Related
Even the first beta version of Opera was a real relevation for the Pocket PC community. Much as it had several bugs (particularly on pre-Windows Mobile 5 devices), it has quickly become the browser of choice for many Pocket PC users (including me), at least on Windows Mobile 5.
The new version is, speed-wise, clearly the best browser I've ever seen for the Pocket PC. It's much-much faster than the alternatives. You'll certainly love it!
The good
* The WM2003(SE) version seems to be working great: I haven't encountered the infamous Opera-is-stalled bug under pre-WM5 operating system any more. I've tested the new version of Opera with all the test pages (the search facility at http://www.europe.com/en/ - screenshot here; RedHotPawn) that make the previous version stall at once. No problems encountered so far.
This may be related to the fact that now Opera senses some Web servers' not answering – see this and this message.
A iPAQ 2210 screenshot can be seen here and here (the latter taken at 25% zoom level so that the entire chessboard is visible) – as can be seen, as opposed to b1, I could log in and play on my iPAQ 2210 as well.
* It feels much faster than beta1, which is a feat in itself because beta 1 was already much faster than any alternative browser.
* There's tab support! (See the screenshots provided for examples.)
* The bug related to not being able to display loooooong pages is fixed. It worked great with all the pages I've thrown it at; an example screenshot of Tero Lehto's blog is here.
* Much as the new version is still using custom (non-native) GUI components, one of the biggest problems, that is, the text areas hiding the last characters in each row behind the scrollbar, is fixed as can be seen in here.
* The "You have XX days left of your trial period" dialog is no longer displayed at startup.
(There must be tons of other bugfixes, as far as previous beta1 bugs are concerned; these were the ones I've explicitly tested and compared to beta1.)
The bad
* After scrolling a page with any amount (or going to a new page), you will not be able to directly tap-and-hold a link to bring up the context menu (so that you can open the link in a new tab) without the need for at least partially highlight it (or the text that contains it). Fortunately, this is a minor annoyance and you'll quickly learn how to highlight (part) the link without clicking it.
* The new version is still using custom GUI components, which makes it impossible to use any kind of common Windows keyboard shortcuts. This is a mayor annoyance to anybody using an external keyboard to enter a lot of texts and wanting to use the traditional Windows shortcuts to quickly navigate through / highlight / copy/cut/paste text in the text input components.
* On some Pocket PC's (for example, the Pocket Loox 720) the new version still uses non-proportional Courier New fonts in the address bar / in the tab titles. This is a minor annoyance, though.
* Unfortunately, the settings dialogs (screenshot 1 and 2) are as simple as in beta1. The latter, however, now has a new checkbox, " Set Opera as default browser", which makes it unnecessary to manually import a registry file (please see the articles in the Recommended links section for the registry import file I've created for beta1 to revert the default browser assignments) in order to revert back to using Pocket Internet Explorer (if you make Opera the default Web browser on your Pocket PC).
Nevertheless, the lack of detailed settings dialogs are not a problem – with manually editing (or, downloading my sample configuration files) the main configuration files of Opera, you can fine-tune it (scrollbar visibility, proxy usage, scroll behaviour etc).
* Under WM2003, Menu/Display/Landscape still doesn't rotate the viewport. Again, this would be pretty easy to implement because Opera, unlike for example the Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) plug-ins or almost all ( uBook and Mobipocket Reader being the most important exceptions) e-book readers, doesn't need to rely on the Portrait-only, underlying PIE engine. This is a minor problem though and "only" affecting WM2003 users – screen rotation works great in post-WM2003 operating systems.
* Still no advanced context menus (copy link, save image), no in-page searching etc. These are, however, only minor annoyances, which don't have a negative effect on the browsing experience itself.
* Still no " One Column" view mode like that of PIE starting with WM2003SE or the PIE plug-in PIEPlus (see this review on the latest version of latter, including a detailed comparison of the "one column" modes offered by PIE and PIEPlus). This would be very useful to maximize the usage of the available screen estate on many pages; for example, the XDA-Dev forums (example screenshot of Opera 8.5b2 rendering the latter here – as can be seen, the useful contents of the page only occupies about 65-70% of the available horizontal screen estate. With a real "One Column" mode, it'd be close to 100%).
