see, on the SP platform, there’re far fewer really usable browsers and there are (currently, before NSIcom fixes the bugs with the current CrEme version) absolutely no Java and, if you don't apply the Flash "hack", real Flash support. This, fortunately, makes one’s life far easier – generally, you only have four browsers to select from: IEM, Opera Mobile, Opera Mini or the really promising newcomer, jB5. The two Operas are, as you may have already guessed, generally superior to the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile.
However, let’s start with the latter as it comes built into the operating system of all SP devices.
1.1 Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM)
Unfortunately, the SP version of the built-in IEM, even as of Windows Mobile 6 Standard (that is, the latest SP operating system version), is considerably inferior to the Pocket PC (PPC) version shipped with WM6. For example,
while the PPC version of IEM has received file uploading capabilities some two years ago (with the initial release of WM5), not even the latest, just-released, WM6 version of IEM is capable of the same as can be seen in HERE (showing the results of my traditional file upload test page – see the previously linked page for more info on what the screenshot should show). Note that the SP version of Opera Mobile has no problems with file uploading (1 2 3 4)
it also has major problems with some HTTP / scripting constructs never having caused any problems to the Pocket PC brother; most importantly, it has problems with posting to Smartphone Thoughts and Pocket PC Thoughts forums from IEM. (The PPC port of IEM has no problems with posting to these sites; neither do Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on the SP platform.) Interestingly, this is NOT a problem on several models (even including WM6 ones) - and, in some occasions, it even worked on my Vox. I don't know why - it probably depends on the size of the message. Also see for example Mike Temporale's posts and links in THIS thread.
it doesn’t support tabs and, as you may have guessed, none of the known, Pocket PC-only PIE / IEM enhancers (PIEPlus, Spb Pocket Plus, ftxPBrowser etc.) work - except for MultiIE, which only delivers a fraction of its Pocket PC features.
just as on the Pocket PC, you can’t make use of the hardware buttons (except for the “Back” button) AND the dialpad buttons (except for the 2/4/6/8 buttons for page scrolls) of your Smartphone. In this respect, both Opera Mini and Mobile are better. Fortunately, the most common functionalities are accessible, in general, with two or three (depending on whether you start from full screen mode) key presses. Fortunately, there are some registry hacks that - at least to a certain degree - fix this, which I’ll later, in a subsequent section, elaborate on.
download-wise, it’s really different from the Pocket PC IEM: it’s only CAB files that can be downloaded (if at all – see later), nothing else. This is in stark contrast with both the PPC version and Opera Mobile on the platform, which uses the same, vastly superior download-specific code as the PPC version. You must do some manual, extensive Registry editing to fix this problem - and, even then, you will need to do this for each file type you'd like to see downloaded. I too address this issue in a later section.
Note that isn’t not only files that have no local, associated programs to operate on are refused to be downloaded, but EVERYTHING, even registered and, by default, supported file types like ZIP and PDF files (fortunately, Office files are supported if your device does contain Office Mobile – an example of an XLS file is HERE).

Some examples of these cases:
non-associated RAR files (for example THIS). Upon trying to download files like these, you get THIS error message (unlike with Opera Mobile).
PDF files with the, on the HTC Vox, associated, built-in Adobe Reader LE. An example PDF file is HERE
ZIP files, like THIS, associated with Resco File Explorer.
Furthermore, the old problem with CAB files served as of unknown type is present in this version too. For example, while THIS CAB file is server as binary and, therefore, offered for download, THIS one, which is returned as of unknown (text/plain) type, results in the well-known, useless textual representation (while Opera Mobile downloads it just fine). The CAB problem has always been a major problem with the PPC version as well, as is also explained in the Download Bible.
Note that I’ve also had downloading problems on my WM5 HTC s310 (Oxygen) upon trying to download a 2.5M Byte CAB file (the Smartphone version of Opera Mobile HERE) via an EDGE connection. No matter where I tried to store it (the device had about 10M free built-in storage), the transfer would stall at 300-600 kbytes (I’ve tried to download the file several times), while, under exactly the same circumstances (the same network coverage, the same file etc), my WM5 HTC Wizard Pocket PC downloaded the file without problems. I haven’t encountered similar problems on my WM6 HTC Vox (s710). I don’t know whether this was a temporary problem or generally a problem with WM5 SP IEM’s over slow(er) connections and large(r) binary (in this case, CAB) files. Just keep this in mind if you have similar problems.
As far as the WM6-specific fixes are concerned, the WM6 SP version of IEM, fortunately, supports iframes as can be seen in HERE. (It’s suffering from the same width problem as with the PPC version, though – even in Single column mode. This isn’t an issue on Opera Mobile and Mini.)
All in all, I do not really recommend IEM for regular Web browsing on SP’s if you don't apply the above-mentioned (and below-explained) registry hacks. Go for either Opera Mobile (which is, as far as the new, 8.65 beta is concerned, free until Oct. 1. Of course, being free until October doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support the company – do purchase for example their 8.60 version to support their continuous efforts to give us the BEST Pocket PC, Smartphone and, in my opinion, desktop Windows browsers) or the absolutely free and excellent Opera Mini.
1.1.1 Fixing the binary file download problem
The difference between the SP and the PPC version of IEM is pretty simple. While the latter doesn't require a given file type to be registered in the local Registry to be downloaded, the former does, and also requires a specific flag (the fifth "bit" in EditFlags) to be set to one.
This is why "unknown" file types like RAR or known file types that don't have the EditFlags value are refused to download. You can, fortunately, fix it. In here, I describe both the manual and the automatic, much easier way of doing this. The former includes heavy Registry editing, but might prove useful in cases you'd like to allow for downloading more file types than the automatic way offers.
1.1.1.1 Manually enabling downloading a given file type
Let's assume you want to enable ZIP file downloading. To do this, first, you have to fire up a registry editor (I recommend that of Resco - it's well worth the price).
First, as ZIP files end in .zip (that is, have the file extension 'zip'), you need to navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.zip to see what full name it references (it's the latter that you will, later, create a new EditFlags DWORD in). As can clearly be seen in THIS screenshot, it refers to another Registry entry, Resco_zipfile.
Go to the given extension, still under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and select Menu / 1 File / 1 New / 5 DWORD Value
enter EditFlags in the “Name” field
enter 65536 (that is, hexa 10000) in the DWORD Data field; press Done (left softkey)
now, the new entry should be visible and the ZIP download working (Similar screenshot with EXE files HERE and with PDF files HERE)
Incidentally, if you've read my past EditFlags-related remarks & explanations (for example HERE), you know the uppermost "bit" has a special download-related meaning. If it’s 1 as in HERE, the file will ONLY be downloaded to the main memory and you’re not presented the usual download screen where you can also set the target – instead, the download will start at once. That is, make double sure you don't set it to 1!
Was it complicated? Certainly it was! Rejoice: now comes the much easier / safer, automatic way! If you're a newbie to Windows Mobile (and/or Registry editing), you will want to prefer THIS registry import file I’ve created for you. It sets the PDF, ZIP and EXE download associations. Note that the latter assumes you’ve installed Resco Explorer and PDF requires the Adobe Reader LE 2.1 (for example, the one shipped with the Vox). You will - after installing Resco Explorer, along with its Registry support - just click the file once you've transferred it to your PDA. After (re)starting IEM, the changes will be visible - and the files downloaded.
Finally, should you need support for even more (not just PDF, ZIP and EXE, but also rar, doc, mpeg, mpg, mp3 and avi) file types, you will want to check out THIS MoDaCo thread (the CAB file installer by rcperez). All you need is running the PIEPlugin.cab file (note that the Download Plugin for PIE Updated.zip file contains the same PIEPlugin.cab also separately downloadable file) linked in the first post. You won't even need to have a Registry Editor. (Note that there are some, similar threads for only one extension type: ZIP, EXE. However, make sure you prefer rcperez's hack.) Note that you may want to stick with my registry import scripts if you don't want the pre-WM6 scripts to mess up for example the PDF associations (as it creates its own PDF file type registry record and forces the old association to be removed), making it impossible to load a PDF document by just clicking it from File Explorer.

1.1.2 Adding more functionality to the phone dialpad
MS Smartphones have something that (most) traditional Pocket PC's don't have: a phonepad: consisting of 10 numeric keys, the # and the * buttons. Knowing the most common functionality a Web browser user wants to have access to (quick scroll up/down, to the top/bottom of the page; reloading; - with multi-document browsers - switching to the previous / next tab; quickly switching between the different rendering and layout modes; quickly changing the character size / zoom percentage), many of this functionality can be quickly accessed by making use of the 12 extra buttons.
As has already been pointed out, IEM only makes use of the '2' and '8' keys by default. These two buttons can be used to do page scrolls, as opposed to the link scrolls accessible on the D-pad, combined with fast scrolling introduced in later WM5 AKU's, should you continuously depress the D-pad. You can, fortunately, assign (some) functionality to all the other remaining ten buttons.
Unfortunately, there are far fewer functions you can assign to the buttons, but even this is definitely a step forward. Let's have a complete list of the functionalities that can be accessed (note that I'll explain the numbers later, when discussing how the Registry should be modded):
Functionality (Registry values):
1 - Page Up (default under (later?) WM5 / WM6)
2 - Page Down (default under (later?) WM5 / WM6)
3 - Top of page
4 - Bottom of page
5 - Page Left in non-one column view / modes
6 - Page Right in non-one column view / modes
7 - Page FULL left in non-one column view / modes
8 - Page FULL right in non-one column view / modes
9 - Default Layout
10 - Desktop Layout
11 - One Column Layout
12 - Full Screen Toggle
13 - Show Pictures Toggle
As can clearly be seen, there're no goodies like "Refresh" in here. However, even then it's pretty much useful.
Now, let's see what these numbers are for. To understand their meaning, I elaborate on how the Registry stores the keypad button - functionality pairs.
In the Registry, it's the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ KeyMaps] key that stores values (NOT subkeys!) connecting keys with functionalities. In general, it's done in the following way: the value name's the keycode and the value of the value is one of the above-listed functionalities.
The keycodes are as follows (that is, the Registry value names):
48: 0
49: 1
50: 2
51: 3
52: 4
53: 5
54: 6
55: 7
56: 8
57: 9
119: *
120: #
I've created a registry import file that assigns most the available functionality (except for "Page FULL right in non-one column view / modes"). All you need to do is importing it (with, say, Resco Registry Explorer) and (re)starting IEM. The effects will be seen at once. The registry import file is available HERE and has the following key assignment:
0: full screen (12)
1: Show Pictures Toggle (13)
2: Page Up (1)
3: top of page (3)
4: Page Left in non-one column view / modes (5)
5: Page FULL left in non-one column view / modes (7)
6: Page Right in non-one column view / modes (6)
7: default layout (9)
8: Page Down (2)
9: bottom of page (4)
*: Desktop Layout (10)
#: One Column Layout (11)
For more (not mandatory) info, also see THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS.
1.1.3 MultiIE
The well-known Pocket PC IEM enhancer, MultiIE, is also compatible with (WM5+ only; sorry, no pre-WM5 compliance) MS Smartphones. The standard WM5 installer works on both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones. Let’s see how it compares to the Pocket PC version!
Unfortunately, it’s far inferior, feature-wise, to the Pocket PC version. Basically, you can only expect it to add multi-tab functionality.
1.1.3.1 Differences between the Pocket PC and the Smartphone version
1.1.3.1.1 Goodies missing - a generic overview
It’s fully impossible to save images in the SP version. The same stands for the excellent, additional features offered by, for example, address bar macros. They are ALL missing from the SP version, which is, more or less, only lets for multi tabs, softkey-based D-pad scroll mode and full screen switching, HTML saving and source viewing and keeping backlight on.
There are a LOT of features just not accessible in the SP version. In addition to basic functionality like the already-mentioned ability to open a link in another tab, the lack of saving images or saving full Web pages (as opposed to only saving plain HTML files without in-line images and, preferably, CSS/JS files), a whole set of other features are also missing: for example, address bar macroing, the excellent location-based services offered by the PPC version, the ability to quickly reformat a Web page through online Web compression / reformatting services like Skweezer etc. Fortunately, at least “Keep Backlight On” works.
1.1.3.1.2 Setting dialogs
Unfortunately, a lot of menu options accessible on the PPC are just not accessible in the SP version. For example, assigning shortcut buttons to MultiIE functions (PPC screenshots: 1 2) isn’t even offered by the SP version. On the Screen tab, it’s not possible to switch off the, on the Smartphone, useless (because you can’t tap them on a touchscreen-less device) corner icons (PPC SP).
1.1.3.1.3 Impossible to open a link in a new tab
While it’s available in the SP version of Opera Mobile (where you just traverse the focus to the link you’d like to open but, instead of pressing Action, press the right softkey and select “1 Open in new window”), it’s not possible to dynamically set where (in what tab) a new link should be opened to. This, of course, is also possible in the PPC version of MultiIE as can be seen in HERE.
You can surely try to redefine the default functionality in the Open link: Tap default action to, say, Open in new back window as can be seen in HERE, but it won’t work at all (and won’t stick). This means you can NOT open links in another tab in any way without opening a new tab in Menu / 9 MultiIE / 3 Open New Window and, in there, select the link you want to display in this tab.
1.1.3.2 Compared to Opera Mobile…
The inability to open a link in a new window, as has already been pointed out, is a big problem with MultiIE – as opposed to OpMob.
Switching between open tabs also requires significantly more button presses than in Opera Mobile. In the latter, you only need to press ‘2’ once to bring up the list of open tabs, where, after selecting the right one to switch to, you only need to press Action once. In MultiIE, you need to press Menu / 9 MultiIE and, if there are not more than 3 open tabs (in Portrait mode on QVGA devices; on 176*220 ones, even two open tabs will result in the same), select the tab at the top. If there’re more tabs open (QVGA screenshot with 4 tabs) or, you’re in Landscape, there will be another level of redirection (1 Windows), making it necessary to issue another keypress.
There is, however, something MultiIE is better at: saving web pages do work. Unfortunately, you can’t fine tune what should be saved – unlike in the PPC version, where not only the page HTML itself, but also all the related resources (by selecting a full save instead of the HTML-only).

