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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

SkyFire, a brand new and promising Web browser: (technical) review & comparison

As yet, I haven’t had the chance to give SkyFire, the latest Web browser a thorough try. Fortunately, I’ve recently got an account and could, at last, test it.
SkyFire is a client/server Web browser for both Windows Mobile platforms: touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC’s (in WM6+ parlance, Windows Mobile Classic and Pro devices) and touchscreen-less MS Smartphones (Windows Mobile Standard). It utilizes image-based transfer, just like the (cancelled) DeepFish and some non-Windows Mobile-based solutions like PocketSurfer 2.
Please note that this is NOT an in-depth review but a comparison to the other browsers out there. It’s immensely more useful for both end users (so that you can decide whether it’s at all worth getting an account or just wait for later versions) and the developers themselves. This also means you’ll want to read my past Web browsing-related articles to understand everything in this article as, at times, I’ll switch to „geek speech”. Start with my W3C presentation and follow the links back to, say, the Web Browsing Bibles. Also, search for „SkyFire” on my blog to find my earlier SkyFire-based posts – I’ve linked to several forum threads discussing the browser. In addition, In addition, I also recommend BrightHand's generic overview of the app - it offers a gentle introduction to SkyFire's capabilities, while, as has already been stated, my article is strictly a comparative, technical "geek speech" review targeted at more experienced Web users.
Note that the tests have been run on the latest 0.6.0.4503 version.
{
"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 screenshot of the main menu; the Settings menu (as you can see, there aren’t much to set) is shown HERE.
Pros
- It uses the Firefox 2.x engine, which is clearly better than Internet Explorer, even as of version 8. That is, it’s just much more standards-compliant than IE-based client/server mobile browsers like PocketSurfer 2
- It works flawlessly over any kind of Internet connection; not just U.S. mobile phone operators (unlike what the SkyFire folks state – and the popular belief). The latter is only needed for registering for the first time. Fortunately, after moving to another country and even swapping your SIM card / switching to another device (from a, say, CDMA(2000) to a GSM/WCDMA one) , you can go on using your account: for re-activation on another phone, you won’t need to have an active U.S. phone number any more.
- web standard compliance-wise, pretty good, including even Ajax
- high-quality and high-compliance Flash and Java support (strictly in client/server model; sound emulation may not work on some models)
- URL history (as with most other browsers, though)
- Acceptable forward caching of approximately the following page (better than DeepFish used to be or that of PocketSurfer 2)
- The SmartFit mode works pretty OK and intelligently; I haven’t ever run into a situation when it didn’t failed to eliminate the need for horizontal scrolling. In this regard, it should be compared to Opera Mini 4+’s equally advanced text reformatting / reflowing algorithm in non-mobile view, (on non-high-res devices) zoomed in mode.
- In zoomed in mode, the cursor keys can be used for touchscreen-less link selection (and for scrolling in the four directions); in zoomed out mode, you can use it for scrolling the zoom-in window. That is, you don’t necessarily need to use your Pocket PC in two-hand mode – as is, of course, the case with the MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) client.
- Compared to DeepFish: immensely better and faster. The only advantage of DeepFish was the support for hi-res on hi-res devices.
Cons:
- huge CPU usage when maximized (58% on a 624 MHz Xscale PXA270) independent of page contents (that is, it'll happen even with no Flash / animation taking place). When minimized, no CPU usage.
- no support for multiple tabs (documents), unlike in most comparable browsers. This means you’ll need to always reload a page, should you want to return to it and can’t just switch quickly (back) to other/older pages.
- no hi-res (for example, VGA) support – not only as far as the low-res contents is concerned, but also when rendering input fields; then, its coordinates will be effectively halved on a high-resolution screen. Fortunately, this doesn’t cause much problems with most pages.
- zoomed-out state provides pretty bad resolution / intelligibility (example HERE; incidentally, it also shows a message window showing a „connection lost” dialog)
- if you switch to another program and, then, back (with, say, an overridden app button), there are chances only half the screen will be used. A HTC Universal screenshot is HERE
- much as there’re (non-standard) scrollbars on the right / bottom edge of the screen (example HERE), they can’t be used to quickly position in the docs (the same problem as with Touch Browser)
- no page / link / image saving - of, for that matter, any kind of link / image context menus
- not any kind of copy/paste (however, you can copy / paste from/to text input fields, including the address field)
- can only click / activate links in zoomed-in state – in page view mode, you can’t do this. In this respect, most other browsers with zoom are better; particularly because, here, you also need to wait for the zoomed-in state to be loaded
- while „scroll down”, „scroll up” etc. button events are processed (unlike in some other browsers like Touch Browser), they are strictly mapped to the same functionality as that of the D-pad. This means you can’t quickly scroll up/down a page – you can only use the touchscreen to do that (also see the lack of quick positioning a page)
- no direct access to IEM favorites (favorites are online only)
- no niceties like accelerated scrolling (unlike with NetFront 3.5 or Touch Browser)
- while it does support some shortcut buttons (for example, 6 for SmartFit, 5 for Refresh, 2 for Enter address etc.), these shortcuts are in no way as useful as those of Opera Mini. Again, there are no ways of page scrolling, which would be highly useful.
- No goodies like User-Agent overriding or disabling images / Flash animation / Java applets.