* Still no support for system-level favourites. This would also be really easy to implement as there's nothing particular about the .url files in \Windows\Favorites – they're really-really easy to process. (I'd say a hour's work for an average C++ programmer.)
Verdict
I can only use superlatives when speaking of this application. Despite its (still) missing functionalities, its speed and compatibility is just phenomenal.
Recommended links
The following articles/tips all discuss/are all related to the previous, beta 1 version. Note that some of their contents is now that they are fixed are outdated. They may still be worth checking out - particularly the ones on manually editing the Opera configuration files. You'll find a lot of information in these articles never published by anyone else.
ESSENTIAL (NEW, UNIQUE BUGFIXES!!!) to know about the great Web browser, Opera beta! - I haven't run into the same problem with the new Opera version – yet. This doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist any more – therefore, if the address bar auto-completion crashes your Pocket PC with beta2 too, make sure you read this article.
Modify the default scrolling behaviour of Pocket PC Web browsers. Note that even the beta 2 of Opera uses jump-by-link by default (on all operating systems, not just WM5), as far as its D-pad navigation is concerned; you will most probably want to override this and switch to the 'scroll a page at a time' behaviour. Note that the new scroll a page feature (invokable via the Space key) only works on devices with a built-in keyboard; for example, on the HTC Wizard (screenshot of Opera running on my HTC Wizard here).
Opera 8.5 beta on WM5 - it is certainly different from the WM2003(SE) version and is working GREAT!
WM5 compliance report: the bandwidth reduction service OnSpeed works pretty good; additional Toonel information – this article will be useful for everyone that wants to configure his or her Opera to access the Web sites through a HTTP proxy.
Pocket PC version of Famous Web Browser, Opera 8.5 beta Officially Released!
Jataayu's endeavour is to make the vision of ubiquitous mobile web access a reality - by enabling its Truly Mobile browser -jB5 with ART® technology - on the widest range of feature phones.
More about jB5
Rich Heritage
jB5 - the truly mobile web browser, has been evolving continuously over the last 6 years and more, right from the time the first WAP browser made its appearance in year 2000. jB5 is architected to extend the excellence of its earlier WAP1x and WAP2 browsers to the HTML world.
Award-Winning Technology
jB5 with its Adaptive Rendering - ART® has evoked tremendous interest in the mobile devices technology marketplace. Within 9 months of its launch, jB5 with ART® has won for Jataayu the ZDNet Asian Top Techno Visionary 2006 award.
Multi-mode adaptation
jB5 provides ART based, very usable, fit-to-display-width rendering which allows page viewing without horizontal scrolling at all. It also provides Natural mode rendering to see screens in a Virtual Desktop view. jB5 also has a Text Only mode which allows some very quick browsing without taking either the time or the bandwidth to download images, when they are not required by the user. ART provides full flexibility to add more rendering modes, as and when, device characteristics make them necessary
What’s special about ART®
ART –or Adaptive Rendering Technology, provides the most usable adaptation of web pages for mobile phones. ART provides the flexibility to select the rendering mechanism best suited for the variety of device capabilities in use today and provides for a continuous enhancement of adaptation algorithms. ART enables a new level of content presentation ultimately making it easier for users to access content and services than before.
Some Useful tools
Bookmark Imports
JB5 provides you the facility to import all your bookmarks/favorites from your Desktop PC using the Import Bookmark feature. This provides desktop users the power of getting all their favorites/bookmarks into their jB5 quickly.
Personalize Wizard
allows you to preserve values entered in form fields for future use. Thus pages containing form fields that need to be filled in frequently like login pages, query pages, etc, can be saved once and accessed without having to re-enter these fields again. Pages stored using Personalize Wizard will take you directly to the resulting page, thus bypassing the initial page where these fields would otherwise have to be entered.