1.1.3.3 Other bugs & problems
In addition to the already-mentioned ones (for example, the Open link: Tap default action settings’s not being sticky) it has several other bugs. For example, it sometimes hides the tabs (1 2) on QVGA devices (but not on 176*220 ones). This might particularly be a case with pages using frames, after maximizing one of these frames using Expand Frame (left softkey); for example, the MultiIE page itself.
The menus may be a bit messed up (but still usable) on QVGA devices because of the too large fonts. On low-res 176*220 ones, they’re OK (screenshots: 176*220: 1 2 3; QVGA: 1 2)
While the tabs can be re-displayed after a screen rotation (if the particular device supports rotating the screen – for example, the Vox does), rotating back to the original rotation will result in not using the entire screen estate. This won’t be an issue if you NEVER rotate the screen but stay in either Portrait or Landscape all the time.
As far as the options dialog screens are concerned, the “Plugin” dialog is also different: first, as it is lacking a scrollbar, you don’t see anything under Presets / Shown on open more menu on both 176*220 and QVGA Portrait phones. On QVGA Landscape ones, however, the scrollbar is displayed and you can scroll down, revealing the lowermost GUI widgets. Not that it’d be of any use: NONE of the features work in here. That is, you can’t even set the User-Agent to be used to “disguise” your browser as a full desktop Windows browser. This is also a very bad disadvantage, compared to how it behaves on the Pocket PC.
Still in this dialog, the address bar search configuration (PPC screenshots: 1 2) don’t work either: an “Option not available in alpha” is displayed.
1.1.3.4 Tips & tricks
By default, to view the source of a Web page, it tries to use \Windows\notes.exe, which doesn’t exist on any MS Smartphones.
Unfortunately (if you have a phone with a built-in keyboard – non-QWERTY phones don’t have this program!), if you redefine this link to \Windows\TextNotes.exe as can be seen in HERE, Menu / 9 MultiIE / 6(+) Page Tools / 3 View Source will not work either.
Therefore, if you have a Windows Mobile 6 Standard phone (which come with Office Mobile built-in), you’ll want to prefer Word Mobile (\Windows\pword.exe) to view the sources. To make this word, configure MultiIE to use it as the default viewer. With that, watching sources will work just fine:
1.1.3.5 Verdict
All in all, don’t expect much of the current version of MultiIE for Smartphone. It’s WAY worse, WAY harder to use and definitely more buggy than the Pocket PC version. The Smartphone version of Opera Mobile is far better thought-out (support for dialpad buttons; menu-based link / image context menu support etc., making it far easier to, for example, open a link in a new tab instead of the current one; far faster to switch tabs; allows for saving images etc.). If you, however, absolutely need to stick to IEM and do need a multitab solution for it with some goodies (for example, Opera Mobile still doesn’t support saving pages; MultiIE does; the same stands for quickly swapping between the three scrolling modes, should you want to exclusively use the D-pad for scrolling and leave the 2/8 phone buttons alone), currently, MultiIE is the only way to go.
1.2 Opera Mobile
(a QVGA screenshot; note that, as with IEM and Opera Mini, Opera Mobile is perfectly usable on low-resolution, 176*220 Smartphones too)
Currently, this really excellent browser is even more usable on the Smartphone than on most Pocket PC (that is, Pocket PC’s without a dialpad on the face of the phone – an example of PPC models with a dialpad is the ASUS P525) because of the functionality shortcuts assigned to these buttons. As has been pointed out in the Web Browsing Bible (which is a good read even for people that don’t own a Pocket PC), currently, it’s not possible to assign any otherwise assignable functionality – for example, page up/down, jump to beginning of page etc. – to Pocket PC hardware button. The situation is entirely different with the Smartphone platform.
This is all topped with the traditional Opera Mobile strengths: speed, standards compliance, being multi-tabbed (of course, tabs aren’t displayed in the SP version; however, it’s very easy to quickly (!) switch between loaded pages), no binary download-related problems, upload support etc.
There are some minor (!) bugs with the SP version, as opposed to the PPC one. These are in no way as bad as the problems with IEM, though.
The standard Smartphone "Back" button doesn't work in the cache setting text input field, which makes it impossible to change the value (other than adding, say, a new number in front of it, which is NOT recommended in any way for a reason I elaborate on later). The "Delete" key on built-in QWERTY keyboards (when they exist), on the other hand, do work. This is a minor problem on models with no built-in QWERTY thumb/keyboard. Tested on both the Vox (has a QWERTY keyboard) and the Oxygen (no keyboard). Note that you can always manually edit (with a file explorer tool) the Size value in the [Disk Cache] section of \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini if you want to change this value.
If your device runs WM6 (but NOT a previous operating systems - it's working just great on my WM5 AKU3 HTC Oxygen / s310!) and you want to use Opera Mobile as the default browser to, say, open links arriving in e-mails, the file associations won’t work with these URL’s as can be seen in HERE. The problem with the old PPC version 8.60 was the same, but the explanation and solution was completely different; this is why the old registry script (see THIS article) I’ve created for the latter doesn’t help with the Smartphone version.
Fortunately, after playing with the new, WM6 Registry, I pinpointed the problem and was able to come up with a real fix (yes, I was the first to fix this bug!). Just import THIS registry file (if you've installed Opera in the main storage; if it's on the storage card, use THIS instead) and voila: everything will be OK. (Just for the record: under WM6, as opposed to earlier operating systems (where this key didn't exist at all and the system used the traditional http association), HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\ Shell\ Rai\ : DEFBROWSER \ 1 must contain the full executable path of the default browser, as opposed to its name (without the path) only. Two screenshots showing this, with the new contents (assuming Opera is installed in the main storage): 1 2.)
It's very important that this fix should also be used on the Pocket PC platform if you have WM6!

(Note that, after my finding out the trick above, I've been told other people (for example, John Burn HERE) have also been succeeded in finding the solution for the problem. I really ask eveyone to publish their fixes not only in one, model-specific forum not really visited by non-owners of the same model, but also in generic ones. Generic ones include, for example, the forum of Opera Mobile: after having found out the fix, the first thing I've done was posting an announcement in there so that all Opera Mobile users are notified. This way, everyone suffering from the bug notices the fix being available right away and noone tries to reinvent the wheel. I belonged to the latter category: it took me about half an hour to find the fix. Should I have known of the fix already being existing, I wouldn't have wasted time on finding what the problem is caused by.)
Has some minor problems with image handling. When the browser is presented with more than, say, 7-8 images in a page, it may not download them all (or, for that matter, any of them). Give a try to THIS page to see this in effect - on my QVGA Vox, it didn't render any images. The situation was pretty similar on the old(er) Oxygen (with other pages). Note that a forced reload the page, in general (but not always!), helps.
When you manually enter a URL into the "Go to" text input field on the Vox keyboard, you can't enter a string longer than the screen estate size (give a try to entering, say, the above link!) This problem can only be fixed by trying to visit the part that can still be entered and, then, returning to Action / Go to, finding the first part of the URL already entered and going on with entering the latter part(s). Dunno if this problem is caused by the OS or Opera Mobile.
If you define a HUGE cache (to bring down data usage costs), the responsiveness of the browser REALLY decreases. For example, on my Vox, I had a cache with about ~10M files (in the main storage). With that, Opera takes over a minute (!) to start and, after loading a new page (WITHOUT images!) about 10-15 seconds to flush it to the cache, during which you can't for example scroll up/down to go on reading. That is, you need to stick with the default 2M cache to get rid of these problems.
If there is little RAM memory left, the Smartphone dialpad keys (2, 6, 9 etc.) stop working. Instead of their default functionality, they result in reloading pages / moving elsewhere. In these situations, an error message like "Due to RAM memory shortage, the requested action couldn't be done." could be shown.
Again and again, this is more of nitpicking – Opera Mobile for the MS Smartphone still stays THE best Smartphone Web browser. For example, it still supports even saving images (in the Image mode – see the explanation in the usage chart).
Probably the only really annoying bug is the fact that, as of 8.65 beta released on 06/01/2007 and usable until October this year, it only remembers HTTP proxy servers during the first page request after starting; the other requests are directly sent to the HTTP server. To test this, give it a working (for example, at the time of writing, 82.204.47.120:8080 was one of them) proxy address in \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini (as is explained in the Toonel-related section) and, then, after restarting Opera, go to WhatIsMyIP.com. Upon the first invocation, you’ll see the proxy’s address as the originating address. Upon later invocations (for example, after just refreshing the page), however, it’ll switch to direct access – and the IP address it displays will also reflect this.
This, unfortunately, means currently you won’t be able to local proxy-based bandwidth usage reduction solutions like Toonel with Opera Mobile. Neither will you be able to use external proxies to either conceal your real IP or get outside of a corporate network.
Note that some of the rendering bugs common with the PPC version are here; for example, the Register bug. The Register (in the examples, I show examples of THIS article) can’t be browsed without zooming out and/or switching to Landscape mode on QVGA screens. This is, of course, using the fit to screen mode (as opposed to the Desktop mode) when browsing The Register. Screenshots: 1 2; a 176*220 screenshot HERE. The Pocket PC version has the similar problem (QVGA screenshot).
In addition to the subtle differences like the image scrolling mode (to allow for saving images on the Smartphone), there is another notable difference between the SP and the PPC version of Opera Mobile 8.65. The PPC version has three display modes as can also be seen in HERE: Desktop, Fit to screen and Single column. Of these, efectively, only two (desktop view and, in general, one-column view) is used on QVGA devices (it’s only on VGA models that there is a real “Fit to screen” mode), but all the three are listed. If you select Fit to screen on a QVGA device, it will, effectively, show everything in one-column mode only (that is, the columns of will be kept). This is clearly visible in THIS screenshot. The only difference between the two modes, on a QVGA PPC, is that if you use your device in the Landscape orientation, then, if you stick to the Single column mode, it will only use 240 pixels of the sligltly less than 320 pixels of the horizontal screen estate. This means you will want to exclusively use Fit to screen on a QVGA Pocket PC. (Again, VGA Pocket PC's are entirely different. Compare the above screenshot to THIS, showing the effect of Fit to screen in landscape mode. As can be seen, there is no unused screen estate, as opposed to the Single column mode.)

