As with UCWEB (see my new review HERE), it was more than one and a half year ago that I’ve reviewed the (then) current version of the Java-based Web browser, Teashark. In order to be as up to date as possible, I deemed it necessary to properly test the current version in order to see whether it’s any good and how it compares to the alternative browsers.
To make a long story short, I heavily recommend this browser if you have a non-touchscreen phone (for example, a Windows Mobile Standard smartphone or a Symbian phone) and, for some reason, you don’t want to use Opera Mini (or especially need the goodies Teashark has, while Opera doesn't: italic support and the sophisticated copy-from-webpages come into mind). Many of the shortcomings of the old version have been fixed; most importantly, the bad rendering engine. The new one is Webkit-based, which certainly shows: while one of the alternatives, UCWEB, completely fails at rendering most real-world Web pages retaining their original layout, Teashark very rarely fails to do the same. Two examples:
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(DPReview forums – correctly rendered)
(the W3C page: here, you always need to press left/right to align the differently indented original text. This works in exactly the same way as in Opera Mini.)
If you have a touchscreen-based phone or PDA, on the other hand, you most probably will want to ignore this title: it makes absolutely no use of the touchscreen. As, otherwise, the browser is very nice, I really hope this issue is fixed before long so that Windows Mobile or Symbian S60 5th ed users will be able to use their touchscreens.
Unfortunately, as with UCWEB, it doesn’t have a BlackBerry-compliant version. (The JAR file can be installed and runs, but it can’t be used as it still presents a three-softkey-based menu, which is pretty much far away from the one menubutton-based approach of BlackBerry. This also means none of the menu items can be accessed – all you see when you press the hardware menu button on the BB is “Close”.)
Teashark has several goodies the other browsers really should implement:
- Excellent and very easy copy/paste support – much cleaner than that of UCWEB
- Support for italic characters (it also supports bold but not underline)
- It even supports “previous” in “find in page”
- Pretty well thought-out thumbnail-based quick switching between in-memory (and recently visited) pages
Compared to Opera Mini, it has some major problems, though:
- No touchscreen support at all – a MAJOR drawback!
- Much fewer Web pages can be kept in-memory
- Somewhat worse Web standards compliance (still much better than that of UCWEB, though.) Note that you will encounter for example dropdown list selection problems (with, for example, THIS demopage - give it a try if you have an old Jeodek [on Windows Mobile]! You’ll see you won’t be able to select any item) with old Esmertec Jeodek versions (for example, the one coming with the HTC Vox / s710 smartphone). You WILL want to upgrade to a newer Jbed version; for example, I haven’t encountered similar problems with the latest Jbed version, 20090217.5.1R2 available for download HERE (direct link to download) – or, if you want a version with multiple midlet execution support, 20081203.2.1 linked from the same post (direct link to download).
Comparison chart
You'll want to very thoroughly scrutinize the chart - as with most my articles, a lot more information is contained in it than in the article. It's HERE. Note that the chart has info on all the other Java-based browsers too – and a lot of never-before published tips and tricks on, for example, getting a signed version of Opera Mini.
Made the thread temporarily sticky, mostly because of the useful contents of the chart really worth checking out.
Something worth considering when it comes to Teashark (and, to somewhat lesser degree, UCWEB) as opposed to BOLT and, most importantly, Opera Mini (the two latter browsers have a well-known company behind them with [as long as BOLT is considered, I refer to its predecessor, Thunderhawk] long years of working without any reports on their “listening to” the HTTP traffic). After all, don’t forget that all these four browsers (except for UCWEB’s non-Java versions) use a central server doing the reformatting & compression work for the requested pages and, therefore, eavesdropping, at least in theory, might be possible. Let me cross-post GldRush98’s post (original at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1522658&postcount=5 ).
Cross-posting this from a post I made on the Opera Mini forums, since this community is more likely to understand my issues with this browser...
There is something fishy with Teashark.
THINK ABOUT IT.
1) They appeared out of no where with a Java app.
2) There is NO linkable parent company on their site. Can't look up domain registration, can't find out ANY other information AT ALL about them and who they are.