Exclusive features of jB5 for Win Mobile 5.0
Home Screen Favorite
jB5 has a unique feature where you can move some of your really favorite links to the home screen. This creates a separate entry on the home screen with a specific icon if available. Clicking on this link will directly launch jB5 and fetch the page. A maximum of 3 links can be configured on the home screen.
WAP Push
jB5 supports WAP Push messages. Two types of push messages – SI (Service Indication) and SL (Service Loading) are currently supported. The push inbox is integrated with the messaging application as an independent account type. Thus on installation of jB5 you will see a new messaging component called WAP Push among other components such as SMS, Email and MMS in the application.
It is better than the previous version as there have been a few bug fixes and addition of a few good features.
Some of the features included on the Windows Mobile platform are SSL support, exit option, option to attach files, Selectable User Agent to represent jB5 as either a jB5 browser or a Mozilla browser, import bookmarks from Pocket IE, shortcut key to change the display mode and a text only mode.
Played with it a bit. The scrolling is not so hot.
When "pushing" the page around, you can either do horizontal or vertical - not both. That's somewhat annoying once you get used to Picsel (or Opera).
Also, the "Page down" feature of the scroll bar (tapping between the arrow to the thumb handle) does not work - it scrolls a single line only.
The only nice thing I have seen so far is that rendering is pretty darn fast when compared to my other 3 browsers..
It'll be updated to remove the bugs.
Hi mushipkw!
I like the browser - it has now moved to my second favourite browser. Opera mobile 8.65 is still my favourite because:
- tabbed view of open windows makes moving between windows really easy
- use of the "grab" to move the page around with the stylus is a very natural navigation tool. I might get used to the Auto-scroll function at some stage, but at the moment I like using my stylus.
- context sensitive menu. I like to be able to open a link in a new window by holding down the stylus on a link and then having appropriate options. Also, being able to get out of full screen mode via the context menus would also be good.
But I still prefer yours to Picsel, PIE, Minimo, ....
Mike
mushipkw said:
It'll be updated to remove the bugs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great to see it's, at last, updated further. The version I tested for my Smartphone Web Browing Bible ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=323651 ) was still pretty buggy and, back then, it seemed the project was put on a hold.
trying PPC version. Installation works but when I try to run it, I get:
The Device Locale you are using is not supported in this version. Please use English (United States) for running jB5
skrat64 said:
trying PPC version. Installation works but when I try to run it, I get:
The Device Locale you are using is not supported in this version. Please use English (United States) for running jB5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which language are you using now in ur PPC
I am using Czech localized WM6. But I have never seen message like this.. and every other english speaking application is running perfectly. So?
Pretty nice. Tried it for about 2 minutes and every page that has a login screen, after entering my user/pass it wont let me click the "Login" button. Tried it on 3 different web pages and the same result each time.
skrat64 said:
I am using Czech localized WM6. But I have never seen message like this.. and every other english speaking application is running perfectly. So?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe this app wil only work with English.
I made a greek translation of the program. The most have finnised, I will update the file when is ready.
Just unzip and put it in program's folder!
Bitstream releases BOLT 1.5 - the most reliable, stable and fastest browser in market
We are proud to announce that we’re officially dropping the beta tag with today’s release of BOLT 1.5. New features include viewing videos of any length, a dedicated search bar, a download manager that downloads files directly from BOLT, improved navigation and text rendering, and caching support. Version 1.5 includes a host of new features designed to improve usability and stability, including:
Server upgrades (make v1.5 more than 15% faster than Beta3)
Cache support that enables directly browsing back to a previously visited page
Download manager that downloads files directly within BOLT on JSR 75 capable devices
Dedicated search bar, enabling search on popular search engines directly from BOLT
Enhanced column width control that auto-aligns the text to columns for ease of reading
Enhanced video support that includes inline media playing capability even on low-end devices
Enhanced copy-paste support for BlackBerry devices
Support for streaming videos of any length
Volume UP/DOWN controls in the inline media player
Ability to rearrange the subscribed feeds using the 'grab' feature
Access to History links from the URL window with inline editing OFF
One click access on Home Page that ensures the cursor jumps to the desired widget
Download:
Code:
http://boltbrowser.com/aindex
this appears to be a java browser? am i correct?
is there a windows mobile cab somewhere?