The SP version, on the other hand, only has two modes: Desktop and Fit to screen as can be seen in HERE (QVGA screenshot) and HERE (176*220 screenshot). They, however, work exactly the same as the QVGA Pocket PC version, regardless of whether you select Fit to screen or Single column on the latter. Effectively, Fit to screen, Landscape screen estate usage-wise, is the same as the same Fit to screen on the PPC, which can clearly be seen in THIS QVGA SP screenshot, showing THIS MoDaCo Smartphone forum. As can be seen, it uses the entire horizontal screen estate, just like the PPC version in the, on QVGA devices, preferable Fit to Screen mode.
Two other screenshots of the same MoDaCo forum: 176*220 SP, QVGA SP Portrait (the latter being exactly the same on QVGA PPC.)
Note that there will be exceptions from this "everything is displayed as one-column only" rule: not all webpages will be rendered as one-column. For example, one example of this is THIS Finnish stock exchange page, which is rendered as a two-dimensional table on both PPC's and SP's, using even the Single column mode on the former.
To show what happens with this page, I've made several screenshots:
QVGA SP in Portrait (the same in Landscape)
176*220 SP (in, of course, Portrait only) - yes, as can be seen, even in this really low-resolution model the chart is two-dimensional. Note that the "Opera Mobile for Smartphone doesn't load all the images" bug is certainly visible in this screenshot - it didn't load the images (of which only the "Image" placeholder is visible) not after a forced reloading, unlike with the QVGA SP version, which did load them after a forced reload (but not when first accessing the page).
QVGA PPC Fit to screen and PPC One column mode
Again, as can be seen, ALL the tested devices (QVGA and 176*220 SP's and a QVGA PPC in BOTH the Fit to screen and Single column modes) rendered the chart using real, two-dimensional fit to screen mode and did NOT try to force each column into its own row.
1.3 Opera Mini 4.x
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(VGA PPC screenshot running under the Intent midlet manager (hence the non-used command bar at the bottom); a QVGA Smartphone screenshot HERE)
I’ve often reported on Opera Mini, which, as of the current 4.x series beta, has become a serious contender to even native Windows Mobile Web browsers, particularly on the touch screen-less Smartphone platform, where the lacking features of Opera Mini (for example, lack of context menus or copy / paste capabilities) aren’t a problem because of the lack of the touch screen. (That is, you couldn’t use these features on IEM either – it’s only Opera Mobile, with its excellent link / image context menus even on the SP platform, that still offers a bit more functionality than Opera Mini.)
Should you want to know how Opera Mini can be deployed in current midlet managers (the article explains the IBM J9 and the Intent Tao case; the Esmertec case is really-really similar), you will want to read the related section HERE, in the “A step-by-step Tutorial on setting up Opera Mini” section. Note that the direct link takes you to version 3; to get the version 4 beta, you will want to follow the instructions HERE.
1.3.1 What’s new with the brand new, 4.x Opera Mini series?
Nokia’s having pioneered the quick zoom functionality in their excellent S60 series 3 Web browser, Windows Mobile browsers quickly followed suit: first, NetFront in the second Technical Preview of their forthcoming 3.4; then, Microsoft in their (beta-stage and still far from being finished) DeepFish.
Opera, the, in my opinion, by far the finest (give a try to their desktop browser, particularly if you have an (W)SXGA+ or (W)UXGA screen – you’ll love it!) browser developer company, soon followed suit. In addition to announcing the forthcoming Opera 9, which is a native Windows Mobile application, with similar capabilities, they have also added full page view & quick zoom capabilities to the brand new series of Opera Mini, their Java Midlet-based, small, but still VERY powerful multiplatform browser.

Just visit THIS page (the SWF file, should you want to directly download it, is HERE) and see what Opera has come up with. It’s indeed very cool, isn’t it? All this in a VERY small package (90 kbytes), with almost unmeasurable runtime (dynamic RAM) memory consumption. Compare this to the memory consumption of traditional Web browsers – yes, they consume orders of magnitude more memory. Note that there are a some other, cool videos on Opera’s homepage running the browser in reality – those videos are far more instructive than my static screenshots.
This browser, as has also been pointed out in the Web Browser Bible, runs great on Windows Mobile, on both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones, in both common factory-default midlet environments, the Intent (the industry standard on almost all WM5-based PPC and SP phones, except for the Esmertec-based HP iPAQ hx6915) and the Esmertec (shipped with many natively WM6 phones like the HTC Vox / S710) midlet managers.
It’s by far the best J2ME (Java midlet) browser: other Midlet-based browsers are far worse in every respect. For example, jBrowser can’t even display middle-sized pages like the PPCMag blog page, the PPCT main page as can be seen in HERE and, for smaller pages, it will never finish loading.
As has already been pointed out, the best new feature the new version offers is Zoom-in / full page view functionality. Its “let’s crunch the text into the viewable screen estate” works just great – much better than I’ve expected or what most of the other browsers do.
You’ll REALLY love the new page view functionality if you want to check out for example
THIS is the desktop rendition of the Finnish stock exchange in a tabular form. Now, let’s take a look at them in the default, pre-series 4 one-column mode:
and this is how the new, full page layout mode renders it (zoomed in):
and zoomed out, showing the entire page:
A big difference in usability and readability, isn’t it?
Of course, in most cases, if you don’t want to browse tabular data like this, you won’t necessarily need the new mode. Then, you may safely stay with the old, one-column mode.
In addition to providing a page view & zoom-in mode, the Opera folks have come out with something unprecedented in the Windows Mobile world: smart text finding. Let me show you an example with an XDA-Developers thread:
In THIS screenshot, I’ve just started browsing and, therefore, the selection frame is in the upper left corner. Now, let’s press the Down key several times (or, even better, 8 for much quicker navigation downwards). As soon as I’ve reached the body of the text, the selection was automatically (!) scrolled to the right so that no screen estate remains unused on the left side of the screen as can be seen in HERE. Pretty smart, eh?
Now, let’s press Action to read it. As can indeed be seen, the text is very intelligently flowed in a way that no horizontal scrolling is necessary. It’s also really-really superior to how most other browsers handle non-one column modes. Thumbs up Opera, you’re indeed the BEST Web browser developers out there – and this is stated by somebody that knows a LOT about Web technologies and protocols!
1.3.2 Shortcuts
Opera Mini is pretty much similar to Opera Mobile in that it makes extensive use of the phonepad (dialpad) common on all SP models (and, as has already been stated, also available on some PPC models). Unfortunately, the default hotkeys are different, which you, if you often switch between the two browsers, will find pretty inconvenient. (But, then, just edit \Application Data\ Opera\ input.ini to make it similar to the Opera Mini shortcuts. See my other, Opera Mobile-related articles on how this can be accomplished.)
Please see section 1.5 (Shortcuts) to see what shortcuts the two browsers (and, in addition, IEM) offers. They REALLY make browsing MUCH faster – it’s really worth using the dialpad to access them.

1.3.3 Bugs, annoyances in Opera Mini 4.0 beta
The new, 4.0 series being in beta state, it has some, in most cases (if you DO use a compatible Midlet environment), non fatal bugs / annoyances not present in previous versions:
Big minimal font size (as opposed to the current 3.1.* version) and (comparatively) huge gaps between rows. A lot of people have complained about this; in my opinion, this doesn’t hamper the usability of the client.
Cookies are not necessarily kept (as opposed to the current 3.1.* version – you may end up having to logging into your account much more frequently than with the 3.x series)
You may encounter crashes on Pocket PC’s and on Smartphones running other Midlet managers than that of Esmertec. On my Vox, using the factory-shipped Esmertec midlet environment, I haven’t encountered ANY crash over the last month of active (!) usage. See for example THIS XDA-Dev thread on PPC users’ reporting shutdowns / crashes. Most (if not all) of these users use the Intent midlet manager (which, again, is also the default midlet manager on many Smartphones.)
Let me, again, emphasize that while on my brand new WM6 HTC Vox (s710), using the Esmertec Jeodek 20070115.1.1 midlet environment, I have never encountered any Opera Mini 4.0 beta crash (while having been using it at least 2-3 hours a day!), other midlet environments may behave differently. For example, the Intent midlet manager common on most WM5 Smartphones AND Pocket PC's is known to frequently crash on OpMini4 users - it did once on me too when I (quickly) tested OpMini 4 on my HTC Universal (the latter running the 10/1/7/554 / 20060502 version of the Intent manager.) Should you encounter crashes like this, consider switching to either the IBM J9 midlet manager (according to holg HERE, it works just great with Opera Mini 4) or look around in the XDA-Developers forums for help in getting the, again, stable and reliable Esmertec Midlet manager. (I don't know whether it's separately sold; I seriously doubt it.)
The full page layout takes a LOT of memory. If you stay with the one-column mode, unless you load HUGE pages (say, hundreds of kilobytes originally), you, in general, will be able to make use of all the 30 page slots without having to reload any of these pages. If you, on the other hand, switch to the original page (as opposed to the one-column one) layout view, this will be reduced to two or three concurrent pages at most, regardless of the size of the original pages. If you often switch back to already loaded, just-browsed pages and don’t want to reload them because of the time / bandwidth requirements, you will want to stick to the traditional, one-column mode.
Note that the two versions can easily co-exist with each other. That is, if the first three problems become annoying, you can just switch back to the old versions. Unfortunately, as the favorite lists aren’t shared between the two versions, favorites that you add / edit in one version won’t be visible in the other.
1.3.4 Other (non-4.x-specific) problems
There’re still some problems with Opera Mini that may be a showstopper for you.
It’s still unable to render ANY kind of italic text (see for example THIS for a more thorough elaboration and my demos showing displaying italic text is indeed possible on Smartphones, regardless of the midlet manager in use). This is a MAJOR pain the back. I’ve already contacted the Opera folks on this matter; hope they fix this problem.
Binary download support-wise (as it’s using the IEM engine to do the “dirty” stuff; that is, to download files off the Web), it’s suffering from exactly the same problems as IEM:
CAB files with text MIME type are just rendered as text (like THIS); bigger ones (like THIS 1.5M CAB file) result in an out of memory error
non-CAB files with (correct) binary MIME type (like THIS PDF file) are correctly passed to IEM. Unfortunately, as the execution is fully supervised by IEM, you won’t be able to download any of these files because of the well-known problem already outlined in the IEM section.
Finally, CAB files with the binary MIME type (like THIS) are both correctly recognized by OpMini and, then, correctly downloaded by IEM.
And, of course, the other minor annoyances / restrictions (no file upload, no any kind of access to the IEM / Opera Mobile favorites, no URL copying etc.) – you can see them all in the original Web Browser Bible.
1.3.5 Verdict
Currently, while Opera Mini 4 is at beta stage (as is also emphasized in the documents), it’s already highly recommended if you have a SP model.
1.3.6 More information
Opera Mini 4.0 wishlist thread
Opera Mini forum
1.4 jB5
(another screenshot, now with an image)
Now, this is a really promising browser! While decidedly slower than even IEM and lacks highly useful features like FastBack (upon pressing Back, rendering the page from the local memory cache and NOT downloading it again, unlike both jB5 and NetFront) and does NOT offer multiple document capabilities (unlike the two Operas), it’s (as of the current, tested version, 5.0.56) already pretty powerful (for example, it's the only Smartphone Web browser to offer page saving (which is, incidentally, implicitly possible with Opera Mobile if you're ready to find the given file in the cache) and in-page text search: see it in action: 1 2 3) - much more usable than, say, the next-to-useless Minimo. What is more, it's free.
As it's in beta stage and will surely receive an ever better version, I do not thoroughly review and compare its features / standards compliance to the alternatives because the info would be outdated VERY soon. I will, however, definitely review it as soon as it gets into final (or Release Candidate). Make sure you check it out and get your free copy - if you can put up with the somewhat slower page loading / scrolling speed and the lack of multi-tabs / FastBack, you may like it very much.

