Database Info

GREAT Web Browsing news: Opera Mobile 8.65b, Minimo 0.2 and first Deepfish beta out!

I have a lot of GREAT news for you all!
Opera Mobile 8.65 beta out!
First, the first public beta of without doubt the best Windows Mobile Web browser, Opera Mobile, has just been released and is available for download here. It offers a LOT of welcome additions and bugfixes; for example, support for Macromedia (Adobe) Flash, SmartSKey / Jog-dial-based page scrolling, direct image saving, link copying to the clipboard etc. More on these features later (when I move on to discussing my forthcoming Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible).
{
"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"
}
I’ve been testing it for some three weeks as an official beta tester and can only say it’s a very sound and very nice application. Well worth the price tag.
Note that the final version will be released on Monday.
Minimo 0.2 out!
Second, after almost three months of not receiving any nightly updates to Minimo, the alternative free (!) browser (and the author’s seemingly putting the entire project on ice), version 0.2 has just been released – out of a sudden. (No one would have thought there would be a new version of the browser after the January announcement! This is also very good news.)
In some respects, the new version is far superior to the old; for example
page loading speed has been increased by about 25%
the ability to load pages with any number of resources and not choking at pages with as few as even 15-20 linked resources
vastly enhanced compatibility with most? all? WM5 / WM6 Windows Mobile models. For example, the 0.1x series was pretty useless on the HTC Universal because it was far from being responsive (a MAJOR bug with earlier Minimo versions). The new version works on my Universal just great.
However, it has some major problems too:
the RAM usage is very-very bad – upon loading, Minimo allocates itself some 13.5 Mbytes of RAM (as opposed to the about 5-6 Mbyte of the last 0.1x series version)!
it no longer has a WM2003(SE)-compatible version (read: it’s only compatible with WM5 / WM6).
subtle bugs like the system-level inability for pasting haven’t been fixed
there are no radically new features like image / page saving, direct link copying to the clipboard or link target saving.
All in all, if you have a WM5 device and you have more than 20Mbytes of free RAM all the time, go get it. Otherwise, wait for a bugfix release or stick with an alternative browser / the previous version.
First Deepfish beta out!
Third, Microsoft Research has released the first public beta of Deepfish, a brand new, revolutionary Thunderhawk-like Web browser, closely mimicking the new Nokia S60 OSS browser (on which I’ve elaborated for example here) and the latest (3.4) version of NetFront. You can also sign up for the beta HERE; note that you’ll only get on a betatester list to be granted rights only later when Microsoft Research actually gets able to provide the thousands of would-be betatesters the necessary proxy server throughput capabilities.
As you can also seen in the screenshot above, this browser renders pages REALLY nicely. Too bad it (still) lacks almost everything needed for decent browsing: cookies, Flash, SSL, JavaScript / AJAX and is, therefore, can’t be used for anything serious. Still, it’s really worth checking out. The excellent folks at Microsoft Research really know what they do
Brand new version of Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible to be published in 1-2 days!
Finally, another great piece of news for the entire Windows Mobile community. You may know I’m the author of the well-known (it has been frontpaged by Pocket PC Thoughts and made sticky by MobilitySite; the AximSite, BrightHand and the FirstLoox copy is also worth checking out for more reader feedback) Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible. As it’s dated at 08/2005, it’s heavily outdated. This is why I’ve completely updated it, particularly now that, being an official Opera betatester, I can deliver you first-hand, real reports on the latest Opera Mobile version.
It has not only been updated to cover the latest versions of all browsers running on the latest operating system versions (WM5 and, yes, WM6!) but also greatly enhanced with a lot of new tests and comparisons.
For now, “only” the heart of the new Web Browsing Bible, the comparison / feature chart is available. It, however, already has ALL the information – in a highly compact, easy-to-compare-to-the-alternatives format. And, yes, some 350 screenshots, almost all taken on a WM6 VGA HTC Universal (don’t forget to click the links to see them if interested)!
As with all my feature charts (and roundups), I’ve paid special attention to provide you with mini-tutorials when discussing a particular question. For example, when I elaborate on the “One column” mode (see the “One (single) column view?” row in the chart), with, say, Minimo, I also show how you can actually switch to this mode by showing a screenshot of the menu item taking you there. This means the chart contains hundreds of small, but, in cases, very useful quick tips & mini-tutorials you won’t find anywhere else. All in a very compact form: just imagine how much I would have ended up having to type upon trying to convey the SAME deal of information in a non-tabular form – yeah, dozens if not hundreds of kilobytes.
In this weekend, I’ll publish a full article explaining what the chart is all about; still, the chart is worth taking a look at even now. I had tried to be as verbose and clear as possible when explaining the different test cases. I’ve also paid special effort to linking in my previous, related articles on the different tests I’ve conducted. For example, when I provide a link along with the Internationalization support group, it means you may want to follow the link to find out what the tests in this group are all about.
If you thoroughly scrutinize the chart, you’ll see that, as long as you don’t need special features like real Java (NOT JavaScript!) or hardware button support, Opera Mobile should be the first browser you check out – it is the most standards compliant, in many respects the fastest, takes the least memory (when it comes to loading huge pages or creating new tabs) and, now, also supports Flash.

Menneisyys, according to your post, the final release would be on Monday...
is this the official release for which we can buy? or is this the final release of the beta? according to Opera's website - 8.65Beta expires on June 1st... is Opera extending the Beta test phase?

alfred_jp said:
Menneisyys, according to your post, the final release would be on Monday...
is this the official release for which we can buy? or is this the final release of the beta? according to Opera's website - 8.65Beta expires on June 1st... is Opera extending the Beta test phase?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dunno if it will indeed be released today - on Friday, when the beta was released, they promised it would be.

ic... thanks for the reply...

just one inquiry that i hope you may be able to answer.... is there a way to synchronize Opera's bookmarks with that of PIE and vice-versa? something like NetFront wherein it uses the same boookmarks that of PIE.
i guess this was one of the deal-breakers for me when i have to choose my primary mobile browser.
any recommendations?
thanks in advanced!!

alfred_jp said:
just one inquiry that i hope you may be able to answer.... is there a way to synchronize Opera's bookmarks with that of PIE and vice-versa? something like NetFront wherein it uses the same boookmarks that of PIE.
i guess this was one of the deal-breakers for me when i have to choose my primary mobile browser.
any recommendations?
thanks in advanced!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, only for reading; see the Opera Mobile-related cell in the "Access to standard PIE favorites?" row.