Bolt has always been a Java browser, that's why I don't use it. It feels too limited for me.
I have made a bundled for local install. However, the notify still connects, but it should minimize the download. Full Cert version (dual signed) attached. Unzip, run the jad using your Java (JBED/JBlend). It should use the local bolt.jar file.
Java or not Java, I've been enjoying Opera Mini a lot, and been beta testing BOLT (not so good that time). I'll test again now that they have much richer options (including disable picture/image, which is important to me)
Does anyone know how to get the youtube flash content working in bolt? When I click on the selected video it ask to "Open URL"? And when I click yes it says, "Opera Invoke error". Any Ideas? Do I possibly need another program or something to get this to work.
it suck
i can't play video every time i click on play it loading to 100%then again show me to click plsy button then again circle goes on....why?HTC P3400
Youtube does't play too.
where's the back button?
UPDATE!!!
Updated BOLT 1.7
Extract, run the bolts2local.jad file that will pickup the local jar instead of going to the net.
Enjoy ..
BOLT 2.0 Beta
BOLT 2.0 Beta features include: socket transport protocol, copy-paste operations, favorites/feeds organization, inline editing, find in page feature, download manager, password manager and up to 3XL magnification.
Really fast on my Artemis WM 6.5.5 using Cloudyfa Esmertec Jbed. Excellent for reading and replying to xda-forum.
Can anyone suggest a suitable MIDlet manager that works from SD card and handles passwords?
Cheers
Tom
P.S. See added attached thumbnail of post being written in BoltBrowser:
with no flash this is just another browser frankly .
Bolt 2.1
Bolt 2.1 now available
http://boltbrowser.com/
"BOLT is a full featured mobile Web browser that supports widgets, direct Twitter and Facebook integration, streaming videos, RSS feeds, social media sites, Google Maps".
Can someone write a widget for xda-developers please?
Cheers
Tom
help!
Anyone help me, connection problem it can't connect using WIFI. I have O2 XDA Zinc other browser was able to connect via WIFI only Bolt that can't connect..
has anyone tried bolt 2.3? http://boltbrowser.com/dnld.html
mr8820 said:
has anyone tried bolt 2.3? http://boltbrowser.com/dnld.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes - Boltbrowser automatically updates to 2.3 which introduced a dowload site to help them make some money. Now that Skyfire has abandoned WM I use Bolt more along with Opera mini.
Every browser has advantages and disadvantages. I like the RSS feeds and large fonts.
Cheers, Tom
bolt browser
'opera invoke error' keep getting this from all video link on bolt browser 2.3
This review is just based on July 2010 situation, when Opera Mini 5.0 final and BOLT 2.1 are released, UC Browser (UCWEB) version 7.2 is officially released as well. All this comparison is based on my own experience. The purpose is to introduce you the alternative choice for mobile internet surfing.
Scale used (points)
1. Feature is missing.
2. Feature exists but implementation is poor.
3. Implementation of the feature is adequate.
4. Feature is well implemented, aka it's good.
5. Implementation of the feature is excellent.
OS Supported
Bolt 2p
Opera Mini 4p
UC Browser 3p
Bolt is a Java ME based mobile browser, its rendering and processing is restricted by the Java MIDP 2, especially in Symbian and WM OS.
Except Java based version, Opera mini could support Blackberry/Windows mobile/Android.
To UC Browser, exclude the generic Java version, the dedicated Symbian/Blackberry/Windows mobile/iPhone/Android version is all available
But is it too much and complex for the user to download? Whatever, more choice is better.
Speed and traffic cost
Bolt 4p
Opera Mini 4.5p
UC Browser 5p
Bolt Opera Mini UC Browser
BBC.COM 7.8s 5s 4.5s
Traffic 700K 320Kb 251k
Opera mini and UC browser is based on proxy server-to-client architecture, the speed and traffic cost is much better than Bolt.
With the same architecture, it seems that the UC browser compressed more than Opera mini, But the high speed and less traffic UC gained is at cost of page quality loss.
