Database Info

Minimo (FireFox) Browser for WinCE released

:lol: Always wanted Netscape/Mozilla/FireFox/MiniMO on your WinCEPocketPC! :lol:
Mozilla Org released minimo which will be the best browser ever
Tabbed Browsing
Works on Internet Banking site etc etc
Goodbye Opera and PIE
8)
Heres the Link: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/
Regards
Skillie

somebody found America?

It's still *very* early stages. OK, so it renders better than anything else, but the rest of the interface is nasty. It's also hideously slow to respond on both 400Mhz XDA2 and 600Mhz iPaq. And the keyboard doesn't work in landscape mode. TBH a custom soft keyboard would be better.
Wait til 0.7 before you expect any sort of useable version (Current version is 0.013!)
There is a little-known browser called Thunderhawk which renders brilliantly to a 320x240 screen in landscape by scaling everything down. But it's a bit sluggish, and they seem to pass *all* traffic through their own server to perform preprocessing (and thus you need to pay a subscription.) I think Minimo has the potential to blow all of them out of the water if it can be faster than Opera and as impressive in its output as Thunderhawk.

Wait, WM5 only?
*tries it on his 2003SE device anyway*

If you're looking for a tabbed browser try ftxPBrowser. Same engine as PIE, so compatible with most sites. Also it uses the same favorites, cookies & cache. History seems not to be working though. & it's only 75K:!:
Regards, M

Many people don't like the IE rendering engine, or the IE way of rendering (e.g. Opera) which is why they seek alternatives.
Further, the reason it's "only 75k" is because it's not a browser. Whoever wrote it - and PIE - didn't actually write a browser themselves, they just instructed IE to render the page into the area they specified. The tabs just switch between visible IE areas. In short, if you uninstall IE then it won't work. It's like taking a Fiat Cinqecento and putting a Peugeot 407 body on it, then saying it's a whole new car which is very light but looks just as good as something else. If you take the Fiat out, it doesn't go any more.
(Coders out there - I know this is technically very loose, but I'm trying to put this simply for someone who doesn't understand the relevance of MiniMo)

Excuse me for being so dumb... I know what Minimo is about, tried it & opera (mini too) & thunderhawk as well.
Problem is though that PIE is still the most compatible:!:
I use firefox on my PC & probably will be using minimo when it's working properly. But at the moment minimo is almost useless from the user point of view.
Yes you got me P on this.

Minimo is also currently around 10Mb.... bit large methinks. (and bloody slow)

My take on this
Minimo is slow
Opera is fiddly and the download thing is a HUGE prob plus takes up too much space
PIE seems to work fine.
What exactly is up with PIE ? I mean on a desktop Mozilla rules but on a handheld ???

Huge problem with PIE for many people is that it's a M$ product. Personal I don't mind.
Serious problem is that it doesn't render, one column does help a little & there's the lack of tabs. For this last I use ftxPBrowser. Problem with that one is the lack of history & most important downloads are very problematic if not impossible.
Which make me use ftxPBrowser & Opera mini (no https :-( ) for browsing & PIE for downloads.
Now it's waiting for a good rendering, downloading & secured browser.
Cheers, M

Strange thing I know about people disloking MS progs, I know people do not like them, the thing is why are they using devices with MS op system on them when they could be using a Symbian unit.

It's a real problem, huh?
Palm and symbian have some really nice software to run on their devices, I'm especially a fan of the UIQ stuff that SE slaps on top of Symbian. The don't, however, seem to have quite got the knack of cobbling together really good hardware to run it all on.
Of course, the kids who make the really cool hardware seem content to slap Windows Mobile on there and be done with it.
So, in conclusion: come on HTC, go source a proper OS for your handhelds. Maybe have a word with Apple?
Back on-topic: it seems to run on WM2003SE, but not very nicely. It's all juddery and incomplete and frankly kind of rubbish. More evidence, if it was ever needed, that Magician-type devices are not meant for web browsing.

i use one of the beta versions on 2003
it's ok but slow
and it DONT SUPPORT COPY PASTE!!!
which is a biatch