1.5 Additional technologies
In this section, I elaborate on the Toonel, Java applet and Flash support on Smartphones. Again and again, CHECK out the original Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible for more info on them. In here, I only give you strictly Smartphone-related information, not generic one you might want to also know.
1.5.1 Flash
Unfortunately, unlike on the desktop, where there is a more or less solid and compatible (albeit pretty slow) official Flash implementation from Adobe (ex-Macromedia; from now on, I only refer to it as “Adobe”) itself (and the alternative, albeit a bit worse and much more CPU-hungry player integrated into NetFront), Smartphone users have always been left in the cold. Much as Adobe has been addressed several petitions (see for example THIS one at MoDaCo), the Smartphone still haven’t received a real Flash player.
There is some light on the horizon, though. Adobe is working on Flash Lite (current version: 2.1), which is already accessible HERE. (If you don’t have an account, make sure you check in “No, I will create one now” as the bottom so that you can register. Registering can be done quickly; only after that will you be able to access the downloads. Note that, should you not want unwanted Adobe mails, you don’t need to check in any of the “I’m a developer / content creator” radio buttons – you can safely set all of them to “No” instead of the default “Yes” – you’ll still be provided access for the download).
Both IEM and Opera Mobile supports this plug-in (see screenshots below). Note that it doesn’t run MOST currently available Flash animations. For example, most games out there won’t run (unlike under the Pocket PC version). Some examples of them are Bomberman and Play with fire (this is what you’ll be shown: 1 2; IEM screenshot).
1.5.1.1 Hacking REAL Flash on Smartphones
I’ve tried to "hack" Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
Fortunately, other hackers had better luck. XDA-Developers forum member jockyw2001 has managed to hack the REAL Flash player onto the SP.
(IEM playing back a YouTube video in One Column mode on the HTC Vox)
(other screenshots: Opera Mobile on the Vox doing the same in Desktop mode with 50% zoom, with the SPHelper cursor for controlling the on-screen controls; the same on my 176*220 Oxygen, with 25% zoom)
His thread is HERE (you will NOT need to read it to complete the steps below!) Note that you MUST apply the hacks on an application unlocked phone - it won't work on locked phones. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to unlock your phone (see for example THIS article for some links). Also note that the hack worked just great on both my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and WM5 AKU3 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310). Some people, however, reported problems with other models (see the above-linked thread). I'm pretty sure it's because they have messed up something that the plug-in doesn't work on their devices.

First, get THIS file (it's a slightly rearranged version of jockyw2001's original. For example, I've collected the registry import files into one file and separated the files into directories named after the steps you need to do). UnRAR it with, say, WinRAR. Now, do the following:
If you've already installed Resco File Explorer (along with its registry plug-in) and at least once started the latter, copy All.reg from Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Go to the Step 3 - flash6 directory on your desktop and the \Windows\Macromedia directory on your SP. Overwrite flash.dll on your SP with the one on your desktop.
Go to Step 4 - regserv and copy regsvrce.exe anywhere on your SP. From inside File Explorer (on your SP), execute it to register Flash. To do this, enter \Windows\Macromedia\flash.dll in the Full pathname... text input field (176*220 screenshot). (To make this easier (to avoid entering the path on the phonepad / keyboard of your phone), I recommend for example Pocket Controller on the desktop. If you can’t use Ctrl-V to paste to there (the case with the version 5.06 + HTC Vox combo, but NOT with the Oxygen), use ViTO’s excellent CopyPaste on the Smartphone to copy the contents of the clipboard to the input field.)
Then, just press OK and “Yes” in the confirmation dialog. After some 2-3 seconds, you’ll hear another bell. Now, start regsvrc.exe again; you’ll immediately see a confirmation (success) dialog (176*220 screenshot).
On the desktop, go to Step 5 - Flash7 and copy flash.dll to \Windows\Macromedia on your SP in order to overwrite the in step 3 copied Flash 6 version with the new, Flash 7 one.
Now you can start enjoying REAL Flash content!
Note that the above tutorial explains how you can install Flash in the main storage. Should you want to install Flash on your storage card (to save 1.5 Mbytes of main storage, which is a real must on Smartphones with less than 128M built-in Flash ROM), do the following (it's pretty much the same as with the previous case, except for the registry file you'll need to import and the paths you need to use; I used the bold typeface to emphasize the differences):
import THIS registry file (it's NOT the same as Step 1 - Registry import\All.reg! Do NOT import the latter!)
Go to the \Windows directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy\Windows directory on your desktop computer. Copy everything BUT the Macromedia subdirectory to your SP (that is, do NOT copy the latter, only the AppMgr subdirectory and the two files, Macromedia Flash Player ActiveX.unload and nmsrapix.dll, in \Windows.)
On your SP, change the current directory to your storage card - that is, it should be \Storage Card. Create a subdirectory named Windows there and copy the Macromedia subdirectory in there (so that, finally, flash.dll will be under \Storage Card\Windows\Macromedia)
Go to the Step 3 - flash6 directory on your desktop and the \Storage Card\Windows\Macromedia directory on your SP. Overwrite flash.dll on your SP with the one on your desktop.
Go to Step 4 - regserv and copy regsvrce.exe anywhere on your SP. From inside File Explorer (on your SP), execute it to register Flash. To do this, enter \Storage Card\Windows\Macromedia\flash.dll in the Full pathname... text input field and go on as explained in the main storage-centric tutorial.
On the desktop, go to Step 5 - Flash7 and copy flash.dll to \Storage Card\Windows\Macromedia on your SP in order to overwrite the in step 3 copied Flash 6 version with the new, Flash 7 one.
The plug-in works great (additional screenshot); you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper to click labels / buttons like in THIS screenshot.
Note that both IEM and Opera Mobile are able to make use of the plug-in. The two programs have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses.
First, IEM can't make use the up/down arrow keys; that is, if you would like to, say, play a game depending on these two directions, they will be unplayable. In these cases, you MUST use Opera Mobile. Second, as far as playing back YouTube videos is concerned, while IEM (unlike on the Pocket PC – it’s pretty strange the SP version of IEM is better in this respect) you will want to prefer Opera Mobile because it’s slightly faster at playback. You will still want to overclock your phone - if it’s a TI OMAP-based one, with OMAPClock.
Under Opera Mobile (as opposed to IEM), in the default mode, the flash plug-in size will be really tiny as can be seen in HERE. (Therefore, you’ll want to switch to Desktop mode and use a Zoom level of, on QVGA machines, in general, 50%, and, on 176*220 models, 25%) Unfortunately, you will still have problems with scrolling down / right – in the default, link scrolling mode, you will only see the top left part of the page and won’t be able to scroll anywhere (not even clicking the scrollbars with SPHelper). To fix this (and to scroll down to the Flash animation), you MUST switch to Image (scrolling) mode. With Opera Mobile, the up/down arrows do work, unlike with IEM, as can also be seen in THIS screenshot (otherwise, I couldn’t have been able to go down).

1.5.2 Toonel
Toonel, the transparent compressor proxy, is a GREAT way to save data usage costs. If you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you really should check it out by, first, reading my related article & tutorial HERE. I’ve published several articles and tips on Toonel; the just-linked one is the one to start with.
While, it seems, it’s not possible to make the native Windows Mobile version work, the Java versions does work on Smartphones.
As far as the native Windows Mobile version is concerned, according to the folks HERE (thanks for the link to the Toonel folks; it's Russian - Babel "translation" HERE), some people managed to make the native (.NET CF) version of Toonel run. I haven’t succeeded in this on either of my Oxygen or Vox.
Fortunately, the Java version works. In general, you’ll only need the (brand new) CrEme 4.12 (download the TI OMAP version of the 4.1 series if you have a TI OMAP-based Smartphone) and THIS JAR file (version 0.45 - do NOT use version 0.50!). Install CrEme (you can do this on the storage card too – then, however, you’ll need to modify the link file I give you), copy the JAR file to the root directory of your handheld (you can, actually, copy it anywhere – but, then, you’ll need to modify the link file I will give you soon) and, then, copy THIS link file to \Windows\Start Menu. Then, just click the latter to start Toonel in the background. Upon start, you should see THIS screen. If you see THIS (note the bind() failed message!), it shows Toonel is already running.
Note that the CrEme process takes quite a lot of memory (but, fortunately, little CPU time – about 1-2% - when inactive) as can be seen in HERE. Beware of this fact – the operating system may kill the CrEme (Toonel) process in the background, particularly if you start other, memory-intensive programs. Then, you will just need to restart the proxy by clicking the startup script.
As, currently, the SP version of Opera Mobile (as with old 8.60 Pocket PC builds) doesn’t have internal support for entering proxy servers, you must enter the proxy information in the config file by hand. However, as with the old PPC betas, you can easily configure the proxy server by just editing \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini and adding the following section:
[Proxy]
Use HTTP=1
HTTP server=127.0.0.1:8080
Enable HTTP 1.1 for proxy=1
A screenshot of the Web admin interface of the locally running Toonel on my Vox:
As can clearly be seen, there was about 80% (fourfold!) bandwidth usage saving during the active session. This alone makes Toonel really worthy if yours is not an unlimited data plan.
A quick visit to WhatIsMyIP also shows it’s through the Toonel server that you’re connected (85.25.148.242 is one of the IP’s of the Toonel servers).
It’s VERY important to remember that, currently (as of 07/10/2007), the SP version of Opera Mobile does NOT reliably support proxy servers. Therefore, if you absolutely must use Toonel (or ANY external proxy server), you MUST use IEM and forget Opera Mobile.
As IEM, as with the PPC version, also depends on the operating-system level proxy settings (unlike other browsers), you must also configure the system to access the Net differently than before. That is, do the following:
in IEM, go to Menu / 9 Tools / 3 Options / Connections, untick “Automatically detect settings” and select “Work” in the list as can be seen in HERE
in the system-level Settings, go to 6 Connections / 6 Proxy, press Action on New and create a new record as can be seen in THIS screenshot (as can be seen in HERE, just leave “Type” on “HTTP”). You can name the proxy setting anything; in here, I’ve called it ‘t’. That is, all you need to do is setting “The Internet” to “Connects from”, “Work” to “Connects to” and entering “127.0.0.1:8080” in “Proxy (nameort)”.
Note that, after this, you will need to configure your other programs also using the system-level settings to use Toonel instead of a direct connection. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to configure the built-in Messaging to use the built-in POP3 proxy support of Toonel (as opposed to the Pocket PC Messaging). Also, remember that, should you have the built-in Live (or MSN) Messenger, defining the proxy will also render them useless.
Unfortunately, it seems it’s not possible to make these programs work with a proxy defined in the above way. That is, you will need to delete the proxy every time you want to access your mail. It seems there are no other ways of disabling it - for example, setting the source / target networks to something else doesn’t work.
Again, keep in mind that you can have Toonel activated for IEM (that is, using a system-level proxy setting) AND still access your mail (both compressed, via Toonel, and uncompressed) via other, Smartphone-compliant mailer clients; for example, FlexMail. With the latter, you can safely use the compression offered by Toonel too and the mails downloaded just OK.
1.5.3 Java applets
While the IEM plug-in of the just-released CrEme 4.12 (the only Java Virtual Machine to be compatible with the Smartphone AND have an applet plug-in) can be registered, it doesn’t seem to be working, unlike on the Pocket PC.
Neither the applet-based Radar Weather test nor the local demo applet (Cube) shipped with the system work: the JVM plug-in just keeps showing "loading applet". Example screenshots: 1 2 (Vox); 3 (Oxygen).