Guys, read http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1202096

Nothing good at Horizont
Hi,
I tryed all of them, Minimo don't run on TyTn, Opera 8.65 is a hog memory. DeepFish is already closed and I didn't try it
Regards,
Taguapire.

taguapire said:
Hi,
I tryed all of them, Minimo don't run on TyTn, Opera 8.65 is a hog memory. DeepFish is already closed and I didn't try it
Regards,
Taguapire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so you have not 'tried' them all?

Check out the new Opera Mini beta 4;
http://www.operamini.com/beta/
Its got a good implementation of zoom & pan!
Nice FREE, small memory footprint , smooth and fast!!

I have installed the Beta 4 today but I am having a major problem.
The browser closes by itself after I have browses two or three sites or if the browser does not close it freezes the device.
I have installed on a I-Mate Jasjam running WM5. Anyone else with this problem.
Best Regards

So, if the Opera mini supports showing the full webpage and then zooming in, why even deal with Deepfish? The thing that really bothers me about Deepfish is that from what I understand, you go to a website, it is actually proxied through a Microsoft site that takes a snapshot and sends that to your phone.
I would guess that it is probably a bit faster than something like Opera Mini, but I *really* don't like the fact that all of my web connections are being proxied thru M$ and that thy basically have access to my entire browsing history, etc. It also means that entering in UIDs & Passwds go through them, which also bothers me...
Brain21

brain21 said:
So, if the Opera mini supports showing the full webpage and then zooming in, why even deal with Deepfish? The thing that really bothers me about Deepfish is that from what I understand, you go to a website, it is actually proxied through a Microsoft site that takes a snapshot and sends that to your phone.
I would guess that it is probably a bit faster than something like Opera Mini, but I *really* don't like the fact that all of my web connections are being proxied thru M$ and that thy basically have access to my entire browsing history, etc. It also means that entering in UIDs & Passwds go through them, which also bothers me...
Brain21
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uh? What are you talking about? You do KNOW that OPERA proxies every site you visit with Opera Mini too, right?
So as far as technically being able to keep a record of everywhere you visit is as easily done as Microsoft's service.

Where do you get this info that Opera proxies every site? I have sniffed the packets Opera sends and it contacts the actual site not an Opera proxy.

poedgirl said:
Where do you get this info that Opera proxies every site? I have sniffed the packets Opera sends and it contacts the actual site not an Opera proxy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it doesn't. It fully uses a proxied connection; otherwise, it couldn't be able to GREATLY reduce the bandwidth usage.

poedgirl said:
Where do you get this info that Opera proxies every site? I have sniffed the packets Opera sends and it contacts the actual site not an Opera proxy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got the info from not only the Opera website, Opera Mini review and also the Service agreement that you have to go through before you even hit the Opera homepage.
Notice that I said Opera Mini, right?

agovinoveritas said:
I got the info from not only the Opera website, Opera Mini review and also the Service agreement that you have to go through before you even hit the Opera homepage.
Notice that I said Opera Mini, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, she may be referring to Opera Mobile, not Mini.

Guys, make sure you read http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1358226 for a FULL review of Opoera Mini 4 beta!

REVIEW: another brand new Web Browser, UCWEB

I’ve long been wanting to review the brand new UCWEB browser which, while definitely not as good as Opera Mobile or IEM enhanced with either PIEPlus or MultiIE, can be a good, multi-tabbed, bandwidth-saving alternative to commercial browsers as soon as its bugs are ironed out and page loading speed increased.
{
"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"
}
(a QVGA Pocket PC screenshot; a WM6 VGA screenshot)
Availability, installing
You’ll need to use the generic WM CAB version. For Pocket PC’s, use the second link HERE (as of the time of writing, THIS is the direct CAB download link – it may change in the future!). This is all linked from HERE, should you want to know where it’s from.
Note that there’s also a first link in the page (Wince boot programs (Recommend)). I couldn’t find out why the UCWEB people recommend it – I’ve found it completely useless. That is, don’t bother downloading / installing it.
After installing, just click the brand new UCWEB icon in Start / Programs and you can start using it. To enter a IRL to go to, just go to Menu / Open / Enter Address.
Note that there is a MIDlet version of the browser too. Its Chinese download page is HERE. I haven’t tested this version as native Pocket PC browsers are inevitably better than their MIDlet counterparts. Not even Opera Mini 4, the best Java-based mini-browser out there (OM4 for short; see review HERE) comes close to the native Opera Mobile or IEM + PIEPlus / MultiIE combo, feature-wise. (The ease of Web browsing, standards compliance, price, bandwidth usage and speed are completely unrelated questions. In them, Opera Mini just rocks – no wonder the latest beta version of OM4 has quickly become my favourite and most commonly used Web browser.)
Also note that I could only find a Pocket PC-specific non-MIDlet, Windows Mobile-compatible version of the browser. There doesn’t seem to be a MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) version of it – the above CAB file is Pocket PC-only as can also be seen in HERE
Cons
Interestingly, it has problems sending comments to the PPCMag blog (some Chinese error message is displayed). Nevertheless, the comments arrive.
WM5+ softkeys are previous/next only; no real menu access via softkeys
Really-really unreliable traffic: sometimes it just doesn’t load anything (screenshot of the errror message HERE)
It’s still definitely slower than OM4
No visible tabs: to switch between pages, you need to use either the backward/forward buttons (WM5+ softkeys or the 7/9 phonepad / keyboard buttons) or go to Menu / Window / Windows list (three screen taps - quite a lot!)
It’s very unstable: it has crashed on me several times (particularly when tap-and-holding the screen)
It seems disabling Small Screen Rendering in Menu / Settings / System / Small Screen Render results in NOT being able to access the Web any more (it continuously keeps saying it’s in the “Initialize network connection” state and, after a timeout, it displays an error message) – not even if you toggle the checkbox back to enabled state. I’ve confirmed this on two of my Pocket PC’s. That is, NEVER uncheck this checkbox! This is certainly bad news, as the browser defaults to one column mode, which might not be the best solution for all users / pages, particularly not on with (W)VGA devices.
Couldn’t find a Smartphone version
Pros
Bandwidth saving
Unlimited number of windows open (as opposed to, say, NetFront, with its 5-tabs-at-most, really restrictive approach)
Configurable User-Agent
Configurable image quality (OM4 also supports this – with two quality / size settings)
Page transition effects, just like in Opera Mini (fortunately, it can be configured or even switched off entirely; screenshots: 1 2 3)
Widely (both size and style) configurable fonts
Support for true full screen
Hardware keypad support for page scrolling
Pretty good favorites support, including access to IEM favorites (unlike with OM4) and even sorting (the latter is painfully missing from even OM4). Screenshots: 1 2
Verdict
A day, this browser may become a serious alternative to current Windows Mobile browsers. Today, however, it is barely usable, even if you take its price into account. (The also free Opera Mini 4 delivers MUCH snappier web browsing and is a much more reliable browser.)
You may still want to give it a try but, again, don’t expect anything. Given that both the browser and the central server it uses is very unreliable and slow, however, you won’t want to rely on it as your only web browser.
Recommended articles
Windows Mobile / Pocket PC Web Browsing Bible
Windows Mobile / Smartphone Web Browsing Bible