ATEOTD no Firefox/Mozilla is worth using at such early test versions. It's worth keeping an eye on if you're that geeky - but Firefox (back when it was Phoenix then Firebird) wasn't really useable until version 0.7. Consider that minimo is at 0.07 or something - it has a long way to go before it's competing with IE/Opera. I won't put PIE in that list, because it's just not a browser. And Thunderhawk is simply incomparible in its function. I would like to see a browser which renders as well as Thunderhawk but more quickly and without needing to interface with a central server, though.
Minimo's greatest feature so far is that it does actually support JavaScript and AJAX systems like Google Maps, which no other browser can do. But to get the speed out of Thunderhawk, you would probably need to render to a static image. And that negates animated GIFs and any JavaScript that manipulates on-screen elements.

PPC Web Browser

Greetings All,
Since a week i am searching for a web browser which is the best, but cannot find one.
Opera 8.60- its has given me all good response, like having tab in full screen, fast downloading, good look, but it lacked in basic thing like saving page-image etc.
Multi IE 4.0- which also have many good feature but lacked in look, though given me page saving functionality. It doesn't show tab while on full screen for faster navigation.
Picsel browser- is a very good browser which also handles pdf, word, text and other format like that. But it lacked in tab functionality.
Share your views, if you know any good browser do let everybody know.
Thanks.

samy.3660 said:
Opera 8.60- its has given me all good response, like having tab in full screen, fast downloading, good look, but it lacked in basic thing like saving page-image etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please follow my articles & tutorials - I've published a tutorial on exactly this question. http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=879&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Also see http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1302&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 for a more broad explanation of page / image saving if interested.

samy.3660 said:
Greetings All,
Since a week i am searching for a web browser which is the best, but cannot find one.
Opera 8.60- its has given me all good response, like having tab in full screen, fast downloading, good look, but it lacked in basic thing like saving page-image etc.
Multi IE 4.0- which also have many good feature but lacked in look, though given me page saving functionality. It doesn't show tab while on full screen for faster navigation.
Picsel browser- is a very good browser which also handles pdf, word, text and other format like that. But it lacked in tab functionality.
Share your views, if you know any good browser do let everybody know.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that's the thing... I don't think you can fine ONE do-it-all browser that you love and is easy on your resources.
If you go by functionality, I think NetFront is the undisputed leader. It's been vodet as the best several times I guess.
Personally, too resourse intensive for my Wizards liking.
I use a combination of Opera 8.60 and PIE coupled with the PIE Plus Enhancement. It (PIE Plus) gives you everything you need and comes with everything that IE lacks. It has a fantastic feature called PWO which if i'm not mistaken, is responsible for reorganising the content of webpages in a manner that makes it most pleasing to view the web from a measly 240x320 resolution device.
Opera is a lil heavy on resources and hence gets my attention ONLY when I need to do internet banking and use website like orkut which don't show me the login box in PIE.

leepriestenator said:
Well that's the thing... I don't think you can fine ONE do-it-all browser that you love and is easy on your resources.
If you go by functionality, I think NetFront is the undisputed leader. It's been vodet as the best several times I guess.
Personally, too resourse intensive for my Wizards liking.
I use a combination of Opera 8.60 and PIE coupled with the PIE Plus Enhancement. It (PIE Plus) gives you everything you need and comes with everything that IE lacks. It has a fantastic feature called PWO which if i'm not mistaken, is responsible for reorganising the content of webpages in a manner that makes it most pleasing to view the web from a measly 240x320 resolution device.
Opera is a lil heavy on resources and hence gets my attention ONLY when I need to do internet banking and use website like orkut which don't show me the login box in PIE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, PIEPlus is pretty cool (also see my reviews - I've posted quite a few reviews of it); however, you may want to switch off its PWO and use the built-in One Column mode of PIE instead to make browsing faster.
As far as NF is concerned, the new, 3.4 version is pretty promising (see my reviews - I've just posted the review of the latest TP of 3.4)

Yes
Greetings All,
Looks as netfront is good, ill check both of them.