1.6 Keyboard shortcuts
I’ve compiled a chart of the three SP Web browsers showing how a given functionality can be accessed. As can be seen, in general, Opera Mini requires the least button presses to do something (assuming IEM and Opera Mobile run in full-screen mode, which also means double initial softkey presses instead of just a single one to access something in menus only – that is, not having a direct dialpad shortcut).
Keep in mind that, if you extensively use the dialpad (for example, to directly enter the number of the menu item you’d like to activate – these numbers are shown in all menus and I also reproduce them here), you can navigate MUCH faster than using the D-pad to scroll up/down a menu.
You can find the chart here - make sure you check it out, you’ll find it REALLY useful!
2. Non-working or not recommended browsers
2.1 Thunderhawk 2.0
Unfortunately, this browser wasn’t updated for WM5. This means neither the SP2003 (1 2) nor the SP2002 version (these are the two versions available for download) can be installed on WM5/WM6 SP models. All in all, forget about it for the time being.
2.2 NetFront 3.4 Technical Preview 008
NetFront is a well-known browser, which, as of the Technical Preview (TP) versions of the forthcoming, 3.4 version, also received (still a bit flaky) Smartphone support. (No, don’t expect version 3.3, the currently avaailable non-preview, commercial version to run on the Smartphone – it can’t be installed).
(a 176*220 screenshot; the same device scrolling through a stock exchange list in Normal (desktop) display (rendering) mode)
(Note that most of these are all non-full screen screenshots. I used them to prove the screenshots have indeed been taken on a Smartphone. In reality, especially on 176*220 devices, you will want to stick to full screen mode to maximize the screen estate available for browsing).
Note that, currently, the last TP version is 008. You will, however, want to prefer the earlier, 007 version (see review HERE) accessible for example HERE because version 008 is far more restrictive and the two versions have the same expiration date.
The main difference between the PPC and the SP version is that you can’t navigate to the address bar of the latter using any keys (or any menu). This means you must use a cursor emulator like SPHelper to click the address bar; that is, to transfer the focus there.
It’s very important that, after you load the program, it’s only the command bar (the two softkeys) that will change, nothing else, as can be seen in HERE. To bring up the standard Netfront GUI (with the address bar), you will need to navigate to Menu / View / Full Screen. It’s then that you will be presented the standard NF GUI and start working / browsing via, say, going to Menu / File / Bookmark (or Operation / 6 Bookmark) or, with SPHelper (or any other cursor emulator), activating the address bar.
Note that while you can’t navigate to the tabs (if you do open more than one tabs) using the D-pad, you can easily access them via Menu / 1 Window for both switching to and closing.
Unfortunately, the restrictions of the PPC version also apply here; most importantly, the inability to redefine keys / buttons to quickly access any kind of functionality. This is especially annoying with the Smartphone version, where you have tons of easily accessible buttons, which are heavily used by all major, highly-recommended Web browsers (Opera Mobile, IEM (particularly after hacking the Registry) and Opera Mini but not jB5 as yet). In here, you can’t even use page scroll using the touchpad. In addition, not even the Smartphone “back” button works (which does work in both Opera Mobile and IEM) to quickly return to the previous page.
Interestingly, while there certainly is Flash support on the Smartphone (example screenshot HERE), YouTube, as opposed to the PPC version, doesn’t work. Remember that you need to activate Flash manually and also remember that it will chew through your battery if you navigate to any Flash-enabled web page – yes, it’s still very weak, battery usage-wise. The Access folks should immediately look into this problem.
All in all, while it’s certainly usable, it’s, on the Smartphone platform, not as convenient (and battery-friendly, for example, Flash-wise) as Opera Mobile or IEM. Only use it if you REALLY want to stick to NetFront and you can put up with the restrictions (not directly accessible address bar, sub-par Flash support etc).

2.3 Webby
Unfortunately, it doesn’t run either. While it can be installed, it refuses to run (1 2 3).
2.4 Minimo 0.2
(the latter is a 176*220 screenshot; as can be seen, only the last, Menu (…) icon is invisible; however, transferring the focus to it will also work. Too bad it turned out to be pretty unreliable on my WM5 AKU3 s310 (Oxygen)– even more so than on my QVGA Vox. For example, it didn’t even finish loading the SPT homepage as can be seen in the above screenshot.)
While it can be installed on SP’s, on this platform it’s far from perfect and, in general, useless, for the following reasons:
it has HUGE memory usage (the biggest problem with the 0.2 version on the Pocket PC platform too). After loading, it consumes about 12Mbytes and, when you load additional pages, this decreases even more, leaving little (if any) RAM memory
accessing the icons (to, for example, bring up the address bar) at the bottom can only be done using the right softkey. This, on the other hand, first, iterates through ALL the links in the page (yes, ALL of them), and only after this moves down to the bottom icons. A mouse emulator like SPHelper doesn’t help (to directly click the icons at the bottom) – Minimo just doesn’t sense the mouse clicks (that is, left softkey presses)
the browser often crashes (mostly if you run out of memory) and is generally slowish
All in all, I don’t recommend it. Also see for example THIS and THIS for more info / user opinions.
Note that the other available version, Minimo 0.16, isn’t installable on Smartphones at all.
UPDATE (later the same day):
in THIS thread, MoDaCo forum member holg posted something definitely worth reading - it, for example, explains how you can directly start Opera Mini from the alternative, by me, often-discussed midlet runner environment, the IBM J9. It also shows how external proxies can be used with this environment.
SPT frontpage
Cross-posted to: PPCT, SPT, MoDaCo, AximSite, XDA-Developers, BrightHand, FirstLoox, HowardForums.

UPDATE (08/31/2007) : Opera Mini 4 beta 2 out; the FULL review has been posted to these forums: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2 FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo, Opera Mini forums.

UPDATE (10/20/2007): I've published a review of Opera Mobile 8.65 Final (PPC/SP), Picsel 1.0.5 (PPC/SP) and the brand new Spb Pocket Plus 4.0 (PPC). A new version of jb5 (PPC/SP) has been released and a brand new, albeit very simple IEM add-in Web Viewer for WM5 (PPC). Also, I’ve linked in some of my recent reviews of some new (not very important) Web browsers: TeaShark (PPC/SP) and UCWEB (PPC/SP). Finally, I've published some genuine, never-before-published tips and tricks on utilizing the Pocket PC hardware application buttons to control Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. It's a MUST for any serious Pocket PC user - you'll LOVE my new tips & tricks. See THIS. Cross-posted to: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo.

Skyfire browser for WM6.1
Nice rundown on browsers but why is Skyfire not covered here? I just loaded it onto my Samsung Jack and it seems to be pretty good (better than IEM).
Would have liked to know how Skyfire compared to Opera and other browsers. fyi

Opera Mini 4: A new star is born - the FREE(!) Web browser you MUST give a try to