Conformance tests:
(Note that most of these tests – except the ones that need some interaction with the client: for example, file up/download – produce exactly the same results as with the desktop version of Firefox. I, to be on the safe side, re-tested them.)
File download: didn’t download the 7.5M test file in 15 minutes - download has just stalled.
File upload: doesn’t work (the control is shown but it doesn’t work)
Compliance tests:
The new W3C test: not very bad
As you’ll also see, based on this and the User-Agent header, the engine clearly uses Firefox 2.0.0.11. I’ve tested this with the desktop 2.0.0.13 version (3b5 delivers worse results as can be seen in HERE) and got exactly the same results
Incidentally, I’ve also tested the just-released 3.0rc1 of Firefox to see whether it has fixed the compliance issues of the betas. The result is HERE and shows it is definitely better than the 3.0 betas – but not better than the 2.0.0.11+ series.)
Macromedia / Adobe Flash: works; client-server connection, much-much faster than in DeepFish / Thunderhawk animation.
As can be seen, even YouTube works. Sound didn’t work on my HTC Universal; other people at XDA-Developers, on the other hand, reported it working.
Frame tests (see the chart of my Bible for more info):
Maximal number of sub-framesets?: 2.html was the first to work; 1.html still didn’t. Pretty good, though, compared to the other browsers.
Max. number of parallel frames: no restriction, it seems
Frame boundaries aren’t settable; a frame in a (separate) tab / window isn’t viewable either.
Iframe support: works
Dynamic HTML forms / explicit form field disabling: supported
WAP: not supported
Acid2 test: much better than that of IEM
Java Applets: supported. A demo screenshot of the Animator Applet is HERE. Another demo; now, with Live Feedback ImageMap is HERE.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting the JPEG compression effects (blocks), which also show SkyFire uses exactly the same client/server model as Thunderhawk.
Ajax:
The two pages linked from AJAX: Getting Started: works
Google Image Labeler: works
Haven’t tested: caching (it has no caching, as with all the other client/server browsers not using for example separate images like Opera Mini or Thunderhawk). I haven’t tested full page loading speed (with my standard PPCMag test) either as the browser only receives the first about two pages upon loading a page; therefore, it’s impossible to benchmark the loading of the full page.
HTTP Headers: (also see THIS for the why’s of including them in here)
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/2007112718 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
X-Skyfire-Version: THNWD_xxx.xxx.fixme
X-Skyfire-Screen: 240,320,240,296
X-Skyfire-Phone: Phone with crappy default browser # touchscreen
Via: 1.1 skyadmin.sjc1.skyfire.com:3128 (squid/2.6.STABLE6)
X-Forwarded-For: 10.100.120.119
Cache-Control: max-age=259200
Connection: keep-alive
Verdict
Client/server-based and, as opposed to the text-based Opera Mini and Thunderhawk, image transfer-based clients will always have the same advantages over purely client-based ones; most importantly, having access to a desktop Web browser on the server, with even Java applet support. The same stands for the disadvantages: they will always exhibit the same problems, pretty much independent of the time and effort spent on making them as sophisticated as possible.
Fortunately, SkyFire behaves pretty well in this respect. While it, in my opinion, hardly can be called a decent alternative to Opera Mini or Mobile (it still has a LOT of problems – for example, the unacceptably high idle (!) CPU usage – to fix and, again, the client/server image transfer-based networking model is pretty much restricted), it’s already much better than DeepFish has ever been and it even beats the native Pocket PC version of Thunderhawk in many respects (when it comes to, for example, Flash support). It is also much better than (some of – I can only speak about the ones that I’ve thoroughly tested at, say, MWC) the non-Windows Mobile-based mobile Web browser solutions like PocketSurfer 2.
While, I’m afraid, because of the networking model’s huge restrictions, it will never match „lightweight” browsers like Opera Mini or even Opera Mobile, it’s still nice to see there is some serious development producing even newer Web browsers.