TouchBrowser - has anyone tried it yet?

The latest in the onslaught of WM browsers:
http://www.makayama.com/touchbrowser.html
Claims to allow fluid, Iphone-like browsing (shocker). The bigger question though is what kind of content can it handle? Has anyone tried it? There doesn't seem to be a trial version unfortunately.

Why do some pages display incorrect?
TouchBrowser uses the Pocket Internet Explorer to render HTML pages. It's a new user interface on top of an existing browser. TouchBrowser renders pages exactly the same as Pocket Internet Explorer. Pages that Pocket Internet Explorer can't handle correctly (like websites with Flash, or with complex layouts) are also rendered incorrectly by Touchbrowser. If you're looking for a browser that can handle these websites correctly, Touchbrowser is not the thing you're looking for, but we advice Opera or a similar browser based on a more modern rendering engine.
it's based on PIE

Blah, that sucks.

Dumb that they don't offer some form of trial. Plus, you go to Handango and they offer a trial, but when you open it up, it's nothing more than their YouTube video demo.
Dumb. Paying $15 to see if something is good or bad is not smart.

1. now there is a trial
2. i'll soon publish a full review of it

If you want iPhone style browsing get Opera 9.5: it has practically the same buttons/layout, and can render "the real internet"

i agree. especially with TouchFLO

Guys, read http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2135515

what someone should do is make deepfish functional, find someway to integrate it into internet explorer or at least find a way to make PIE render pages like deepfish

Torch Mobile Iris Browser Beta 1 looking good

Hey guys some of you may remember way back earlier in the year a company called torch mobile launched a preview of their webkit browser called iris, it was a bit crap very buggy no real zoom etc etc most people wrote it off straight away.
Well now they have launched a proper beta and it has to be said its very impressive it has now got page overview zoom, mouse cursor, ability to import bookmarks and lots ofvother really quite kewl features.
It is a little slow to render pages, when compared to opera and is a memory hog but must say im quite liking it. not sure if flash works perhaps the experts in here may get it too work.
Anyhows just google torch mobile and you should be able to find the link to get it.
let me know what you guys think.

stevej26uk said:
let me know what you guys think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I spent the last couple of weeks comparing more or less all the available PPC browsers (IRIS, Opera 9.5 in different flavours, Opera mini, Opera mini with java addons, Netfront 3.5, Jataayu, Minimo, Skyfire and also IE addons such as PIE+, MultiIE, Webby etc.
I tested these on the road as well as at home, on WiFi as well as GPRS.
In the end I chucked them all except IRIS.
It basically has all I need (find in page, tabs, zoom, etc.) and runs very well on my Elf. It doesn't (yet) do inline videos like Skyfire does, but Skyfire is pretty useless otherwise.
Skyfire in many ways reminds me of a Java midlet like Opera Mini with pre-chewed pages. The advantage is that it doesn't cache pages on the PPC (just like Opera Mini). But it scores really low on usability and customisation
IRIS is similar in many ways to Netfront, but is open source and (so far) freeware. I also prefer the way IRIS zooms and has an option to present pages in one colums as defauls (rather than having to hit reflow in Netfront). NF visual bookmarks are pretty but rather useless. IRIS has a similar function for History, where it's much more useful. OTOH NF has loads of functions (including on-the-fly Japanese-to-English translation...) which may or may not be useful to you. And it's better at rendering non-Roman character content, such as Arabic or Hebrew pages than IRIS.
From PIE I only miss the possibility to search for bookmarks by typing the first letter of the bookmark title...
What I´d like to see in IRIS is more support for content, but the architecture with plugins will certainly take care of that. And extended copy and paste to page contents as well as in the address bar, as is currently the case.
Otherwise IRIS is my default browser and will stay that way.
Bernard