Menneisyys said:
I’ve long been wanting to review the brand new UCWEB browser which, while definitely not as good as Opera Mobile or IEM enhanced with either PIEPlus or MultiIE, can be a good, multi-tabbed, bandwidth-saving alternative to commercial browsers as soon as its bugs are ironed out and page loading speed increased.
(a QVGA Pocket PC screenshot; a WM6 VGA screenshot)
Availability, installing
You’ll need to use the generic WM CAB version. For Pocket PC’s, use the second link HERE (as of the time of writing, THIS is the direct CAB download link – it may change in the future!). This is all linked from HERE, should you want to know where it’s from.
Note that there’s also a first link in the page (Wince boot programs (Recommend)). I couldn’t find out why the UCWEB people recommend it – I’ve found it completely useless. That is, don’t bother downloading / installing it.
After installing, just click the brand new UCWEB icon in Start / Programs and you can start using it. To enter a IRL to go to, just go to Menu / Open / Enter Address.
Note that there is a MIDlet version of the browser too. Its Chinese download page is HERE. I haven’t tested this version as native Pocket PC browsers are inevitably better than their MIDlet counterparts. Not even Opera Mini 4, the best Java-based mini-browser out there (OM4 for short; see review HERE) comes close to the native Opera Mobile or IEM + PIEPlus / MultiIE combo, feature-wise. (The ease of Web browsing, standards compliance, price, bandwidth usage and speed are completely unrelated questions. In them, Opera Mini just rocks – no wonder the latest beta version of OM4 has quickly become my favourite and most commonly used Web browser.)
Also note that I could only find a Pocket PC-specific non-MIDlet, Windows Mobile-compatible version of the browser. There doesn’t seem to be a MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) version of it – the above CAB file is Pocket PC-only as can also be seen in HERE
Cons
Interestingly, it has problems sending comments to the PPCMag blog (some Chinese error message is displayed). Nevertheless, the comments arrive.
WM5+ softkeys are previous/next only; no real menu access via softkeys
Really-really unreliable traffic: sometimes it just doesn’t load anything (screenshot of the errror message HERE)
It’s still definitely slower than OM4
No visible tabs: to switch between pages, you need to use either the backward/forward buttons (WM5+ softkeys or the 7/9 phonepad / keyboard buttons) or go to Menu / Window / Windows list (three screen taps - quite a lot!)
It’s very unstable: it has crashed on me several times (particularly when tap-and-holding the screen)
It seems disabling Small Screen Rendering in Menu / Settings / System / Small Screen Render results in NOT being able to access the Web any more (it continuously keeps saying it’s in the “Initialize network connection” state and, after a timeout, it displays an error message) – not even if you toggle the checkbox back to enabled state. I’ve confirmed this on two of my Pocket PC’s. That is, NEVER uncheck this checkbox! This is certainly bad news, as the browser defaults to one column mode, which might not be the best solution for all users / pages, particularly not on with (W)VGA devices.
Couldn’t find a Smartphone version
Pros
Bandwidth saving
Unlimited number of windows open (as opposed to, say, NetFront, with its 5-tabs-at-most, really restrictive approach)
Configurable User-Agent
Configurable image quality (OM4 also supports this – with two quality / size settings)
Page transition effects, just like in Opera Mini (fortunately, it can be configured or even switched off entirely; screenshots: 1 2 3)
Widely (both size and style) configurable fonts
Support for true full screen
Hardware keypad support for page scrolling
Pretty good favorites support, including access to IEM favorites (unlike with OM4) and even sorting (the latter is painfully missing from even OM4). Screenshots: 1 2
Verdict
A day, this browser may become a serious alternative to current Windows Mobile browsers. Today, however, it is barely usable, even if you take its price into account. (The also free Opera Mini 4 delivers MUCH snappier web browsing and is a much more reliable browser.)
You may still want to give it a try but, again, don’t expect anything. Given that both the browser and the central server it uses is very unreliable and slow, however, you won’t want to rely on it as your only web browser.
Recommended articles
Windows Mobile / Pocket PC Web Browsing Bible
Windows Mobile / Smartphone Web Browsing Bible
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Two years in the making but I believe the follow up review is due with this one. The new UCWEB is akin to mini but better in my opinion. Tabbed browsing, low system resources, fast page loads... its pretty sweet.
I would like to read another of your informative reviews to be more specific...

moSess said:
Two years in the making but I believe the follow up review is due with this one. The new UCWEB is akin to mini but better in my opinion. Tabbed browsing, low system resources, fast page loads... its pretty sweet.
I would like to read another of your informative reviews to be more specific...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll surely review it soon - now, I'm posting a follow-up on my BOLT review now that the new version is out.