Opera Mini has a short history (the project was started only slightly over two years ago), but, today, with the release of version 4, it has become one of the most useful, best browsers available for anything handheld.
In this review & tutorial, I provide you with a complete tutorial of installing and using this recently released browser and, in addition, I explain why you may want to prefer it to other Web browsers.
First, some screenshots taken on wildly different platforms / devices:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(VGA Windows Mobile Pocket PC screenshot)
(QVGA Symbian S60v3 Nokia N95 screenshot)
(176*220 Windows Mobile Smartphone screenshot)
Note that note of the above screenshots use real full screen mode – hence the top and bottom bars. The last screenshot with enabled full screen mode can be seen in the following screenshot:
1.1 Why you will want to use it?
You’ll find it a god-send particularly when
you’re over a VERY slow (for example, GPRS) connection and want the fastest browsing solution, preferably with images
yours isn’t an unlimited data plan; that is, you pay big bucks for every Megabytes
you don’t want to pay for a third-party browser (they, in general, cost big bucks)
you’re a desktop Opera user (you should be – give it a try, you’ll love it, particularly if you have a notebook with a high-resolution (at least SXGA+) screen – Opera’s zoom-in features are way better than those of Internet Explorer and are only matched by Mozilla) and you want to synchronize your bookmarks with it as easily and automatically as possible
you look for an easy-to-use, non-separate, integrated RSS reader – that is, you need a Web browser that also notifies you when you surf to a page also having RSS feed
your mobile device is resource-constrained, while you’d like to keep tens of Web pages, preferably with images, open at the same time (without the need for reloading). This is where most (if not ALL) other browsers severely fail, even on high-end mobile devices packed with tens of Megabytes of free (!) RAM memory.
you want something like the minimap feature of the Nokia Web browser on newer Nokia devices, the NetFront 3.4 Technical Previews (which, being just previews, are severely restricted and lack Flash, more than 10 favorites and other goodies) on Windows Mobile or the iPhone Safari browser but usable on any platform (incl. any Windows Mobile device) – but even faster and having much less resource demands
you want something with hardware button / keypad support. Opera Mini supports them just great. If yours is a phone with the dialpad on the front of your phone, you’ll REALLY love these shortcuts because, then, you will rarely (if ever) need to use the softkeys (or, on touchscreen devices, the stylus) to navigate the menus. Using button shortcuts is WAY faster. As opposed to this, (on Windows Mobile) NetFront and Minimo doesn’t support buttons at all and (on Symbian) Nokia Web isn’t very good either. The MS Smartphone version of IEM is, shortcut button support-wise, is also definitely inferior to Opera Mini – it supports far fewer operations than Opera Mini.
In the following two sections, I compare it to the other browsers available for the two current, major mobile operating systems, Windows Mobile and Symbian. (Freely skip the one not pertaining to you.)
1.1.1 How does it compare to other Windows Mobile browsers?
While there’re quite a few Web browsers on Windows Mobile, only few of them are actually usable: the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile (preferably with a capable plug-in like PIEPlus, Spb Pocket Plus 4.x (but NOT older versions) or MultiIE), Opera Mobile and NetFront. These three browsers (and the other Web browsers and IEM plug-ins I, generally, don’t really recommend: Picsel, Thunderhawk, Minimo etc.) all have their strengths and weaknesses, on which I’ve thoroughly elaborated in my two (a separate one for Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s and Smartphones HERE and HERE, respectively) Web Browsing Bibles
1.1.2 How does it compare to other Symbian browsers?
On Symbian, there’re two other, really decent Web browsers.
Opera Mobile is available for all S60 v2 (!) and v3 devices and is pretty decent. For example, unlike its Windows Mobile counterpart, it supports in-page text searching (which is painfully missing from the WM version). It, however, doesn’t use a compression service, which means long downloading times over slow links and has pretty high memory requirements.
Nokia’s Web browser coming with all S60v3 FP1 models is also very decent: it supports in-page searching, Flash Lite, minimap view and a lot of other goodies. However, it’s decidedly slower than Opera Mini and if your phone is a Nokia N95-1 with 64M RAM only, you’ll inevitably run into the MAJOR problems caused by its taking a lot of memory.
While Opera Mini 4 allocates about 10 Mbytes of memory to itself (which is a big letdown on the N95-1), after the initial memory allocation, no more memory will be allocated and you can safely go on browsing.
1.1.3 When will you still need to stick to a traditional Web browser?
Unfortunately, there’re several areas Opera Mini doesn’t excel at. While, say, 95% of the time it works just wonderfully (no wonder I use it for most of my Web browsing on both Windows Mobile and Symbian phones) for just accessing the Web, in the remaining 5% you’ll need to “fall back” to other, traditional, non-Java-based browsers. You wi
if you need full JavaScript and/or AJAX support. Only a subset of these standards are supported (albeit still a LOT more than in Internet Explorer Mobile, Thunderhawk or Picsel!). See THIS for more info if interested.
These browsers will inevitably be invoked when you make Opera Mini download a file (this, however, doesn’t mean you will need to stick to using these browsers!)
As you can’t make Opera Mini the default system browser, links received in e-mails and HTML files in the local file system will still need to be browsed via these browsers – unless (if it’s a remote Web page, not a local, say, HTML file or file attachment) you paste the address of the page to the address bar of Opera Mini (OM for short).
If you need Java applet and/or Flash (Lite) support. It’s with very few pages that you do need them; for example, Handango’s Friday giveouts, requiring full Flash compliance, are one of them. And, for YouTube, you will want to use alternate methods to play, NOT direct, in-line playback. (If you do use the TCPMP plug-in under Windows Mobile, then, you will still need to use IEM.) That is, generally, it’s when you want to play some online Flash games (see THIS Flash Bible for more info if interested) that you will need to stick to a browser supporting Flash.
There are some other restrictions; for example, you absolutely MUST edit text longer than 4-5 kilobytes. Then, because of the MIDlet Manager (also abbreviated as KVM) restrictions, you’ll end up having to switch to a “real” browser – at least for the time of editing.
You need to save Web pages to the local file system and/or copy text out of them. Unfortunately, OM is completely unable to do this. Unfortunately, with current KVM’s, not even copying a URL (for example, that of the current page) to the clipboard is possible.
Again and again, speaking out of experience, a casual user will very rarely need to switch back to these browsers and, after finding out how easy Opera Mini is to use, how quick it is to load pages and operate and how wonderfully low system requirements it has, he or she will want to stick with Opera Mobile.

1.2 Installation
(Note that this section only contains WM5+ Windows Mobile Pocket PC screenshots showing the MIDlet manager Jbed. As I recommend Jbed the most and I do urge you to install Jbed on your phone too, I didn’t bother including screenshots / instructions on installing OM under other MIDlet managers. Similarly, I don’t give you Symbian screenshots either – installing and running OM is done in a very similar way as under WM.)
1.2.1 Installing a MIDlet Manager
If you have a Windows Mobile device with at least WM5 as the operating system (sorry, previous operating systems aren’t supported – not even WM2003SE, let alone even older OS’es) and it’s not the latest models (for example, the Kaiser / Mda Vario III / Tilt) of HTC, then, you will want to download the Jbed MIDlet Manager HERE. If you do this on your desktop computer, transfer the CAB file to your handset and click / activate it from File Explorer (or any other explorer tool like Total Commander). Just install it (it’ll be installed in the main memory) and you’re set – you can go on installing Opera Mini itself.
Jbed will run on ALL Pocket PC’s and Smartphones running at least WM5. If you have an earlier operating system, check out the “Platform compatibility” section (with three rows corresponding to non-phone-enabled Pocket PC’s, Pocket PC Phone Edition and MS Smartphones in turn) in the main MIDlet Bible chart for download links; then, you’ll want to use either TAO Intent or IBM J9. Of the two, I’d prefer the former, but that’s only me.
Note that you can ONLY use this MIDlet manager if and only if your locale is set to a language using Western characters: Spain, France, Finland, you got it. (This doesn’t only cover Western languages; for example, Estonian only uses letters already present in some other Western languages. That is, while Estonian is an East-European language / locale, it’ll still work.) If, on the other hand, you have a, say, Slavonic locale (for example, Slovak), Jbed will NOT work. If your locale is Russian, then, you will want to check out THIS file instead; linked from HERE. Note that the latter MIGHT work with other East-European locales; I haven’t tested this myself.
Also note that if you have a non-phone WM5+ Pocket PC (for example, a Dell Axim x50(v) (with the WM5 upgrade) /x51(v) etc.), you will also need to download THIS file and unZIP its contents to \Windows on your Pocket PC.
1.2.2 Installing Opera Mini itself
If you’d like to download the browser onto your desktop computer and, then, transfer it to your phone, go to THIS page and click the opera-mini-advanced.jar link (I don’t provide a direct link to the latter as it always changes, as newer and newer builds are released). A JAR file will be downloaded. Transfer it to your PDA via ActiveSync, a memory card, a wireless connection, the WinCE File System plug-in of Total Commander etc., fire up Pocket File Explorer on your phone and click it. It’ll initiate the install process.
If, on the other hand, you’d like to do this on your phone, enter the address http://mini.opera.com/ into any of your Web browser on your phone (screenshot HERE) , scroll down and click “Try the new Opera Mini 4” link. This will take you to the page http://mini.opera.com/?rel=4, where you only need to click “Download high memory version”. Then, the installation will start – just like with the offline process outlined in above.
It’s pretty easy to install Opera Mini. You’ll just need to answer OK, Yes and Continue. For example, when you’re presented THIS screen (asking you whether OM should be put in the root folder or any subfolder), THIS and THIS question to to launch it. During the process, you’ll see other dialogs; for example, THIS showing the compilation process.
Now that you’ve launched the app, keep answering OK / Yes / Accept as can be seen in THIS screen. On the next screen, you’ll (again) press OK (the “Yes, but ask me next session” will be selected by default; it’s perfectly OK with us). After this, answer Yes to the next question too and, then, activate Accept to accept the license agreement.
Upon the first execution, after you click a link (and, therefore, initiate a network connection) you’ll need to press at least one button several times until the progress bar is full. You can do this with any button if you have numeric buttons; do this with the D-pad (any directions) if you don’t.
1.3 Usage
After this, you’ll find using OM pretty straightforward by using the two WM5 softkeys (or the touch screen). I’m pretty sure you’ll find it easy to use.
Note that in the review of the previous beta3, I’ve already spent a LOT of time explaining how link synchronization and managing RSS feeds work. Please do refer to the article for a complete overview of both these techniques.
Users new to OM will surely notice that entering text is done differently than using regular Web browsers. Now, if you click (move the focus to and press the Action button on it) a text input field / area, you won’t be able to do an “in-line” edit, but you’ll be taken to a separate and, in most cases, full screen text editor. Jbed’s text editor is one of the best (for comparison: TAO Intent’s (a well-known, widely used KVM) editor has severe restrictions: it doesn’t support copy/paste operations), but keep in mind that it (as with ALL the other KVM’s on Windows Mobile and some KVM’s on Symbian) can’t edit texts larger than some 4 kilobytes.
Note that after exiting (Menu / Exit) or shutting down (with an external task manager tool or by resetting the device) OM, you will need to go to Start / Programs and select the Esmertec Jbed icon (highlighted HERE) and click (or, press Launch while it’s selected) “Opera Mini” inside. Note that if you’re a somewhat more advanced user, you can easily invoke OM4 without starting Esmertec Jbed first (that is, you save some screen taps / button presses) by following my remarks in the “Direct, system-level links (shortcuts) to MIDlets” row of the main chart of the MIDlet Bible.
Under newer Symbian versions, you need to basically do the same as above. The difference is that these newer Symbian versions (as opposed to, say, the MIDlet Manager on the S60v1 N-Gage) puts a direct link to OM into Applications (example screenshot HERE); that is, you don’t need to create these links yourself.

1.4 Changes since beta 3
In addition to some, mostly “dumbphone” (that is, not Symbian / Windows Mobile-related) bug fixes, there is some welcome news for touch screen users.
First, you may already have noticed how complicated it is to reorganize the favorites list on the mobile phone. You repeatedly need to select Manage / Move up (or, down) to move a given favorite up or down, which involves a lot of work (and there’re no sorting capabilities built-in). Of course, if you have access to a desktop Opera browser, you can quickly do this stuff by either quick sorting (Sort / View by … in the context menu) or mouse-based drag and drop.
Now, if you have a touchscreen-based device (for example, a Pocket PC), you can, with the stylus, just highlight a favorite (as you would do when using the traditional way of reorganizing them) and, then, keeping the stylus down, drag it to its new position (note that this will not be animated – that is, you’ll only see the favorite moving after you’re lifted up the stylus from the touchscreen).
In addition, there’s another goodie you might want to know: now, keeping down the stylus on a Web page results in the context menu to be shown. The context menu slightly varies on the markup you’ve invoked it on:
links have a "Link" submenu, allowing for opening the link either with or without images (and also getting its address) as can be seen in HERE
images have a “Open Image” shortcut, which, in addition to showing the image in a new window, also let for downloading and saving it
the page itself (no links / images) “only” have the mobile view switch, reloading and information shortcuts
This context menu is also accessible by pressing “1” on the keypad - or, of course, emulating the keypress on the on-screen software input panel or, finally, assigned to a hardware button. This all has been thoroughly explained in the MIDlet Button Bible – make sure you DO read it because it’ll REALLY ease your life and increase your productivity.
Note that this all has also been (shortly) mentioned HERE.
The home screen also has some new links; for example, the brand new "GameJump" taking you to some freely available Java MIDlet games directly downloadable to your phone. They aren't particularly good; that is, don't expect anything like Gameloft or I-Play-like (see the links to the best Java MIDlet game developers at the end of MIDlet Bible!). I've tested three of these games on my N95: Arcade Park 1 (compared to the native PPC version, REALLY weak), CS Garfield (pretty OK but there're much better, albeit commercial bowling titles for Windows Mobile) and Spin Blocks (not worth bothering on devices with QVGA or larger screen because it uses 176*220). All in all, there's no free lunch; however, you may still want to look around for some games.
1.5 Frequently asked questions / misconceptions
1.5.1 Proxy servers and Opera Mini 4
Some people state (see for example THIS and THIS) the final version of OM4 doesn’t work with proxy servers any more, unlike with earlier OM4 beta builds. I’ve thoroughly tested this and found out that they do work assuming you explicitly switch the network access mode from Socket to HTTP (Menu / Tools / Settings / Network protocol).
1.5.2 Lack of code signing and the consequences
As you may already have noticed, Opera Mini is unsigned. This, unfortunately, means (depending on the actual KVM used and the operator restrictions / customizations) nagging screens when trying to access the Net. With Windows Mobile, you can “hack” the most widely used KVM’s, including the highly recommended Jbed. With Symbian, where the situation can be worse - again, depending on what additional restrictions are added by your mobile operator. Of course, you can always de-brand your device as is explained at, say, HERE.
You may also want to read THIS post (in THIS, pretty instructive thread) on why OM4 isn’t signed by default. (In a nutshell: the high price of the Verisign root certificate would have forced the developers of OM to make their browser commercial.)
I hope someone will be able to come up with a signed version of OM4 that works on at least Windows Mobile (with Jbed at least) and / or Symbian phones.
1.6 Recommended links
Please DO read the articles linked above; most importantly, the MIDlet Bible. It explains a LOT you might not ever have thought of. You will find it REALLY useful. If you do want to use Opera Mini to its full potential, you MUST read it and all the related tutorials (for example, the one on button handling, which is of extreme importance with OM4).