bfarkin said:
Well, I spent the last couple of weeks comparing more or less all the available PPC browsers (IRIS, Opera 9.5 in different flavours, Opera mini, Opera mini with java addons, Netfront 3.5, Jataayu, Minimo, Skyfire and also IE addons such as PIE+, MultiIE, Webby etc.
I tested these on the road as well as at home, on WiFi as well as GPRS.
In the end I chucked them all except IRIS.
It basically has all I need (find in page, tabs, zoom, etc.) and runs very well on my Elf. It doesn't (yet) do inline videos like Skyfire does, but Skyfire is pretty useless otherwise.
Skyfire in many ways reminds me of a Java midlet like Opera Mini with pre-chewed pages. The advantage is that it doesn't cache pages on the PPC (just like Opera Mini). But it scores really low on usability and customisation
IRIS is similar in many ways to Netfront, but is open source and (so far) freeware. I also prefer the way IRIS zooms and has an option to present pages in one colums as defauls (rather than having to hit reflow in Netfront). NF visual bookmarks are pretty but rather useless. IRIS has a similar function for History, where it's much more useful. OTOH NF has loads of functions (including on-the-fly Japanese-to-English translation...) which may or may not be useful to you. And it's better at rendering non-Roman character content, such as Arabic or Hebrew pages than IRIS.
From PIE I only miss the possibility to search for bookmarks by typing the first letter of the bookmark title...
What I´d like to see in IRIS is more support for content, but the architecture with plugins will certainly take care of that. And extended copy and paste to page contents as well as in the address bar, as is currently the case.
Otherwise IRIS is my default browser and will stay that way.
Bernard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the detailed comparison, I'll definitely link to it in my next story on Iris

I've had Iris installed since a very early public beta. I really wanted to like it. I love the browser on the iPhone. But Iris is still a memory hog, slow to render, and still crashes here and there.
Also, the overall design/layout if very amateurish. Some of the places they put options just don't make sense. Up until the latest beta, there wasn't even a way to go back to your home page.
Their favorite handling is just plan stupid. I want to scroll up and down to find the webpage I want to go to. What happens? I constantly ACCIDENTALLY move the favorite around instead of scrolling the list (which works sometimes but not consistently). Every version has gotten a little better, but it's nowhere close to a commercially viable product. PocketIE as old as it is renders most pages faster.
As a note, I view Mobile webpages when available and rarely go to desktop intended websites.
-Mc

Menneisyys said:
thanks for the detailed comparison, I'll definitely link to it in my next story on Iris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome, and I apologise for the typos - I did type in IRIS on my Elf virtual keyboard...
Bernard

McHale said:
I've had Iris installed since a very early public beta. I really wanted to like it. I love the browser on the iPhone. But Iris is still a memory hog, slow to render, and still crashes here and there.
Also, the overall design/layout if very amateurish. Some of the places they put options just don't make sense. Up until the latest beta, there wasn't even a way to go back to your home page.
Their favorite handling is just plan stupid. I want to scroll up and down to find the webpage I want to go to. What happens? I constantly ACCIDENTALLY move the favorite around instead of scrolling the list (which works sometimes but not consistently). Every version has gotten a little better, but it's nowhere close to a commercially viable product. PocketIE as old as it is renders most pages faster.
As a note, I view Mobile webpages when available and rarely go to desktop intended websites.
-Mc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting.... I'm very pleased with the performance on the Elf, but I did move the cache to my SD card. I do find that it has improved since I did that. But maybe I'm just imagining things.
I agree about the bookmsrks and the somewhat haphazard menu item placement...
In order to avoid moving bookmarks around I do use the d-pad, but that is not really satisfactory. I also tend to use the URL auto fill-in. I wish you could do the same on the bookmark page, like in PIE.
Bernard

And I just found out that Skyfire does indeed cache pages on the device as well....
B.

I wasn't really impressed with the original couple betas of skyfire and would usually uninstall shortly after install, but now I'm using it more than Opera Mini which I was a big fan of. This page helped me give skyfire another chance:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/mobile-browser-showdown-iphone-3g-vs-opera-mobile-and-skyfire
Check out the performance stats!
Just wish they would incorporate tabs...
Oh yah, my biggest gripe: LET ME IMPORT MY IE FAVORITES!!!
-Mc
p.s. I'm still hoping that Iris gets to be almost as good as Mobile Safari.