3) They have absolutely NO way to relate back to the community. They have a "blog" run on a wordpress backend. That right there should throw up some red flags. Why would a "company" or WHATEVER they are that is developing a Java browser (with no ads in it mind you), use Wordpress as a blog backend? That just makes no sense to me
4) How exactly does this company make their money? Something tells me you don't want to know if you've been using their browser. They have no advertisements on their site or in the browser. They have to be making money somewhere, because they wouldn't have these proxy servers serving up loads of bandwidth for free. Where is their money coming from? A parent company? Who?
5) Their whole website is fishy. Aside from complete lack of information, why do all links on their site link you to port 8080 on their server? Why aren't they running over standard port 80? Something is odd about that alone.
6) The vendor tag in the app is labeled as "Vendor". Ummmm... what?
Their website traces back to: "IP 69.72.142.98 is from United States(US) in region North America"
That is about the only traceable information I can figure out.
It creeps me out that this mysterious company pops up out of no where and throws this "browser" app out there, with absolutely no effort to disseminate who they are. What is even creepier is that people have downloaded this app and are using it with ZERO knowledge of who this company is or who is behind them!
Related
It was some months ago that the previous, 2.5 version of the Pocket Internet Explorer plug-in (enhancer) Webby was released. Now, the new, 2.6 version has just been released.
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I really recommend the above-linked article to see what the advantages and the disadvantages of the previous version were. Here, I “only” elaborate on the new features and whether the problems or, at least, missing functionality I’ve emphasized in the previous version(s) have been fixed / implemented.
Webby is available here. It requires CF2 to run (make sure you download and install SP1, NOT the old, original version), which also means it’s “only” compatible with WM2003+ devices (bad news for pre-WM2003 (PPC2k, PPC2k2) users).
It has two versions: a free, severely “dumbed-down” (two tabs at most, two buttons definable – hardly any good, particularly when compared to the generous 2-4-week fully functioning trials of all comparable products, except for the slightly less dumbed-down NetFront) and a full (Pro) version. The latter costs $20, which is, in my opinion, quite much compared to the price (and capabilities / speed / compatibility) of Opera Mobile, NetFront or PIEPlus, the best, highly recommended alternatives (not to mention the free Mozilla / Firefox port Minimo, which gets better and better all the time and, now, is a pretty decent alternative at least on WM5 devices), particularly taking into account that the new add-on extension mechanism (still) doesn’t work in Webby.
Pros; new functionality
Add-in modules
Probably they are the most important features of the new version. These (are supposed to) implement additional functionalities like the URL builder known from MultiIE / PIEPlus.
Their list can be found here. Note that you should only visit this page from either Opera or Mozilla / Firefox on your desktop computer; for IE, it only returns the first part of the page.
Installing them is (that is, is supposed to be) pretty easy: just go to the above-linked plug-in homepage from inside Webby (you can use the “Get More Extensions” link in the Extensions tab in Options) and click the extension you’d like to download and install. It’ll ask you whether it’s allowed to install it; after the install, you’ll need to restart the browser.
The problem with these extensions is that they (still?) don’t exist on the homepage of the developer. Webby states them to have been installed but, in reality, nothing is downloaded (you can also check this in the \Program Files\Webby\extensions\ directory in the file system of your Pocket PC if interested). To make sure I'm not missing something, here’s a HTTP-level communication trace (two pairs of requests from Webby / PIE and two 404 Not found answers (that is, there indeed isn't anything in there; not even the linked extensions remote folder!) from the server): 1 2 3 4.
That is, you will want to wait until this problem is fixed, which I’ll surely report of. In the meantime, don’t even try to download extensions - it's just a waste of time because nothing will be downloaded.
Button support
The second most important new feature (which I probably missed the most from earlier versions) is the hardware button support.
As can be seen in this and this screenshots, the most important functionality (Back/ Forward; Previous/Next tab, Close everything but the current one / the current only; Full Screen toggle) is accessible.
It only allows for configuring six buttons on all PPC models (with wildly varying number of buttons). It seems all Pocket PC developers should read all my articles as I’ve elaborated on how all the available hardware buttons can be (very easily!) read out of the Registry more than one year ago ( Where does the PPC Registry store button mapping info - a tutorial (alternatives: PPC Magazine, BrightHand; make sure you also follow the link to More Programmers'/Hackers' Stuff, along with some cool Pocket Loox 7xx Hold Button Tips: More on Pocket PC Hardware Buttons for more info.)