Please see the rendering comparison below. At least, according to the speed and traffic volume tested , UC browser is the winner.
Bookmarks favorites
Bolt 5p
Opera Mini 4p
UC Browser 4p
Here are only assessed the simplicity and efficiency how bookmarks can be arranged on client side, not the possible synchronizations tools.
[image not allowed]
Managing bookmarks on Bolt 2 is quite simple. Bookmarks are displayed on start page for easy access. Folders can be used, and what is best is the possibility to arrange bookmarks and folders. Therefore it is actually possible to do the same as on Opera Mini: show few "speed dials" at first and then all the rest in folders. Access is easy thanks to #0 key shortcut.
Bookmark folders are finally implemented on Opera Mini 5 as well. However, bookmarks and folders can't be arranged, but they are in alphabetical order. Access to bookmarks is under menu, so several steps (clicks or finger moves) have to be taken to use bookmarks. User can however, create nine speed dials on start page. Unfortunately only small thumb nail images are displayed for speed dials. In case you have two exactly similar speed dials for the same Web site, you can only rely on your memory to distinguish them. Using speed dials and bookmarks are made simple and easy especially for touch screen phones, but this turns into disadvantage on non-touch screen devices.
Using bookmarks on UC Browser 7.2 is somewhat similar as on Bolt 2. Bookmarks can be rearranged and organized into folders. Access to bookmarks is almost just as simple as on Bolt. The bookmark can be synchronized and backup both from/to local mobile phone and server. You could share your bookmark both by SMS and Bluetooth.
Cookie and password manager
Bolt 5p
Opera Mini 5p
UC Browser 5p
Saving passwords and using cookies is possible on Bolt 2. Keeping passwords saved is very useful since some sites just does not seem to keep login cookies saved. All private information can be cleared at once.
Opera Mini 5 gives possibility to save passwords and keep the cookies, just like Bolt 2. There's separate settings to clear passwords and cookies.
There's no password manager on UC Browser 7.2 but cookies are saved. There is a option to clear the cookies as well
Download and upload manager
Bolt 3p
Opera Mini 4p
UC Browser 5p
Downloading and uploading works somewhat fine on Bolt 2. No special or highlights in Bolt
Downloading and uploading files on Opera Mini 5 works as well. Currently there is some server issues because uploading fails sometimes, and it has to be started again.
Some People keep on claiming UC Browser has the best file manager on J2ME browsers. According to my experience this time, it is much better than the others.
Fast speed, resume broken downloads, maximum 9 concurrent download tasks, maximum 3 downloading tasks, manually default download folder setting, and etc…
All files downloaded even deleted are remembered in download manager, so once you re-download it again, the system will remind you so that you could save your time and traffic.
Select, copy and paste text
Bolt 3p
Opera Mini 4p
UC Browser 4p
Select, copy and paste text works adequately on Bolt 2. Personally I find the Bolt's "select box" cumbersome and inaccurate.
In Opera Mini 5, complete new and improved tools to select, copy and paste text were introduced. Selecting text works almost as it does on desktop browsers. You can select and copy almost anything, and paste it exactly where you like using inline mode. Only reason why I did not give full 5 points is lack of possibility to copy link URL.
I like very much is the possibility to copy link URL. This makes it possible to copy URL without need to open the page, but what is even more important is the possibility to copy URL addresses of PDF and other closed source format files. The copied content is stored in mobile clipboard rather than browser clipboard which can allow you to send the content by SMS or Bluetooth.
Settings preferences
Bolt 3p
Opera Mini 5p
UC Browser 4p
There are adequate selection of preferences on Bolt 2. Worth to mention is possibility to install fonts. Personally I find no use for it but I admit it can help making the UI more usable with proper choice of font used.
Opera Mini is full of useful settings. For some strange reason part of them are located on so called power user settings page.
There are plenty of preferences on UC Browser 7.2. Worth to mention are possibilities to change the shortcuts and choose the night theme (useful at night time).