McHale said:
Check out the performance stats!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, that *is* impressive!
And yes, I also feel handicapped without tabs....
Bernard

Internet Browser

Hi,
i just would like to know, what are the big differences between the web browsers (Opera, Opera Mini, Skyfire) ?
I am trying to find the browser that is most suited for my needs. I bet there's a lot of people who are wondering the same. So please, come someone enlighten us (me).

just a general note. you should try all browsers and then see as browser comfort is usually individual.
as of today i'd choose either the latest edition of Opera 9.5 or Skyfire... but for the sake of comparison.
Opera Mini is very fast and stable and is java based.. but doesn't have all the features the new browsers such as Opera 9.5 and Skyfire have.
Opera 9.5 is greatlooking and supports direct flash and has a fine comfortable interface.
Skyfire has a few options for browsing.. such as using a Mouse pointer to move across the page or sweep your finger to move the page. also it has a very comfortable home page which i use constantly with weather reports and google search. it also has a very fast loading time.
one major difference between opera and skyfire is the fact that skyfire supports most languages without having to use special language packs.
Internet Explorer sucks ass.
Netfront is great.. not as fast as the others but is very multilingual and has some new options.. you should look it up in google to see what it offers.

nir36 said:
just a general note. you should try all browsers and then see as browser comfort is usually individual.
as of today i'd choose either the latest edition of Opera 9.5 or Skyfire... but for the sake of comparison.
Opera Mini is very fast and stable and is java based.. but doesn't have all the features the new browsers such as Opera 9.5 and Skyfire have.
Opera 9.5 is greatlooking and supports direct flash and has a fine comfortable interface.
Skyfire has a few options for browsing.. such as using a Mouse pointer to move across the page or sweep your finger to move the page. also it has a very comfortable home page which i use constantly with weather reports and google search. it also has a very fast loading time.
one major difference between opera and skyfire is the fact that skyfire supports most languages without having to use special language packs.
Internet Explorer sucks ass.
Netfront is great.. not as fast as the others but is very multilingual and has some new options.. you should look it up in google to see what it offers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow, great..thnx for the info
but i got difficulty to download skyfire. it doesnt support for my country phone number

I knew i wasnt the only one that would be helped ! =)
Thanks a lot!
I will try Skyfire, and if i'm not satisfied, i will go for Opera (but i wonder if Opera Mini could be fine).

You also forgot about one VERY important thing - both Opera Mini and Skyfire use server-side processing: the phone sends all information to opera's or skyfire's server, the server downloads the page as a normal browser would, then strips it of unnecessary data, resizes pictures, compresses the page and then sends it to your device.
So everything you browse, and all the data you send, including passwords is not exchanged directly with the target website, but instead goes trough a third party server. Of course all server-device communications are encrypted, but still i don't encourage using these browsers for sensitive data like banking or shopping using your credit card information. This might be a bit paranoid, but considering how internet looks like today, paranoia is a rather healthy thing
Besides, there were already cases where browser used incorrectly made all the encryption useless: when opera (and probably skyfire too) is started for the first time, it generates a random key to encrypt data and identify your device. But when opera is cooked into ROM or made into CAB installer after this key has been generated, the server recognizes every device using this version as the same one. So if person A logs into a email account and then person B (using the same broken opera install with the same key) goes to this email website - he'll see he's already logged in as person A and can see all of his/her e-mails.
Of course this doesn't happen often (actually i know of only one such accident and the faulty opera was quickly removed from ROM) but still - better safe than sorry.
However, the advantage of these browsers is that they're really fast - all the hard work is done on the server so our devices don't need to do any html/css/javascript/etc interpreting and only have to draw the simplified version of website (opera mini) or something like a screenshot of the website (skyfire) sent by the server. And since the data sent to the device is compressed, they both use much less bandwidth than conventional browsers which is important on cellular connections where you usually pay for transmitted data quantity.
On the other hand, Opera Mobile (all versions), NetFront, Pocket Internet Explorer (which really sucks) are _real_ browsers, like the one on your PC - they communicate with websites directly. But they also have to do all the processing and interpreting, not only drawing so they're noticeably slower than Opera Mini and Skyfire. Also, they usually download all website content and transferred data is uncompressed so they use up much more bandwidth.
Generally, i prefer to use Opera Mini for general web browsing, forums, etc. But for sensitive data (shopping, banking, e-mail), or when bandwidth is not a concern (on a wifi connection) i tend to stick with Opera Mobile or NetFront.
Of these two browsers, Opera 9.5 gives a bit nicer and more finger-friendly user interface. But this requires quite a lot of memory and processing power to work smoothly, so it's almost unusable on low memory devices like Wizard.
NetFront has much simpler UI, closer to one seen in pocketIE and while it doesn't look as impressive an Opera's, it works much better on slower and low memory phones. Since they're both in open beta testing stage, it's best to download and try both to see which one you like more.