Thank you for the reply. I will most definitely be looking forward to it. Your insight is always interesting.

moSess said:
Two years in the making but I believe the follow up review is due with this one. The new UCWEB is akin to mini but better in my opinion. Tabbed browsing, low system resources, fast page loads... its pretty sweet.
I would like to read another of your informative reviews to be more specific...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried it out after reading this. Seems about as fast as opera mini and with a better interface but with bad page rendering. Especially with frames.

oic0 said:
Tried it out after reading this. Seems about as fast as opera mini and with a better interface but with bad page rendering. Especially with frames.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, in some respects (for example, tabbing, download managers, user-agent settings or copy capabilities), it's way ahead of Opera Mini. Too bad its rendering engine is way inferior.
I'll publish the review in an hour.

OK, review ready: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3567996

Just get Opera, so that you wont have to worry about "Better" Web Browsers.

Well, I am going to read the review now. As far as rendering goes, the browser has the ability to use zoom as well, which gives full web pages and hence, no rendering. I am sure Menneisyys has picked up on that.

I feel like I tried UCWEB a month after I got my Tilt, which would be last April. Thanks for the review I'll look into it after I finish testing Bolt
edit: haha just realized how old the review was, durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

redbandana said:
I feel like I tried UCWEB a month after I got my Tilt, which would be last April. Thanks for the review I'll look into it after I finish testing Bolt
edit: haha just realized how old the review was, durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup,it is - but my new one is up-to-date - follow the link above

help
how to use download video clips did anybody tried

Use another browser like Opera

Web Browsing News as of 10/18/2007: new Opera Mobile, Picsel, Spb Pocket Plus

A lot has happened in the last month on the Web browser scene. Let’s go over the news!
1. Opera Mobile 8.65 Final released!
Since this March, there have been two beta versions of Opera Mobile, without doubt the BEST, fastest and most standards compliant Web browser for the Windows Mobile platform. Now, almost half a year after the release of the first Beta, the final version has, finally, been released, of which I was also a (closed) betatester, working closely together with the developers and decision makers of Opera.
Compared to the 8.65 betas, which I thoroughly elaborated on in the Web Browsing Bible (and, therefore, in here, I don’t elaborate on these new features – make sure you read my roundup above), there are only few changes. There, on the other hand, have been several bugfixes; for example, the really annoying DEFBROWSER bug I’ve, independent of some other people doing the same, discovered and reported HERE).
Design decisions
Single column layout removed. This is a design decision I don’t really agree with. Particularly if you have a VGA device, you MAY find the lack of the single column mode annoying, particularly with sites / pages that, otherwise, would work much better with a well-working One Column mode. An example: a Wikipedia article in PIE’s One Column mode on a VGA device in Landscape mode (Largest charsize, High Resolution enabled) (the same with Fit to screen – as can be seen, it’s pretty much useless) and the same in Opera Mobile (Minimum font size: 8; Zoom: 100%). As can clearly be seen, One Column modes will ALWAYS be able to present more information. You can, of course, use zoom facilities so that the horizontal screen estate is fully filled in but, then, the character size will also grow and, what is worse, the images will also become pixelizated. (Also see THIS thread for more info / discussion.)
Desktop view, which has been made the default (!) viewing mode, has been made much friendlier. Now, it’s using a bit smaller characters than before. Should you still find them too big, switch to the default (fit to screen) viewing mode because setting Menu / Tools / Settings / Minimum font size to even 8 doesn’t seem to do the trick. Thanks to the, most of the time, excellently working new wrapping functionality, makes it possible to live without having to scroll around. This is shown in the following (VGA Landscape) screenshot with the View menu shown:
{
"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, the cache is stored on the same drive as the executable program itself. While this is what many people have been asked for (particularly with devices only having 64 Mbytes of Flash ROM, meaning only 10-11 Mbytes of it available to the users – for example, the HTC Oxygen / s310 Smartphone is one of them –, you will definitely like this.
Note that, however, this approach might have negative consequences. As has been explained in my Web Browsing Bible, storing the browser cache on a slow-to-create-files-on storage card (most non-high-end cards are like this) may result in the slowdown of the page loading. If this is a concern to you (because you visit pages that contain a LOT of different images, which are all cached), make sure you manually (!) relocate the cache to somewhere else – or, for that matter, completely disable it in Menu / Tools / Settings / History / Cache Size as can be seen in HERE. To relocate it back to the main storage (or even a RAMdisk, if its being completely deleted each reset and the decrease of RAM memory isn’t a problem either because, for example, you use a 128M RAM model), just follow my previous Opera cache relocation tutorial.
Problems I’ve discovered and/or fixed in the meantime
On MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) phones, when you have really low RAM memory (you’re running out of it), problems may occur with keyboard shortcuts. Namely, no matter what hardware shortcut button you press, the same functionality (in general, Reload and / or Back) will be executed. This can lead to confusion – at first, it caused me a lot of headache too until I’ve understood how this all works.
All in all, if your hardware dialpad buttons don’t do what they’re supposed to do, you may want to shut down (some) other apps and / or Opera Mobile tabs. This will free up some RAM, which will result in the buttons working again.
There’s still no hardware application button support (you can only tie button shortcuts to dialpad / keyboard buttons), but now that I’ve published a FULL tutorial and explanation of all decent Windows Mobile button enhancers, including how you can configure your hardware buttons to simulate the pressing of numeric (dialpad) buttons, this isn’t that big an issue. Just make sure you read the Button Enhancer Bible and do what’s there.
There had been a problem with non-English operating systems because of the wired-in (English) directory names with the initial release. This, along with manually fixing it, has been fixed in the meantime; that is, current builds no longer have this problem.
Verdict
Opera Mobile is and, as it seems, definitely remaining the best browser for both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones. While there still are some glitches (the worst of them, the lack for hardware app buttons, having been fixed by me), these problems are nothing compared to the generic sluggishness and/or Web standards incompatibility with (most of) the other browsers. Make sure you get at least the trial version.
2. New (1.0.5) Picsel version released!
There is (see THIS) also a new version of the Picsel Web browser. To get it, download the CAB file here (mirror HERE). You only need to download the CAB file; you do NOT need to install the previous Picsel version first, no matter what is stated HERE
As opposed to some XDA-Dev folks, I haven’t found much improvement. For example, the CSS compliance is still very bad (the result of the Acid2 test is HERE; that of the CSS1 test is HERE). The Ajax compliance isn’t a tad better either (tested with THIS and THIS test suite).
All in all, there isn’t much improvement. You may still want to give it a try if you are a big fan of the GUI. I, myself, would still stick to either Opera Mini or Mobile. Don’t necessarily believe the hype