Unfortunately, there is no way of for example using the tap-and-hold buttons of the WM5-upgraded hx4700 or the Pocket Loox 720. It’s not possible to define additional functionality for WM5 softkeys, unlike in PIEPlus 2.0+ and MultiIE 4.0+ either. However, it’s possible to enable WM5 softkeys for menus as can be seen in here: 1 2. This is certainly good news.
Also, it should be noted that the free version only supports two button redefinitions.
Cons
View: One Column mode still not supported
One of my biggest grieves with the past versions was the native support for the One Column mode of the underlying PIE. Unfortunately, this hasn’t changed.
This means if you must work on the full (unstripped) version of a page and, therefore, can’t use any Web compression / content stripper / online cruncher service like Skweezer, MobileLeap, Google Mobile or WebWarper (the four services Webby 2.6 supports out of box), you may end up having to switch to the normal view mode, which will result in a need for horizontal scrolling on a LOT of pages. This is a VERY bad bug in Webby!
Lack of context menus
Unfortunately, there are still no image / link / page context menus as can be seen for example here (which shows clicking an image link will bring up the traditional PIE context menu and nothing else).
This means you need to access all advanced functionalities like link target saving from the main menus. It’s only saving images (in WM5 IEM’s; it’s not available in pre-WM5 PIE’s) that is accessible via the context menu – as with IEM. Please also consult the Download Bible for more info on all these questions.
Verdict
The plug-in architecture is indeed promising. Too bad it doesn’t work yet. Hope it’s only a temporary problem, which will be fixed really soon. When it’s fixed, I’ll return to testing and let you know about how these plug-ins fare agains the competition (for example, the Address Bar plug-in against PIEPlus / MultiIE's comparable capabilities).
Plug-in problem aside, I still don’t really recommend this title over the latest version of stand-alone browsers like Minimo, Opera Mobile or, to a lesser extent, NetFront or Thunderhawk.
The same stands for PIEPlus, which I consider currently by far the best PIE plug-in. The latter is just far more capable (just compare their capabilities one by one!) and faster (don’t be mislead by the seemingly small download times: Webby uses the compression / content stripping service Skweezer by default; this is why it seems to be faster than any else PIE plug-in by default) than Webby.
Recommended links
The Web Browsers category in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog
The built-in Internet Explorer in the Windows Mobile operating system has always lacked multi-tabbed operation. There have been several third-party solutions to the problem, the latest being the free Maximus. Read on to find out how it fares against other Internet Explorer add-ons!
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Availability, compatibility
Unfortunately, the developer’s homepage doesn’t have a dedicated page on the application – only the statement “Open multiple tabbed pages inn a single browser! A fully functional web browser similar to Internet Explorer which allows you to open an unlimited amount of web pages at one time.”.
The direct download link is this HERE. Unzip the file and either transfer Maximus.ARM.CAB to your Pocket PC and click it there or start Maximus.exe on your desktop.
Installation
Upon install, if you, instead of directly transferring Maximus.ARM.CAB to your Pocket PC and clicking it there (the recommended way of installing the application), start Maximus.exe to install, make sure you untick “UnityRuntime” in the installer (as can be seen in here) because:
it would install the original version of CF2, which is NOT recommended any more. Make sure you get CF2 SP1 instead. It’s the latest version of CF2 and is much better than the one shipped with Maximus. See this article for more info on downloading.
what’s more, the package contains the WM5-only CF2 CAB file and, therefore, can’t be installed on WM2003(SE) devices.
After installation, the app must be started by just tapping the new Maximus icon (the app is, technically, not a simple PIE plug-in but an add-on which must be separately started, just like ftxPBrowser or Webby).