mr_deimos said:
You also forgot about one VERY important thing - both Opera Mini and Skyfire use server-side processing: the phone sends all information to opera's or skyfire's server, the server downloads the page as a normal browser would, then strips it of unnecessary data, resizes pictures, compresses the page and then sends it to your device.
So everything you browse, and all the data you send, including passwords is not exchanged directly with the target website, but instead goes trough a third party server. Of course all server-device communications are encrypted, but still i don't encourage using these browsers for sensitive data like banking or shopping using your credit card information. This might be a bit paranoid, but considering how internet looks like today, paranoia is a rather healthy thing
Besides, there were already cases where browser used incorrectly made all the encryption useless: when opera (and probably skyfire too) is started for the first time, it generates a random key to encrypt data and identify your device. But when opera is cooked into ROM or made into CAB installer after this key has been generated, the server recognizes every device using this version as the same one. So if person A logs into a email account and then person B (using the same broken opera install with the same key) goes to this email website - he'll see he's already logged in as person A and can see all of his/her e-mails.
Of course this doesn't happen often (actually i know of only one such accident and the faulty opera was quickly removed from ROM) but still - better safe than sorry.
However, the advantage of these browsers is that they're really fast - all the hard work is done on the server so our devices don't need to do any html/css/javascript/etc interpreting and only have to draw the simplified version of website (opera mini) or something like a screenshot of the website (skyfire) sent by the server. And since the data sent to the device is compressed, they both use much less bandwidth than conventional browsers which is important on cellular connections where you usually pay for transmitted data quantity.
On the other hand, Opera Mobile (all versions), NetFront, Pocket Internet Explorer (which really sucks) are _real_ browsers, like the one on your PC - they communicate with websites directly. But they also have to do all the processing and interpreting, not only drawing so they're noticeably slower than Opera Mini and Skyfire. Also, they usually download all website content and transferred data is uncompressed so they use up much more bandwidth.
Generally, i prefer to use Opera Mini for general web browsing, forums, etc. But for sensitive data (shopping, banking, e-mail), or when bandwidth is not a concern (on a wifi connection) i tend to stick with Opera Mobile or NetFront.
Of these two browsers, Opera 9.5 gives a bit nicer and more finger-friendly user interface. But this requires quite a lot of memory and processing power to work smoothly, so it's almost unusable on low memory devices like Wizard.
NetFront has much simpler UI, closer to one seen in pocketIE and while it doesn't look as impressive an Opera's, it works much better on slower and low memory phones. Since they're both in open beta testing stage, it's best to download and try both to see which one you like more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you're right. my bad.

Incredible. Thanks for the update.
You guys @ XDA need a real THUMBS UP. Thanks for the fast answers, i hope that this will help a couple of users who we're wondering the same thing as I.
=)
That settles it. I'll try Skyfire & Opera Mini and find out wich one i like the most (since i don't use my cell phone for private use (banking & shopping) but more for browsing (forums & other).
YOU GUYS ROCKS!