Big Thank You
Thank you for the complete article. I read a lot of your articles in Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine , and its good to read it here to.

Wonder if anyone can help me... I am trying to setup a direct link to run opera mini on my 6800 instead of having to go in through jbed every time... However it always says it cannot find the s0_ . I've looked in the appdb folder and the only thing in there is s0_... however there are no .Jar files. It has JAH and others in there... I tried installing it via the website via PIE and also via the direct download then activesync.
http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/ppc-...ed-includes-info-new-java-midlet-manager.html
that's the directions I was following for setting up the direct link... however I guess perhaps Opera has changed the way the file is installed? I tried installing the other version of Java that comes on the Mogul (I have an alltel 6800) and it actually has a .jar file in it's appdb folder. However instead of being in windows, it is in the program files folder.
So... Anyone have any ideas on how to get direct links working with Jbed and opera mini4 final?

In the meantime, I’ve managed to make Opera Mini the system-level browser capable of opening remote links from OTHER, local applications (for example, Messaging). This is what many-many people sought for and now – it’s possible. That is, it’s one of the greatest hacks of all times and, as you’ve guessed, REALLY enhances the usability of Opera Mini. It works on both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones.
Article cross-posted to PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, XDA-Developers - 3, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo, Opera Mini forums.

Another Software Provider, just like Skype, did not support O2 XDA Flame.
Skype does not work on my Flame.
So for Opera Mini, which should I download?

CWKJ said:
Another Software Provider, just like Skype, did not support O2 XDA Flame.
Skype does not work on my Flame.
So for Opera Mini, which should I download?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the generic advanced version

Thanks. I will try the Opera Mini 4 Generic Version.

drgibson said:
Wonder if anyone can help me... I am trying to setup a direct link to run opera mini on my 6800 instead of having to go in through jbed every time... However it always says it cannot find the s0_ . I've looked in the appdb folder and the only thing in there is s0_... however there are no .Jar files. It has JAH and others in there... I tried installing it via the website via PIE and also via the direct download then activesync.
http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/ppc-...ed-includes-info-new-java-midlet-manager.html
that's the directions I was following for setting up the direct link... however I guess perhaps Opera has changed the way the file is installed? I tried installing the other version of Java that comes on the Mogul (I have an alltel 6800) and it actually has a .jar file in it's appdb folder. However instead of being in windows, it is in the program files folder.
So... Anyone have any ideas on how to get direct links working with Jbed and opera mini4 final?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have exactly the same issue!! Someone help, please

chillaxtodamax said:
I have exactly the same issue!! Someone help, please
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it doesn't work with the factory, ROM-based MIDlet Manager, install the Jbed version I've linked to. It will surely work - it has worked with everyone.

CWKJ said:
Another Software Provider, just like Skype, did not support O2 XDA Flame.
Skype does not work on my Flame.
So for Opera Mini, which should I download?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Skype is working on my Flame.

may have missed it, but is there an option to get rid of the yes no grey screen everytime you click to go to a new page? using a kasier

fil said:
may have missed it, but is there an option to get rid of the yes no grey screen everytime you click to go to a new page? using a kasier
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
install Jbed

Menneisyys said:
install Jbed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers, took a bit of fidling but, wow! seems to change the layout a bit, bit all the better!

Im sure im just being thick, but i have installed opera via my phone following the instructions on the first page. This worked fine, but after closing both opera and ie, i cant find where opera has downloaded to! There is no opera icon in my programs and i cant find it anywhere in file explorer. Am i being completely stupid of have i overlooked something. any help is apreciated thanks.
Oh btw im using a kaiser.

oweng23 said:
Im sure im just being thick, but i have installed opera via my phone following the instructions on the first page. This worked fine, but after closing both opera and ie, i cant find where opera has downloaded to! There is no opera icon in my programs and i cant find it anywhere in file explorer. Am i being completely stupid of have i overlooked something. any help is apreciated thanks.
Oh btw im using a kaiser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's inside "Esmertec Jbed"

OMInvokeAndPasteScript.mscr
Unfortunately, I had to hard reset and for the longest I was hoping that would not have to do that because I had Jbed and OPM with copy paste invoke working flawlessly. Thanks Menn!
Now, I am up and running again. I don't need to login each session and I have a shortcut setup to my IE browser button. What I need help on (maybe I had a brainfart) how do I get the invoke paste script running again?
When I click a link in an email, mortscript launches OPM quickly but that is it. The link is not being pasted in the url field subsequently not taking me the site that was hotlinked. I've tried your original script and the new copy option script , I have tried both WM5 and WM6 on my WM6 device. I have even tried s0_ and s1_ changes but I don't think the latter has anything to do with the paste action. Does anyone have any input?
The script works fine for the clipboard and IE.

unorthodoxx said:
Unfortunately, I had to hard reset and for the longest I was hoping that would not have to do that because I had Jbed and OPM with copy paste invoke working flawlessly. Thanks Menn!
Now, I am up and running again. I don't need to login each session and I have a shortcut setup to my IE browser button. What I need help on (maybe I had a brainfart) how do I get the invoke paste script running again?
When I click a link in an email, mortscript launches OPM quickly but that is it. The link is not being pasted in the url field subsequently not taking me the site that was hotlinked. I've tried your original script and the new copy option script , I have tried both WM5 and WM6 on my WM6 device. I have even tried s0_ and s1_ changes but I don't think the latter has anything to do with the paste action. Does anyone have any input?
The script works fine for the clipboard and IE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no prob, I'll publish a new version today (mostly written for some SP uses not having a clipboard at all) that doesn't use the clipboard but emulates keyboard typing.

Menneisyys said:
no prob, I'll publish a new version today (mostly written for some SP uses not having a clipboard at all) that doesn't use the clipboard but emulates keyboard typing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I like the clipboard version. Allows me to share links with others. I would like to see all features available. OPM, IE and Clipboard functioning.

Opera Mini 4: A new star is born - the FREE(!) Web browser you MUST give a try to

Opera Mini has a short history (the project was started only slightly over two years ago), but, today, with the release of version 4, it has become one of the most useful, best browsers available for anything handheld.
In this review & tutorial, I provide you with a complete tutorial of installing and using this recently released browser and, in addition, I explain why you may want to prefer it to other Web browsers.
First, some screenshots taken on wildly different platforms / devices:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(VGA Windows Mobile Pocket PC screenshot)
(QVGA Symbian S60v3 Nokia N95 screenshot)
(176*220 Windows Mobile Smartphone screenshot)
Note that note of the above screenshots use real full screen mode – hence the top and bottom bars. The last screenshot with enabled full screen mode can be seen in the following screenshot:
1.1 Why you will want to use it?
You’ll find it a god-send particularly when
you’re over a VERY slow (for example, GPRS) connection and want the fastest browsing solution, preferably with images
yours isn’t an unlimited data plan; that is, you pay big bucks for every Megabytes
you don’t want to pay for a third-party browser (they, in general, cost big bucks)
you’re a desktop Opera user (you should be – give it a try, you’ll love it, particularly if you have a notebook with a high-resolution (at least SXGA+) screen – Opera’s zoom-in features are way better than those of Internet Explorer and are only matched by Mozilla) and you want to synchronize your bookmarks with it as easily and automatically as possible
you look for an easy-to-use, non-separate, integrated RSS reader – that is, you need a Web browser that also notifies you when you surf to a page also having RSS feed
your mobile device is resource-constrained, while you’d like to keep tens of Web pages, preferably with images, open at the same time (without the need for reloading). This is where most (if not ALL) other browsers severely fail, even on high-end mobile devices packed with tens of Megabytes of free (!) RAM memory.
you want something like the minimap feature of the Nokia Web browser on newer Nokia devices, the NetFront 3.4 Technical Previews (which, being just previews, are severely restricted and lack Flash, more than 10 favorites and other goodies) on Windows Mobile or the iPhone Safari browser but usable on any platform (incl. any Windows Mobile device) – but even faster and having much less resource demands
you want something with hardware button / keypad support. Opera Mini supports them just great. If yours is a phone with the dialpad on the front of your phone, you’ll REALLY love these shortcuts because, then, you will rarely (if ever) need to use the softkeys (or, on touchscreen devices, the stylus) to navigate the menus. Using button shortcuts is WAY faster. As opposed to this, (on Windows Mobile) NetFront and Minimo doesn’t support buttons at all and (on Symbian) Nokia Web isn’t very good either. The MS Smartphone version of IEM is, shortcut button support-wise, is also definitely inferior to Opera Mini – it supports far fewer operations than Opera Mini.
In the following two sections, I compare it to the other browsers available for the two current, major mobile operating systems, Windows Mobile and Symbian. (Freely skip the one not pertaining to you.)
1.1.1 How does it compare to other Windows Mobile browsers?
While there’re quite a few Web browsers on Windows Mobile, only few of them are actually usable: the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile (preferably with a capable plug-in like PIEPlus, Spb Pocket Plus 4.x (but NOT older versions) or MultiIE), Opera Mobile and NetFront. These three browsers (and the other Web browsers and IEM plug-ins I, generally, don’t really recommend: Picsel, Thunderhawk, Minimo etc.) all have their strengths and weaknesses, on which I’ve thoroughly elaborated in my two (a separate one for Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s and Smartphones HERE and HERE, respectively) Web Browsing Bibles
1.1.2 How does it compare to other Symbian browsers?
On Symbian, there’re two other, really decent Web browsers.
Opera Mobile is available for all S60 v2 (!) and v3 devices and is pretty decent. For example, unlike its Windows Mobile counterpart, it supports in-page text searching (which is painfully missing from the WM version). It, however, doesn’t use a compression service, which means long downloading times over slow links and has pretty high memory requirements.
Nokia’s Web browser coming with all S60v3 FP1 models is also very decent: it supports in-page searching, Flash Lite, minimap view and a lot of other goodies. However, it’s decidedly slower than Opera Mini and if your phone is a Nokia N95-1 with 64M RAM only, you’ll inevitably run into the MAJOR problems caused by its taking a lot of memory.
While Opera Mini 4 allocates about 10 Mbytes of memory to itself (which is a big letdown on the N95-1), after the initial memory allocation, no more memory will be allocated and you can safely go on browsing.
1.1.3 When will you still need to stick to a traditional Web browser?
Unfortunately, there’re several areas Opera Mini doesn’t excel at. While, say, 95% of the time it works just wonderfully (no wonder I use it for most of my Web browsing on both Windows Mobile and Symbian phones) for just accessing the Web, in the remaining 5% you’ll need to “fall back” to other, traditional, non-Java-based browsers. You wi
if you need full JavaScript and/or AJAX support. Only a subset of these standards are supported (albeit still a LOT more than in Internet Explorer Mobile, Thunderhawk or Picsel!). See THIS for more info if interested.
These browsers will inevitably be invoked when you make Opera Mini download a file (this, however, doesn’t mean you will need to stick to using these browsers!)
As you can’t make Opera Mini the default system browser, links received in e-mails and HTML files in the local file system will still need to be browsed via these browsers – unless (if it’s a remote Web page, not a local, say, HTML file or file attachment) you paste the address of the page to the address bar of Opera Mini (OM for short).
If you need Java applet and/or Flash (Lite) support. It’s with very few pages that you do need them; for example, Handango’s Friday giveouts, requiring full Flash compliance, are one of them. And, for YouTube, you will want to use alternate methods to play, NOT direct, in-line playback. (If you do use the TCPMP plug-in under Windows Mobile, then, you will still need to use IEM.) That is, generally, it’s when you want to play some online Flash games (see THIS Flash Bible for more info if interested) that you will need to stick to a browser supporting Flash.
There are some other restrictions; for example, you absolutely MUST edit text longer than 4-5 kilobytes. Then, because of the MIDlet Manager (also abbreviated as KVM) restrictions, you’ll end up having to switch to a “real” browser – at least for the time of editing.
You need to save Web pages to the local file system and/or copy text out of them. Unfortunately, OM is completely unable to do this. Unfortunately, with current KVM’s, not even copying a URL (for example, that of the current page) to the clipboard is possible.
Again and again, speaking out of experience, a casual user will very rarely need to switch back to these browsers and, after finding out how easy Opera Mini is to use, how quick it is to load pages and operate and how wonderfully low system requirements it has, he or she will want to stick with Opera Mobile.