3. New Spb Pocket Plus
Spb Pocket Plus has always been one of the best Pocket PC (Windows Mobile Pro / Classic) system enhancers. The brand new, just released 4.0 version boasts, in addition to a lot of new functionalities, a, compared to the much less significant changes during the 2.x-3.x version jump, considerable
(screenshot showing the four tabs, all populated, and the drop-down list (now, only having one element) of the invisible tabs in the upper right corner. For comparison: a screenshot of the context menu of the old, 3.x-series version HERE, also showing there haven’t been any new buttons / any tabs in it.)
It has received the following niceties:
screen dragging mode; note that the autoscroll can be a bit of a pain in the back; it’s sometimes the best to disable it
tabs (with a pretty welcome context menu – very few other products have the same, as can also be seen in the “Tab context menu (if any)” row of the chart of the Web Browsing Bible)
adding the ability to switch off / on keyboard dragging in the context menu
a separate quick access button, next to the “Action” button of the address bar; note that “Search” here makes a quick Google search with the text you enter in the address field.
The settings screen has remained similarly simple – as you can see, there isn’t much to choose from. The same stands for Menu / Spb Pocket Plus, which didn’t change either as can be seen in HERE. As far as saving Web pages is concerned, you can still only save them as simple HTML files – no MHT or full HTML page saving is possible. Incidentally, as can also be seen in the last screenshot, the new SPP version has a system-level (not only available when saving pages, but from every app that would, otherwise, use the system-level, default, very dumb file dialog) file dialog box like that of Mad Programmer, whose FileDialogChanger I’ve often recommended. HERE’s a screenshot of the Setup program where you can en or disable it. (note that, as opposed to Mad Programmer’s FileDialogChanger, you can’t define exceptions – there’re no configuration capabilities of the new “File Open/Save Dialog”).
Compare this to the immense setting / menu options of PIEPlus or even MultiIE and you understand why I still recommend either of these for the serious Internet Explorer Mobile user, as opposed to Spb Pocket Plus. Not that SPP would be THAT bad any more.
It also has some bugs, but, knowing how great the Spb folks at bugfixing are, I’m pretty sure they’ll be fixed VERY soon:
clicking the cross in the upper right corner (to close the IE window) doesn’t work if there are more than one tabs open. You MUST manually bring up the Start menu and switch (in cases, re-run so that the execution is switched to it) to the program you want to. Of course, if you use a third-party task switcher (for example, the highly recommended Magic Button, PHM’s Alt-Tab or almost all the hardware app button enhancers reviewed HERE)
the smooth scrolling mode isn’t really doing what it’s supposed to: in Landscape mode, it’s, in general, scrolling more than it should or even scrolls multiple pages. Some people have also reported other problems with it; see for example THIS.
4. New version of jb5
In the MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible, I’ve elaborated on the brand new web browser jb5, which, back then, only had a Smartphone version. Late August, a brand new, 5.0.79 version has been released for both the Smartphone and, now, the WM5+ Pocket PC’s. While it’s still having problems and I still consider it much inferior to Opera Mobile / Mini, if you need the special features (for example, in-page text search, which, on the Windows Mobile platform, is only supported by the currently unavailable NetFront and the memory hog & on several handheld models super-slow Minimo) jb5 offers, you might want to check it out. I’ll let you know as soon as it receives a really useful and recommended version.
5. Web Viewer for WM5
There is a brand new multitab IEM plug-in, “Web Viewer for WM5”, HERE.
Unfortunately, this title still has a lot of problems and, consequently, I don’t recommend it. As with jb5, I’ll announce when a useful, bug-free version is released. I also recommend the comments HERE.
6. Other stuff
In some of my earlier articles, I’ve already elaborated on two not really recommended newcomers: TeaShark and UCWEB. IMHO, it’s, currently, pretty useless to bother about these browsers. I’ll let you know when a considerably better version is released.

Menneisyys said:
All in all, there isn’t much improvement. You may still want to give it a try if you are a big fan of the GUI. I, myself, would still stick to either Opera Mini or Mobile. Don’t necessarily believe the hype
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it doesn't have any of the cool updated stuff found at the following link?
http://www.picsel.com/flash/uploads/index.html
May not be the best web browser ever, but the pdf and Office viewing is superb. I mean really, was adobe kidding with that awful LE edition?
NS

NotShorty said:
So it doesn't have any of the cool updated stuff found at the following link?
http://www.picsel.com/flash/uploads/index.html
May not be the best web browser ever, but the pdf and Office viewing is superb. I mean really, was adobe kidding with that awful LE edition?
NS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've only compared the Web browsing fcuntionality.