Rendering
Bolt 4p
Opera Mini 5p
UC Browser 3.5p
Page rendering aka way how pages are displayed is very delicate issue and certainly a matter of personal tastes. All the comments here are certainly just my own opinions but when it comes to rendering, it's important to remind the reader about this.
Bolt 2 continues showing Web pages as true as possible. This approach has it's advantages. For example many pages and features that just does not work on any other J2ME browser works on Bolt, and looks just the same as on desktop browsers. For example here at MyOpera I can easily access all features of my photo albums. I can edit and sort photos etc. There's also rather interesting split screen view available on Bolt, which is useful sometimes. However, I personally like Opera Mini's zoom more.
[Image not allowed]
In case of Opera Mini 5, I must confess being just so used to the way it renders the pages. I don't care if pages are not always showed exactly as they are on PC browsers. Usability is the most important issue for me and if the Web site provides a page that looks nice and is easy to use, then I really don't care if mobile site is different than users on PC can see. Many Web sites have finally started to understand how important it is to offer all the same features for all users, no matter what device they use. It is perfectly acceptable to give different content for mobile phone users, but it just should never be something less or limited compared to desktop browsers. Opera Mini 5 shows pages as I want to see them and that's all I have to care.
Rendering on UC Browser is not so good as opera mini. But I still have to say it's adequate, because at least they tried to offer a sort of desktop view. Their default setting is page view which is more fit able for the mobile with small-sized screen. In desktop view, many pages I use just looks not so good as opera mini. But on normal mode many pages are much better.
Save page
Bolt 3p
Opera Mini 3p
UC Browser 4p
Save page works just fine on Bolt 2 and it's easy to access saved pages on start page.
Save page feature works fine also on Opera Mini 5. It's easy to save pages and open them via menu. On Opera Mini 4.2 I liked the possibility to show few of the saved pages on start page. This is no longer possible on Opera Mini 5 but the lack of this feature is a question of start page features.
Except the saved URL page as opera mini and bolt, UC Browser 7.2 has an option to save the page as txt format which could save the mobile memory and easier to extract the content you like. Then you can easily copy to your word document or send SMS to your friends. After all, the content is more important than the URL, isn’t it?
Conclusion and summary
Bolt 3.55p
Opera Mini 4.27p
UC Browser 4.22p
From the point perspective, Opera mini is the most function-Rich browser with
most users around the world, and actually it is!
But its leading position is facing the challenge from new mobile browser players such as Bolt and UC browser. Especially for UC browser, comparing with its 7.2.0 version, more function and optimization is deployed in version 7.2.2.Botl is good as well. But not good enough. As a java based mobile browser, the function they provided is enough for the java supported feature phone. But not for the smartphone with high processing ability and more memory. Bolt should consider how to satisfy these customers.
Today, UCWeb announced the new release of its UC Browser 7.8 for Symbian, Android, Java & WinMobile. In this version, UC Browser initiated the “View Image” mode in the first place in the mobile browser industry, and keeps the core competency of UC Browser as always to bring a faster browsing experience to users.
For the Android users, after the UC 7.2, UCWeb updated the new version to UC 7.8, with upgrade to stability, speed, UI and many more features.
“View Image” Mode
There are lots of images filled in the internet world, mainly aims to attract users’ attention. However, the widely welcomed image content in PC is not such attractive in mobile handset. Due to the size & quality of the image and the network condition, to view the image in handset is not so easy and in good experienced compare to PC. Thanks to the UC Browser 7.8, all these problems solved, with the new function of “View Image” mode, users can get the similar experience in their handset as what they do in PC to view image easily.
30% Speed Improvement for Java
Compare to UC Browser 7.7, the speed for browsing increase again for about 30%, continuously keep UC Browser’s leading position for speed among opera mini, bolt browser, skyfire.
Basic Function Optimization
UC Browser for symbian optimized the management to bookmark, such as move & delete, symbian v3/v5 can create multiple level directory, manage bookmarks directly, especially symbian v3 added the “mark” function.
UC Browser for Java support “remember current page” & “clear all browser history” operation, close tab with right bottom, open the “menu” operation while loading page, to make more smooth operation in low level handset.