Pros
Using it doesn’t result in a considerable speed hit when loading new pages, as opposed to some other Compact Framework-based products like Webby. I’ve done some benchmarks with my traditional Web transfer benchmark page. While it took Maximus 30 seconds to fully load the page, the "barebone" PIE spent 24...27s in default (and 17..22 s in One Column) mode on my A12 AKU2.3 Dell Axim x51v. (Note that AKU 2 introduced a big loading speed increase; this is why the plain PIE loading speed is much better than in this pre-AKU2 A06 test). That is, the speed difference is about 15%, which is negligible
It’s free and if you really don’t have anything else but must have tabbed browsing support, you may want to use it. (But, then, the free version of Webby, Opera Mini, Minimo or, if you have a Pocket PC with an operating system prior to WM5, ftxPBrowser may prove much more useful.)
Cons
It really doesn’t add anything to the underlying PIE, except for new tabs, and even hides the original menus (more on this later)
It doesn’t support WM5 softkeys
it doesn’t add any new page / link / image context menu options. For example, the lack of link context menu options means, as it’ll open a link in the current frame, you can’t easily open a new frame for a new link
It hides the original IE menus. This means you won’t be able to access even basic functionality from inside Maximus. It’s impossible to change view mode (it defaults to the “Default” view mode, which isn’t very useful with many pages where the “One column” mode would be preferable); you can’t turn off/on loading pictures, you can’t hide the address bar, the text size (zoom percentage) etc.
It doesn’t have access to the persistent URL history, unlike ALL other alternates – it only lists URL’s entered in the last session
While the context menus have the Full Screen option, it doesn’t work
No access to favorites (a BIG problem!)
To get a picture of how simple its menus are, here are some screenshots: 1 2 3.
Error dialogs / messages don’t contain any text; an example can be seen here
Verdict
Definitely not recommended. Even the free version of Webby is far better if you really want to stick with Compact FW 2-based solutions (I wouldn’t). Currently, I don’t think you should even think about installing it. Hopefully a subsequent version will offer far more functionality.
Recommended links
Do check out my other Web browser reviews in the Web Browsers category in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog.
Anyone having read my well-known Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible know NetFront and Opera Mobile are leading Web browsers on Windows Mobile. Betas / Technical Previews of forthcoming versions (3.4 for NetFront and 8.65 for Opera Mobile) have been constantly released; the last ones, of both browsers, recently. In this article, I elaborate on these brand new versions.
NetFront 3.4 Technical Previews 007
NetFront, while not really having gained new features (except for support for Flash), has been enhanced: now, the current, free (!) Technical Preview isn’t less usable than the commercial version (except for some, for most of the users, not THAT important, really advanced plug-ins like the Java Virtual Machine). This means you can have a fully-fledged Web browser without having to shell out any money – as is exactly the case with the new Opera Mobile, to be discussed below – till 08/31/2007 (it only expires then).
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Getting and installing
Download the CAB file HERE (the main TP page is HERE).
Pros
No longer requires a lengthy initial setup (involving even a soft reset) phase at the first start or when you switch to proportional fonts
You’re no longer restricted to 10 bookmarks (favorites) in the TP version
It no longer restricts the number of the tabs to be opened to two either
The TP version too supports Flash as can be seen in for example HERE (showing Bomberman). It’s even capable of playing YouTube videos as can be seen in HERE. Unfortunately, its YouTube playback is WAY slower (that is, pretty useless) than that of Opera Mobile or, for that matter, the latest TCPMP Flash plug-in (of which I’ll soon publish an article), therefore, should be avoided. If you DO want to enable it, go to Menu / Tools / Browser Settings / External Tools / Plug-in and enable the given checkbox as can be seen in HERE.
Cons
Unfortunately, when you open a link in a new tab, the current settings (for example, rendering / one-column / image display mode) aren’t inherited, as opposed to ALL the other (decent) multitab-enabled browsers on both the desktop Windows and Windows Mobile. Sure, you can quickly apply pre-defined profiles at Menu / View Profile, but it’ll take a LOT of time to re-render the pages. Inheriting view settings would have been the best way to go.
The 5-tab restriction is still here (you can’t open more than five tabs at a time)
The Flash plug-in is as bad (CPU usage-wise) as was in version 3.3 (you will want to keep it deactivated in order to avoid your handheld to really slow down)
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)
Not compliant with WM operating systems prior to WM5
You must still manually switch to proportional fonts in Menu / Tools / Browser Settings / General / Font / Use proportional font (don’t forget to do this!)