Doesn't support high-res devices? I'm sure the developers said it would :/
I don't rate opera browser. It seems to crash and not render things well at all. Despises flash too. I hope they work out Skyfire for VGA devices.

I'm not sure of what you mean when you say that youtube works without sound, I;ve been using skyfire for quite a while now and youtube and all other flash based video sites work with sound. Other than that, great review!

Sound works for me, too. Video isn't so hot over 3G, and I haven't tried it on wifi yet, but should be really nice when AT&T bumps up the speed of 3G in June (or so the guy on the phone claims).

Does it support the CMWAP way？

thanks 4 the info mate , u r a legend !!!

nphil said:
I'm not sure of what you mean when you say that youtube works without sound, I;ve been using skyfire for quite a while now and youtube and all other flash based video sites work with sound. Other than that, great review!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info; strange it doesn't work on my Universal... will try on my other devices.

mike freegan said:
Doesn't support high-res devices? I'm sure the developers said it would :/
I don't rate opera browser. It seems to crash and not render things well at all. Despises flash too. I hope they work out Skyfire for VGA devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No hi-res on my Universal, just pixel-doubled cr*p. (Using the latest PPC version.)

skyfire issue
I received my invitation to download the software last thursday installed it playe with it for a while the next day tryed opening the program again it wouldnt let me every time I log in it gives me a message saying it lost network conection try again later havent been able tu use it since I wonder what the problem is I have an 8525 WM6 schaps rom I tryed skyfire support but they didnt respond to my message did I get banned? sorry if this is not the best place for this post

edwincito0_1 said:
I received my invitation to download the software last thursday installed it playe with it for a while the next day tryed opening the program again it wouldnt let me every time I log in it gives me a message saying it lost network conection try again later havent been able tu use it since I wonder what the problem is I have an 8525 WM6 schaps rom I tryed skyfire support but they didnt respond to my message did I get banned? sorry if this is not the best place for this post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
disable the at&t proxy (if ur on at&t)
back on topic:
youtube works with sound on my phone....8525
good review tho...

Updated review posted.

edwincito0_1 said:
I received my invitation to download the software last thursday installed it playe with it for a while the next day tryed opening the program again it wouldnt let me every time I log in it gives me a message saying it lost network conection try again later havent been able tu use it since I wonder what the problem is I have an 8525 WM6 schaps rom I tryed skyfire support but they didnt respond to my message did I get banned? sorry if this is not the best place for this post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had this problem also intermittently. I just close it all the way, disconnect, and try again. I have had this happen probably 2-3 times. When it happens I usually have to relaunch the browser a few times and disconnect a few times also.

does anyone else have the issue of not being able to connect to internet with skyfire via wifi?

!Kernel Panic! said:
does anyone else have the issue of not being able to connect to internet with skyfire via wifi?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works fine for me on my wizard. I just switched phones today (HTC TyTn/AT&T 8525) so getting it setup and all still.

The fact that it plays and renders video from any sites automatically make it better than Opera mini or JB5, Monk.

me too
youtube without sound
on any other vdeo webs also
is it bcoz of my phne is not compatible?
im using o2 atom pure running on stock wm5 624mhz overclocked processor.

Status: NetFront 3.5

Has anyone heard about whether or not NetFront 3.5 will be made available as a user-installable product, and if so: when, where, how much? The only posts I can find discuss the beta version, and I'm anxious to upgrade my version of 3.3 to the newer version.
Seems there's nothing out there... not a peep.
Anyone know anything?
Thanks!

BillTheCat said:
Has anyone heard about whether or not NetFront 3.5 will be made available as a user-installable product, and if so: when, where, how much? The only posts I can find discuss the beta version, and I'm anxious to upgrade my version of 3.3 to the newer version.
Seems there's nothing out there... not a peep.
Anyone know anything?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1, i've spoken to the Access folks; they stated that, unlike 3.4, it won't be an OEM-only product (read: it can be purchased by end users)
2, no info on the release date

Menneisyys said:
1, i've spoken to the Access folks; they stated that, unlike 3.4, it won't be an OEM-only product (read: it can be purchased by end users)
2, no info on the release date
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's great news!
Did they indicate anything about pricing and upgrade path from 3.x?

NetFront 3.5 Concept Version
Menneisyys said:
1, i've spoken to the Access folks; they stated that, unlike 3.4, it won't be an OEM-only product (read: it can be purchased by end users)
2, no info on the release date
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I downloaded the 3.5 'concept version' directly from the Access website. I've been using it on my Vogue for about a month, and I like it. (Can't decide whether I prefer it to Opera 9.5 though...)
Here's the link for NetFront 3.5

BillTheCat said:
That's great news!
Did they indicate anything about pricing and upgrade path from 3.x?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nothing. In the past, they're offered a 50% rebate for existing users. I think the case will be the same for 3.3 users.