When using Picsel on my phone and the rotate option, it rotates the browser window 90 counter-clockwise. Does anyone know how to change this to 90 clockwise? I ask because I use a P4000/Titan and it rotates the image away from the keyboard.
I've tried some of the registry entries, such as rotatedirection, but they didn't do anything.... or I put the wrong values

MWC: Web Browser News (BOLT, Opera, Fennec, Iris, Skyfire, Flash)

Just like last year (see my previous year's article HERE), I have REALLY a lot to report on Web browsing, the just-announced stuff and so on.
Opera
1. At MWC, the Opera folks announced their brand new service called Opera Turbo (official page HERE), allowing for massive data usage savings and speedup, particularly over a slow (for example, GPRS) connection.
This isn’t (still) available to end users as it’s mobile operators that need to install the server-side component on their servers to do the data compression. This is quite a bit different from Opera Mini’s solution, which goes through the servers deployed and maintained by the Opera folks themselves.
You may ask why the Opera staff doesn’t maintain the same serverpark to serve Opera Turbo clients. The question seems to be easy to answer: it’d cause in a lot of additional traffic for Opera. With Opera Mini, the majority of this can be directly saved as the Web pages returned to the Opera Mini client are preformatted and stripped of for example dynamic (scripting) and CSS (styling) components. The internal page layout language is also much simpler than the “real” HTML used in everyday Web pages, resulting in further data usage saving. With fully fledged (non-simplified) clients, all this would be gone, meaning two-three times more data usage between the client machine and the Opera servers. Now, a significant (if I remember correctly, about 60%) of Norway’s Web traffic is caused by the Opera Mini servers – you can have an idea what this would become when every, say, second mobile user switched to using Opera Turbo on his or her laptop. No wonder they don’t offer the service to everyone - unlike with their Opera Mini -, but ask the individual mobile operators to deploy them. That is, it’s pretty silly to accuse of Opera of not being very user-friendly by not offering the service without a third party (in this case, mobile operators).
BTW, on desktop Windows, the service will only be compatible with Opera’s own (desktop) browser, not Internet Explorer or Firefox. It’s high time you switched to Opera on your desktop, though – Opera Link, particularly if you also use Opera Mini on your handhelds / handsets, is very hard to beat. And, hopefully, the, in my opinion, biggest problem of the Opera browser, the lack of auto-completion will surely be fixed in the near future – I’ve asked the Opera folks to, finally, implement this (along with the italic support in Opera Mini) and they seem to listen to me.
2. Opera has just released a new version of their Opera Mobile 9.51b2 browser; now, together with Google Gears (see THIS for more info on what it’s about) support. It’s, as usual, available HERE (follow the “Windows Mobile 5/6 Pocket PC, version 9.51b2, Gears-enabled technical preview” link).
A quick note: if you don’t want to give up on the advantages of the current, latest version of Opera Mobile (that is, the Omnia build version) with all its goodies (text reflowing at every zoom level; easier zooming etc.), think twice before upgrading. Nevertheless, if you install it on the same Windows Mobile device, the two versions will happily co-exist and won’t interfere in each other’s operation. (They’re located in entirely different directories, have different icon links and temporary directories.)
Bolt
The famous developers (BitStream) of ThunderHawk, which used to be one of the most recommended browsers for Windows Mobile, particularly in the pre-WM2003SE days when it was pretty hard to switch the screen orientation to landscape (and no other browsers supporting rendering pages in this mode), now, at last, has a successor: BOLT.
While I did install it on my BlackBerry 8800 (my favourite Web browsing mobile device for quick lookups – for longer sessions, I prefer my iPhone 3G) when the first, closed beta arrived about a month ago, I found it best not to publish anything on it because, frankly, I found the scrolling speed plain slow compared to the pretty mature and very fast Opera Mini 4.2 on the same device and, now that I have a lot of work, I simply don’t want to publish reviews of half-baked products because these reviews get outdated very fast as, in general, software developers quickly fix the problems. (Note that it’s because of this that I haven’t really elaborated on the first, runnable Mozilla / Fennec build(s) for Windows Mobile either – I’ll wait until a version is released which is at least half as usable and stable as current Opera Mobile versions.)
I’ve thoroughly tested the new version announced and released at MWC and found it very good on all kinds of devices. I’ve tested it on the following ones:
QVGA – 320*240 – Landscape BlackBerry 8800,
VGA – 640 * 480 – HP iPAQ 210 with Jbed 3.1 (tested in both screen orientations) (Windows Mobile),
QVGA – 240*320 – Nokia N95 (Symbian S60).
Thanks for the excellent font set of BitStream, all the three
Some screenshots:
{
"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"
}
(Windows Mobile VGA with XXLarge characters – see Settings / Magnification)
(Nokia N95 with default settings)
Note that it has everything a decent browser should need: page scrolling by 2/4/6/8; on touchscreen-enabled devices without hardware (left / right) softkeys (the HP 210 is one of them), tapping the bottom-most area of the screen brings up the menu; find text in page.
It surely has some (not very annoying) problems; for example, rendering the PPCMag Experts in Portrait mode on a QVGA device – in this case, the N95 – sometimes lead to invisible end of rows. This needs to be continuously – after every single Page downs –corrected, which is definitely a more time-consuming process than under Opera Mini 4.2, which uses a better “fit to screen” algorithm.
Also note that, as the browser is strictly based on the (8-bit) ASCII font set, it cannot render any non-ASCII characters. That is, while it can display all the characters in all Western languages, it fails doing the same with non-Western ones – there will always be some characters missing. This can’t be fixed, unless, as is explained in my dedicated article on internationalization issues, the Web administrators explicitly look for the User-Agent of Bolt and convert all the pages returned to ASCII.
Speed-wise, the new browser excelled. It’s definitely worth giving a try.
Finally, it also supports videos and animation. It can even play back YouTube contents by invoking the system-level, native Web browser to download the (into a very low-quality .3gp file – unfortunately, you can’t make the transcoder produce a better-quality file, not even at the expense of higher data usage) transcoded YouTube content and, then, invoke the system-level multimedia player to play it back. On the BlackBerry 8800 (running OS 4.5), where I tested this, I needed to manually invoke the latter – doing the same from Browser didn’t work. That is, you’ll need to save the transcoded .3gp file into the file system, start Media manually and search for the just-saved clip.