Opera Mobile 8.65 beta 2
In my opinion, the best Windows Mobile Web browser, particularly on the Smartphone, is Opera Mobile. The new beta has recently been released and is available HERE for free (!), unrestricted (!) download. The major update is it no longer having driver memory problems (see my previous reviews of these problems) and is, therefore, a must install. To my knowledge, there aren’t other new features.
The trial expires on 10/01/2007 – that is, you can surf the Net for free until then. I, however, recommend going and buying a license – Opera certainly deserves the support, not only because Opera Mobile, but also their top-notch desktop Opera browser and Opera Mini.
The Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) version of Opera Mobile is a REAL must – way better than anything else. I’ll publish a big upgrade of the Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible, concerning Web browsing on the Smartphone, in the near future.
in netfront i can't find any progressbar or similar indicator for the current status of a loading page. is there something like that or doesn't netfront provide this feature?
edit: i will try netfront for some days. compared to opera mobile 8.65beta it seems that netfront offers an more acceptable browsing experience without changing a page's layout to one column on my qvga device(page overview and virtual canvas).
but opera mobile's one column view looks better than netfront's.
Now that I’m working on my 45-minute speech & demo for my (international) W3C speech next week, I’ve re-tested the latest version of all browsers with the just-published, new W3C test suite specifically targeted at mobile devices. The greener, the better; red denotes a failed test.
Let’s start with Windows Mobile.
Windows Mobile
As you can rightfully guess, the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile (even as of WM6.1) is pretty bad:
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… which is the same as on WM6 Standard 6.0 (MS Smartphone):
…and is only a bit better as in the 5-year-old WM2003:
Finally, here’s the Pocket PC 2002 screenshot so that you can see the difference between it and WM2003:
Opera Mobile:
Version 9.33 beta (the one presented at WMC this February):
… and the good old 8.65 available for download/purchase:
As can clearly be seen, the 9.33, which renders the suite almost (but not entirely) flawlessly is indeed based on the new, 9.x-series kernel – a very good news indeed! (We’ll later see that it’s also Opera’s browser that delivers the best compatibility on the desktop too)
Let’s take a look at the current (R006; dating back to February) 3.5 Technical Preview of NetFront:
The new and, now, pretty much usable 1.0.8 WebKit-based Iris browser follows:
Note that, being non-public, I couldn’t test Wake3’s WebKit port.
Minimo:
I didn’t bother with other, even less compatible or officially outdated browsers.
As can be seen, Opera 9.xx is the best of the bunch. Hope it’ll be released soon!
BlackBerry
On BB, if anyone would, for some strange reason, use the native browser in it, he or she can except the following:
That is, not really good – stick with Opera Mini 4.1 instead, which, as opposed to Opera Mini 4.0, no longer crashes the BB.
Symbian S60v3 FP1
Symbian S60v3 FP1’s Nokia Web, also based on WebKit, isn’t flawless either:
As can be seen, despite what some people state about WebKit-based browsers, it’s not 100% compatible either.
Opera Mini 4.1
Finally, Opera Mini 4.1 beta, which runs equally good on all the above mobile platforms:
Desktop Windows browsers
As far as the desktop Windows is concerned, let’s take a look at my test results:
Firefox 3 beta5 (the latest):
The Internet Explorer 8 beta (also the latest) results are pretty bad – actually, it’s the same as with IE7:
(IE8)
(IE7)
Interestingly, Acid2 is far better rendered by IE8 than IE7 (screenshots HERE and HERE, respectively) – while it still fails the Acid3 test (which also makes the browser crash), albeit it still fares a bit better than IE7. That is, based on the Acid results, I expected far more – not even the forthcoming IE8 is as standard-compliant as Firefox, let alone Opera.
Finally, as you may have already guessed, Opera renders the test suite without any problems:
More information on all these (for example, my old Acid2 test results): my Web browsing-related articles, Web browser Bibles etc.
UPDATE (some two hours later):
A screenshot of WM5 AKU3 MS Smartphone Internet Explorer Mobile browser:
As can be seen, it's exactly the same as on the (later) WM6(.1).