1.2 Installation
(Note that this section only contains WM5+ Windows Mobile Pocket PC screenshots showing the MIDlet manager Jbed. As I recommend Jbed the most and I do urge you to install Jbed on your phone too, I didn’t bother including screenshots / instructions on installing OM under other MIDlet managers. Similarly, I don’t give you Symbian screenshots either – installing and running OM is done in a very similar way as under WM.)
1.2.1 Installing a MIDlet Manager
If you have a Windows Mobile device with at least WM5 as the operating system (sorry, previous operating systems aren’t supported – not even WM2003SE, let alone even older OS’es) and it’s not the latest models (for example, the Kaiser / Mda Vario III / Tilt) of HTC, then, you will want to download the Jbed MIDlet Manager HERE. If you do this on your desktop computer, transfer the CAB file to your handset and click / activate it from File Explorer (or any other explorer tool like Total Commander). Just install it (it’ll be installed in the main memory) and you’re set – you can go on installing Opera Mini itself.
Jbed will run on ALL Pocket PC’s and Smartphones running at least WM5. If you have an earlier operating system, check out the “Platform compatibility” section (with three rows corresponding to non-phone-enabled Pocket PC’s, Pocket PC Phone Edition and MS Smartphones in turn) in the main MIDlet Bible chart for download links; then, you’ll want to use either TAO Intent or IBM J9. Of the two, I’d prefer the former, but that’s only me.
Note that you can ONLY use this MIDlet manager if and only if your locale is set to a language using Western characters: Spain, France, Finland, you got it. (This doesn’t only cover Western languages; for example, Estonian only uses letters already present in some other Western languages. That is, while Estonian is an East-European language / locale, it’ll still work.) If, on the other hand, you have a, say, Slavonic locale (for example, Slovak), Jbed will NOT work. If your locale is Russian, then, you will want to check out THIS file instead; linked from HERE. Note that the latter MIGHT work with other East-European locales; I haven’t tested this myself.
Also note that if you have a non-phone WM5+ Pocket PC (for example, a Dell Axim x50(v) (with the WM5 upgrade) /x51(v) etc.), you will also need to download THIS file and unZIP its contents to \Windows on your Pocket PC.
1.2.2 Installing Opera Mini itself
If you’d like to download the browser onto your desktop computer and, then, transfer it to your phone, go to THIS page and click the opera-mini-advanced.jar link (I don’t provide a direct link to the latter as it always changes, as newer and newer builds are released). A JAR file will be downloaded. Transfer it to your PDA via ActiveSync, a memory card, a wireless connection, the WinCE File System plug-in of Total Commander etc., fire up Pocket File Explorer on your phone and click it. It’ll initiate the install process.
If, on the other hand, you’d like to do this on your phone, enter the address http://mini.opera.com/ into any of your Web browser on your phone (screenshot HERE) , scroll down and click “Try the new Opera Mini 4” link. This will take you to the page http://mini.opera.com/?rel=4, where you only need to click “Download high memory version”. Then, the installation will start – just like with the offline process outlined in above.
It’s pretty easy to install Opera Mini. You’ll just need to answer OK, Yes and Continue. For example, when you’re presented THIS screen (asking you whether OM should be put in the root folder or any subfolder), THIS and THIS question to to launch it. During the process, you’ll see other dialogs; for example, THIS showing the compilation process.
Now that you’ve launched the app, keep answering OK / Yes / Accept as can be seen in THIS screen. On the next screen, you’ll (again) press OK (the “Yes, but ask me next session” will be selected by default; it’s perfectly OK with us). After this, answer Yes to the next question too and, then, activate Accept to accept the license agreement.
Upon the first execution, after you click a link (and, therefore, initiate a network connection) you’ll need to press at least one button several times until the progress bar is full. You can do this with any button if you have numeric buttons; do this with the D-pad (any directions) if you don’t.
1.3 Usage
After this, you’ll find using OM pretty straightforward by using the two WM5 softkeys (or the touch screen). I’m pretty sure you’ll find it easy to use.
Note that in the review of the previous beta3, I’ve already spent a LOT of time explaining how link synchronization and managing RSS feeds work. Please do refer to the article for a complete overview of both these techniques.
Users new to OM will surely notice that entering text is done differently than using regular Web browsers. Now, if you click (move the focus to and press the Action button on it) a text input field / area, you won’t be able to do an “in-line” edit, but you’ll be taken to a separate and, in most cases, full screen text editor. Jbed’s text editor is one of the best (for comparison: TAO Intent’s (a well-known, widely used KVM) editor has severe restrictions: it doesn’t support copy/paste operations), but keep in mind that it (as with ALL the other KVM’s on Windows Mobile and some KVM’s on Symbian) can’t edit texts larger than some 4 kilobytes.
Note that after exiting (Menu / Exit) or shutting down (with an external task manager tool or by resetting the device) OM, you will need to go to Start / Programs and select the Esmertec Jbed icon (highlighted HERE) and click (or, press Launch while it’s selected) “Opera Mini” inside. Note that if you’re a somewhat more advanced user, you can easily invoke OM4 without starting Esmertec Jbed first (that is, you save some screen taps / button presses) by following my remarks in the “Direct, system-level links (shortcuts) to MIDlets” row of the main chart of the MIDlet Bible.
Under newer Symbian versions, you need to basically do the same as above. The difference is that these newer Symbian versions (as opposed to, say, the MIDlet Manager on the S60v1 N-Gage) puts a direct link to OM into Applications (example screenshot HERE); that is, you don’t need to create these links yourself.

1.4 Changes since beta 3
In addition to some, mostly “dumbphone” (that is, not Symbian / Windows Mobile-related) bug fixes, there is some welcome news for touch screen users.
First, you may already have noticed how complicated it is to reorganize the favorites list on the mobile phone. You repeatedly need to select Manage / Move up (or, down) to move a given favorite up or down, which involves a lot of work (and there’re no sorting capabilities built-in). Of course, if you have access to a desktop Opera browser, you can quickly do this stuff by either quick sorting (Sort / View by … in the context menu) or mouse-based drag and drop.
Now, if you have a touchscreen-based device (for example, a Pocket PC), you can, with the stylus, just highlight a favorite (as you would do when using the traditional way of reorganizing them) and, then, keeping the stylus down, drag it to its new position (note that this will not be animated – that is, you’ll only see the favorite moving after you’re lifted up the stylus from the touchscreen).
In addition, there’s another goodie you might want to know: now, keeping down the stylus on a Web page results in the context menu to be shown. The context menu slightly varies on the markup you’ve invoked it on:
links have a "Link" submenu, allowing for opening the link either with or without images (and also getting its address) as can be seen in HERE
images have a “Open Image” shortcut, which, in addition to showing the image in a new window, also let for downloading and saving it
the page itself (no links / images) “only” have the mobile view switch, reloading and information shortcuts
This context menu is also accessible by pressing “1” on the keypad - or, of course, emulating the keypress on the on-screen software input panel or, finally, assigned to a hardware button. This all has been thoroughly explained in the MIDlet Button Bible – make sure you DO read it because it’ll REALLY ease your life and increase your productivity.
Note that this all has also been (shortly) mentioned HERE.
The home screen also has some new links; for example, the brand new "GameJump" taking you to some freely available Java MIDlet games directly downloadable to your phone. They aren't particularly good; that is, don't expect anything like Gameloft or I-Play-like (see the links to the best Java MIDlet game developers at the end of MIDlet Bible!). I've tested three of these games on my N95: Arcade Park 1 (compared to the native PPC version, REALLY weak), CS Garfield (pretty OK but there're much better, albeit commercial bowling titles for Windows Mobile) and Spin Blocks (not worth bothering on devices with QVGA or larger screen because it uses 176*220). All in all, there's no free lunch; however, you may still want to look around for some games.
1.5 Frequently asked questions / misconceptions
1.5.1 Proxy servers and Opera Mini 4
Some people state (see for example THIS and THIS) the final version of OM4 doesn’t work with proxy servers any more, unlike with earlier OM4 beta builds. I’ve thoroughly tested this and found out that they do work assuming you explicitly switch the network access mode from Socket to HTTP (Menu / Tools / Settings / Network protocol).
1.5.2 Lack of code signing and the consequences
As you may already have noticed, Opera Mini is unsigned. This, unfortunately, means (depending on the actual KVM used and the operator restrictions / customizations) nagging screens when trying to access the Net. With Windows Mobile, you can “hack” the most widely used KVM’s, including the highly recommended Jbed. With Symbian, where the situation can be worse - again, depending on what additional restrictions are added by your mobile operator. Of course, you can always de-brand your device as is explained at, say, HERE.
You may also want to read THIS post (in THIS, pretty instructive thread) on why OM4 isn’t signed by default. (In a nutshell: the high price of the Verisign root certificate would have forced the developers of OM to make their browser commercial.)
I hope someone will be able to come up with a signed version of OM4 that works on at least Windows Mobile (with Jbed at least) and / or Symbian phones.
1.6 Recommended links
Please DO read the articles linked above; most importantly, the MIDlet Bible. It explains a LOT you might not ever have thought of. You will find it REALLY useful. If you do want to use Opera Mini to its full potential, you MUST read it and all the related tutorials (for example, the one on button handling, which is of extreme importance with OM4).