Fennec
The long-awaited Mozilla/Firefox port, after having been only available for the Linux-based Nokia Internet Tablets, has arrived to Windows Mobile (dedicated blog post HERE).
No, it’s still not worth getting it if all you want is a decent, capable browser – it’s really slow and full of bugs. (Remember the first versions of Minimo? It’s THAT bad. Note that I’m not stating the private, unofficial Minimo has anything to do with the officially backed-up Fennec – except for the same initial codebase –, just the fact that Fennec, as of the current version, ins plain useless for real-world usage.) For the time being, go for Opera Mobile, Mini, Skyfire or Bolt, depending on your needs.
Iris
After my last review of Iris, several new versions have been released. They are stated to be much faster / more stable. However, the GUI inconsistencies I’ve pointed out in the above review are still here (also see the comments for example HERE); that is, currently, I still don’t recommend this version unlike you absolutely don’t want to use the alternative ones.
Also read THIS for more info.
Skyfire
A new version, 0.9, was released a week ago. Compared to the version reviewed in my last generic roundup, the list of improvements include (see THIS for more info) Facebook, Twitter, RSS support, improved text reflowing (not that I would have found the previous versions bad in this respect) and (at last) compatibility with WVGA (800*480) and WQVGA (400*240) screens.
Adobe news: Flash Lite 3.1 for developers; full Flash 10 promised
If you know my dedicated article ("TUTORIAL: everything you need to know about Flash Lite 3 and playing back Flash web videos"), you know that, so far, there haven’t been an official version of Flash Lite 3.1 available to download.
In the meantime, Adobe has made the developer version available (more info). No, do not rush to download it unless you’re a developer – it will NOT work in your flash (lite) plugin-capable browser like the latest Omnia build or Internet Explorer. Yes, I’ve tested this. Hope the end user plug-in version is soon released.
Adobe has also announced they will release full (!!) Flash support for Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and Android this year. This is certainly very good news for everyone but iPhone folks – after all, Symbian and Android have never had any “full” Flash support and the latest Windows Mobile one is a highly outdated and slow version 7.

Thanks a lot mate
You´re the man!
great reviews

UPDATE (22/02/2009 10:34AM CET): : let me also present you a shot of the Opera booth at ShowStoppers. I hope you recognize the webpage shown ;-)

What's your take on the security for Opera Mini and Bolt for BlackBerry? I know it's not a WM question, but I see you used Bolt on your 8800. Just wondering, I thought I saw somewhere that OM wasn't a secure browser, I like it but it's got me nervous to use it.

Something I noticed..
Why is Opera Mobile 9.5 jerky (non smooth scrolling, vsync problem on the top left of the screen in landscape) on the HTC HD/Diamond/Pro and smooth as slik on the Xpéria (wich is the same god damn hardware..) and the Omnia etc...?
Xperia : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW124IUAPIs

Hmm it's a bit late for a response I guess, but here goes.
I played with Opera Turbo for a bit at MWC and wasn't too impressed. Most of the sites didn't load correctly. Ofcourse, this was perhaps a beta version and things may need improving.
Also I'm not clear on exactly the compression method used, but if it is just standard HTTP compression (sadly enough still not used by most webservers on the block) it's nothing new, I know several carriers who already implement this service on their side and there are several services available that offer this in non-transparent proxy form (apposed to the carriers doing this in transparant form).
However there are many possible improvements to be made over 'normal' HTTP compression, and I assume Opera is at least using some of the things I can come up with straight from the top of my head. Still, I'd be nice to know in more detail how this works - is it revolutionary, or just something old in a new jacket?
Looking forward to actually using this on my device, see how it works (hopefully better than the on the demo devices at the Opera stand at MWC)

MAK11 said:
Something I noticed..
Why is Opera Mobile 9.5 jerky (non smooth scrolling, vsync problem on the top left of the screen in landscape) on the HTC HD/Diamond/Pro and smooth as slik on the Xpéria (wich is the same god damn hardware..) and the Omnia etc...?
Xperia : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW124IUAPIs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please DO NOT DOUBLE POST
Respect the rules

I’ve just published a much more detailed comparison of BOLT and Opera Mini; see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3507951#post3507951

[Q] IE9 in Mango not very good?

So from all of Microsofts previews, they made a big deal how IE9 was supposed to be such a great web browser, blah blah blah, but I noticed on acid3.acidtests.org our phone only scores a 95/100. Even the iphone scores a full 100/100. Is this just a beta problem?

No it is not a beta problem, the desktop IE9 gets only 95/100 too. You have the same browser on your phone.

There is a lot more to a browser than passing a test. The test is good measure of standards compliant but browser experience goes beyond that.
Nevertheless, standards are important... however currently a few browser standards are still under debate and haven't been finalized. SVG Fonts and SMIL animation of SVG are one of them. These account for the remaning 5% for IE9. They will be included once the standards are finalized. Other browsers go ahead and support the in-transition standards as they really don't have an financial impact on the industry. Many industries depend on IE for in-house services and thus Microsoft can't include a standard and then later remove or change it. Some company may start using them just to realize that the update to standards has broken their system.
Believe it or not... but Microsoft is doing a great job adhering to these standards. It is going to get better from here as Windows 8 will be including a new software development platform depending on the web standards.