Surur has published an iPod Safari (same as with iPhone) screenshot. As with all the other WebKit-based browsers, it isn’t the best:
UPDATE (04/23/2008): I’ve upgraded my BlackBerry 8800 to OS version 4.5.0.9. The upgrade is REALLY worth doing, even at the current beta stage. See THIS for more info. Should you miss his post, you’ll need to send a mail, with any body / message, to [email protected] get the download links for all current BB models. Note that the upgrade takes a LOT of time – don’t be afraid of it being so slow, it won’t brick your phone. Also, you'll need to re-register / configure (but not set up) everything again. The new OS, even in its currently beta stage, is WAY better than 4.2 or even 4.3 coming on some new Pearls. For example (just to name a few),
it supports A2DP / AVRCP flawlessly (working just great with the Plantronics Pulsar 590A, Voyager 855 and Gear4-BluPhones; including even automatic reconnection)
it no longer has the ugly condensed characters – the default new ones (BBAlpha Sans; as can be seen in HERE, there’re a lot of different character types, unlike under 4.2.1) are FAR easier on the eyes and can be made smaller than in OS version 4.2. A series of example Opera Mini 4.1 screenshots showing this.
This is how the medium-sized characters under 4.2.1 look like:
and the same under 4.5.0.9:
(Both with the minimal system character size set – 4.2.1 screenshot of this HERE.)
Note that, as OM uses its own small character set, there’s no difference between their rendering under the two different operating systems – they’re equally the same:
Returning to the question of Web standards compliance, while it has an otherwise better browser, has almost exactly the same support for Web techniques. This is why its results are just (see the uppermost square on the left) a tad better than with the 4.2.1.109 screenshot above:
It was over one and a half year ago that I reviewed the Windows Mobile version of UCWEB, the (then) new, Chinese, multiplatform Web browser.
In the meantime, it has received a lot of additions and enhancements; therefore (and also as an answer to one of my readers at XDA-Developers), I’ve spent some time on evaluating the current version and directly comparing to the other two Java-based browsers, BOLT and Opera Mini.
Note that UCWEB isn’t only Java-based, unlike the other two browsers mentioned. There are native versions for both Symbian and Windows Mobile. These are a bit different from the Java version; for example, they both support bold and italic characters and viewing pages using their original layout (not that it would work in most cases…) As I, in general, prefer writing multiplatform stuff, I decided to thoroughly test all the three (Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile) versions of the browser to see whether it’s worth switching to them from other, competing browsers.
So, you want to know whether it’s worth moving to this browser from your Nokia Web / SkyFire (Symbian S60), Opera Mobile / Iris / Netfront / SkyFire (Windows Mobile), Opera Mini / BOLT (a Java-only feature phone)? The answer is no. In most cases (assuming you very rarely need the unique features of the app: the download manager, the copy features etc.), I’ve found the alternative browsers much better, quicker and cleaner.
Why? You might ask. Let me show you some screenshots. Let’s start with the (dumbest) Java version, which I’ll directly compare to Opera Mini and BOLT, the two main alternatives. (Note that, while this version is indeed the least capable of the three UCWEB versions, it still has some [small] advantages over the Windows Mobile version. For example, it can search for the first occurrence of a string or can close all the tabs except the current one in one step or you can very thoroughly configure its button / key shortcuts.) Let’s see what character styles / sizes it can render:
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"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
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"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"
}
Wow! Nothing at all! Now, let’s take a look at Opera Mini’s doing the same:
…and, finally, BOLT:
While BOLT has certain drawbacks compared to Opera Mini (e.g., no bold support), it’s still way better than the way UCWEB renders different styles / character sizes.
The W3C compliance results aren’t very nice either. (Here, I show you a screenshot of the native Windows Mobile and Symbian clients as the Java client isn’t capable of rendering pages using their original layout; this would have made its compliance results even worse.):
(Windows Mobile + UCWEB)
(Symbian + UCWEB)
Now, take a look at how Opera Mini renders the page:
BOLT is much nicer too:
Pay attention to not only how the actual square is rendered (how many cells are green, showing compliance with the related test case), but also the other texts on the page. They’re pretty much messed up in UCWEB’s rendering, while perfect when rendered by the other two browsers.