Well... let's compare it
Firefox 5 running on Windows 7 x64
{
"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"
}
IE9 running on WP7 Mango (Omnia 7)
I think it's pretty good.

jotapm said:
Well... let's compare it
Firefox 5 running on Windows 7 x64
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get your results right, a desktop browser (utilizing a GPU Acc.) simply cannot be slower:

jotapm said:
Well... let's compare it
Firefox 5 running on Windows 7 x64
IE9 running on WP7 Mango (Omnia 7)
I think it's pretty good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you look at the urls, the mobile version is different. You can actually run the mobile version on your desktop too if you just point it to the url.
Here is the mobile version: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/mobile/Performance/SpeedReading/Default.html
Here is the desktop version: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/SpeedReading/Default.html
My pc completes the mobile speed reading in 0 seconds lmfao

ryude said:
If you look at the urls, the mobile version is different. You can actually run the mobile version on your desktop too if you just point it to the url.
Here is the mobile version: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/mobile/Performance/SpeedReading/Default.html
Here is the desktop version: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/SpeedReading/Default.html
My pc completes the mobile speed reading in 0 seconds lmfao
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This won´t work with NoDo? At least not for me...

Pikkuhannu said:
This won´t work with NoDo? At least not for me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's an HTML5 test, nodo doesn't have html5
it doesn't work with the desktop version of IE8 either for the same reason

+1
arkavat said:
There is a lot more to a browser than passing a test. The test is good measure of standards compliant but browser experience goes beyond that.
Nevertheless, standards are important... however currently a few browser standards are still under debate and haven't been finalized. SVG Fonts and SMIL animation of SVG are one of them. These account for the remaning 5% for IE9. They will be included once the standards are finalized. Other browsers go ahead and support the in-transition standards as they really don't have an financial impact on the industry. Many industries depend on IE for in-house services and thus Microsoft can't include a standard and then later remove or change it. Some company may start using them just to realize that the update to standards has broken their system.
Believe it or not... but Microsoft is doing a great job adhering to these standards. It is going to get better from here as Windows 8 will be including a new software development platform depending on the web standards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA App

Getting 27 ffs on my HTC surround. And the Browsers seems a little faster than the nodo ie.
You can do the html5 tests on the Microsoft website.

Microsoft has already said earlier why Internet Explorer 9 (and inherently Internet Explorer Mobile 9) will only get 95/100.
Microsoft said:
As IE9 has implemented more of the standards that developers use and value, IE9’s Acid3 score has continued to rise. The remaining points involve two particular technologies (SVG Fonts and SMIL animation of SVG) that are in transition.
Support for SVG Fonts in the web development and font communities has been declining for some time. There’s already been discussion without objection of dropping SVG fonts from the Acid3 test. The community has put forth a proposal in the SVG Working Group to give SVG Fonts optional status.
Instead, developers can use the Web Open Font Format (WOFF, supported in IE9 Platform Preview 3 as well as other browsers) for both HTML and SVG content. It works well in conjunction with the CSS3 Fonts module and has broad support from leading font vendors (e.g. here, “a majority of font makers have already settled on WOFF or services like Typekit as their format of choice”). WOFF fonts are a better long-term solution for many reasons discussed previously.
Similarly, support for SMIL animation of SVG in the web development community is far from strong. The leader of the SVG standardization effort wrote that not supporting SMIL in its current state is probably best “since the SVG WG intends to coordinate with the CSS WG to make some changes to animation and to extend filters.” There’s already work started to reconcile CSS3 animations and SVG. Developers interested in animating SVG can use JavaScript, as the samples in the test drive site do today, with consistent results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

IE9 on WP7 may not get 100/100 on the Acid3 test, but I can see there´s a BIG difference with the pre-Mango version. Webpages load A LOT faster, some pages are viewed better, and now you can rotate the screen without losing the address bar and other control. I think it´s a pretty neat improvement over the previous one.

So you think it's not good because of a test and not actually using it for yourself? I've been using it a lot over the last few days and I love it. Much better than the previous version. Stats are for bloggers and fanboys to argue about. Real people care about real world use.

day2die said:
Microsoft has already said earlier why Internet Explorer 9 (and inherently Internet Explorer Mobile 9) will only get 95/100.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah but how does it feel when browsing real world websites?? Haven't you noticed no more lag when entering info into text boxes?
Doesn't all websites now render properly?
Sent from my Windows Phone Mango Focus using Board Express

mikroland said:
Yeah but how does it feel when browsing real world websites?? Haven't you noticed no more lag when entering info into text boxes?
Doesn't all websites now render properly?
Sent from my Windows Phone Mango Focus using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, better rendering and scaling of webpages too

mmian said:
So from all of Microsofts previews, they made a big deal how IE9 was supposed to be such a great web browser, blah blah blah, but I noticed on acid3.acidtests.org our phone only scores a 95/100. Even the iphone scores a full 100/100. Is this just a beta problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeaaa right !!! One of the best mobile browser out there ists not good...
yeaa yeaaa...

ryude said:
If you look at the urls, the mobile version is different. You can actually run the mobile version on your desktop too if you just point it to the url.
Here is the mobile version: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/mobile/Performance/SpeedReading/Default.html
Here is the desktop version: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/SpeedReading/Default.html
My pc completes the mobile speed reading in 0 seconds lmfao
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the mobile version on both. Other browsers like Chrome and IE9 complete the tests in 0 seconds on my PC too, it's just a firefox problem.
The point is, the IE9 on Mango is great

Still no text reflow? Ugh!
Why doesn't IE9 have text reflow when you zoom? Will Microsoft ever fix this?
IMO, this is issue continues to put WP7 at a disadvantage vs. Android. What good is a fast browser if you can't read anything properly?

That's a decision MS did on purpose, to have a more desktop like experience. I quite like it, actually.

For some reason, stock android doesn't do text reflow for me. But Sense does..
There are certain cases where text reflow is bad.. and IMO its more bad than good.
lazyn00b said:
Why doesn't IE9 have text reflow when you zoom? Will Microsoft ever fix this?
IMO, this is issue continues to put WP7 at a disadvantage vs. Android. What good is a fast browser if you can't read anything properly?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App