Again, note that the Java version of UCWEB doesn’t support any kind of styling / character formatting (in this case, italic), unlike the native WinMo / Symbian clients, which do.
Native (Symbian / Windows Mobile) versions
The non-Java (that is, native) versions of UCWEB are a bit better (except for some missing functionality, particularly in the Windows Mobile version, like setting the User-Agent or searching for occurrences of a string) than the Java version but can’t really match the best, established browsers on the platform. It’s probably the Symbian version of UCWEB that you might want to consider using but if and only if you’re absolutely sure you’d never use the full page overview, in which the built-in Nokia Web browser is much-much better. On Windows Mobile, almost all other browsers are better, particularly if you hate the one column mode.
Strengths of UCWEB
I’ve already mentioned UCWEB has some unmatched strengths. For example,
- It allows for fine-tuning the hotkeys on Java and Symbian (but, unfortunately, not under Windows Mobile). Very few alternative browsers do the same (and definitely not Java ones); for example, Opera Mobile.
- It has a built-in download manager. If you download a lot of stuff off the Web and would prefer doing this in the background, UCWEB is the way to go. Unless, of course, you are on a platform where there already are browsers with download managers or downloader add-ons for existing Web browsers (see my dedicated reviews). For example, on Windows Mobile, there are several of them.
- It natively supports multitabs – a huge omission in, for example, the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile in Windows Mobile. (Nevertheless, I still think – unless you REALLY need some of the other functionalities of UCWEB like the download manager – it’s better to purchase a decent plug-in – MultiIE, PIEPlus or Spb Pocket Plus – for the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile, let alone switching to Opera Mobile 9.5+ completely.)
Comparison chart
It’s HERE and, as usual, is full of screenshots. Note that it also has extensive information on both Opera Mini and BOLT (the latest version of both); in this regard, it’s way better and more informative than the chart in my previous Opera Mini vs. BOLT comparison http://www.smartphonemag.com/cms/blog/9/battle-two-web-minibrowsers-opera-mini-vs-bolt .
Please do consult my other, earlier Web browsing articles, speeches etc. for the meaning of each individual row. I simply don’t have the time to explain things I’ve already shed light on in my earlier articles.
Verdict
While, in some respects (for example, tabbing, download managers, user-agent settings or copy capabilities), it's way ahead of Opera Mini or BOLT (and even some native, non-Java browsers on Symbian / Windows Mobile), it still has major problems.
As a rule of thumb, if you use your Opera Mini almost exclusively in the full layout mode (as opposed to the one column mode) and wouldn’t want to switch back to one column, you’ll hate UCWEB. If you are on a platform with a native UCWEB client (WM or Symbian but not Java-only feature phones), you can use the full layout mode of the browser but I’m absolutely sure sooner or later you’ll disable it, it’s so bad. Even the lowest-quality Web browsers on Windows Mobile (for example, the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile) are far better at rendering ordinary Web pages and reflowing text so that they are readable without any horizontal scrolling. On Symbian S60, Nokia’s Web is way-way better, particularly now that all new(er) models and/or firmware upgrades have Flash Lite 3.1.
It’s only on Java-only phones that you might want consider switching to it. I, however, only recommend this if and only if you absolutely need its unique features the better alternatives (Opera Mini or BOLT) aren’t capable of: copying from pages; quick tab switching on touchscreen-only devices; multipage support (where BOLT – but not Opera Mini! – seriously lacks), support for non-Western languages (which BOLT isn’t capable of) etc. Otherwise, I simply don’t see any point in using it as your main browser, particularly not if you don’t want to stick to the confined one column view mode: both Opera Mini and BOLT have way better rendering engines.
Currently, I only recommend UCWEB to the developers of Opera Mini (and BOLT). After adding the, in my opinion, most important features (first of all, italic support and copy support the way UCWEB does – both are, programmatically, pretty easy), the other niceties (for example, the tabbing system, which is a god-send for touchscreen-only people) could be added to Opera Mini.
Perspective
Well, being the tester he is Menneisyys raised interesting points about the browser. Points that I did not think of. Interesting review.
I downloaded the CAB and it's in Chinese language, does anyone know how to switch the language?