I tired netfront 3.5 for quite some time, it's pretty good. Right now am using Opera Mobile 9.5 and Skyfire and can't decide which of the 3 is tha best.

I like NetFront, but I like how you can access items in Opera 9.5 easier. I hate having to go through the menus to get to bookmarks, etc.

derekwilkinson said:
I like NetFront, but I like how you can access items in Opera 9.5 easier. I hate having to go through the menus to get to bookmarks, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Y'know, if I had only one beef, that's it. I'd really like to see easier access to bookmarks. Perhaps even have them accessed by gesture sensitive menus like back, forward and perhaps a 'pull down' motion which would serve the dual purpose of giving more screen real estate to the displayed page instead of the soft menus.
Other than that, I really love it. Tried the SkyFire browser and thought it was just alright, but had a serious flaw in that it would start every page zoomed out, and then you had to zoom in. You couldn't set a fixed zoom level and have it stay there. Every page you'd have to re-zoom.
I'll almost certainly buy a license of NF when it's released. Where I'm concerned it can't happen soon enough!

it depends on your device.
on a qwerty-bar it the menus are perfect.
if i want to go into full screen mode i press right softkey -> i -> f
bookmark: left softkey -> o
fast enough for me

They've just released a new technical preview that lasts until the end of november. No noticeable differences from the last one. I wish they would bring back the PPC2003 toolbar because it's tedious making two taps to go back.

Well it's getting nearer the end of November.
I wonder when NetFront 3.5 is going to go on sale?
I'll be sure to buy it when it's out. I totally love it over all other browsers so far on my X01T/G900. (I'm interested in IE Mobile 6 also)
NetFront shows the pages just how I like them to be shown (wvga) and puts fewer KB in the main storage memory compared to Opera.

Does Netfront render the html or is it done at a central server like Skyfire?

Sorry Joe - I don't know.
I just know it does a great job.

JoeWilcox said:
Does Netfront render the html or is it done at a central server like Skyfire?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Netfront downloads and renders like a normal browser. No privacy issues.

Big issues for me with Netfront:
-no access to Gmail !!
-on some websites, no more than 1 tab opened, second one will go out of memory, works well with Opera 9.5

stylobic said:
Big issues for me with Netfront:
-no access to Gmail !!
-on some websites, no more than 1 tab opened, second one will go out of memory, works well with Opera 9.5
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
regarding gmail: just use a different user agent (right softkey -> tools -> settings -> network).
add a new one and insert the user agent IRIS uses. now gmail shows the iPhone version of its site and it works great. just copy and paste this into the user agent field:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows CE; U; Mobile; iPhone; PPC; en) AppleWebKit/522+(KHTML, like Gecko) WM5 Iris/1.0.15 Safari/419.3
I posted this lately to msmobiles forum:
ok, admit it: what are you smoking?
I tried every version of the iris browser available lately. While Beta II is an improvement, you can not compare it to the iPhone browser, let a lone say it is just as good.
it doesn't render many sites well that work great on the iphone, it is slower and crashes often times with complicated sites. wuhuw, msmobiles works! but try it with complex multi layered sites...
honestly, netfront 3.5 CV is MUCH better. It is way faster, renders more sites correctly, reformats just as nice and scrolls nicely, too.
and now some info for you:
If you get the iPhone version of a site or not solely depends on the user Agent you use.
to change the user Agent on Netfront 3.5, go to MENU -> TOOLS-> BROWSER SETTINGS -> MENU -> NETWORK
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows CE; U; Mobile; iPhone; PPC; en) AppleWebKit/522+(KHTML, like Gecko) WM5 Iris/1.0.15 Safari/419.3
i have chosen an empty user agent set (you can have multiple in netfront) and I just set it to the same value you show IRIS uses:
{
"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"
}
you see, it works for gmail:
and for tuaw (altough tuaw also displays it in that format without changing the user agent):
so, whats special about IRIS?
netfront is the better browser, and for keyboard equipped devices like my i780, it is even better than opera, because i can use the keyboard for shortcuts and menus.
edit: you can also change the user agent for PIE in the registry, but i don't know if IE is capable of showing the iphone sites correctly, and i don't care
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

very nice shot my friend !
works like a charm, thx a lot

Come on People!
Millions of innocent lives are at stake!
When will another version of NetFront be released or go on sale?

There is a new build of NetFront 3.5 for Windows Mobile Concept Version.
Build 729. (up from 636)
This one expires February 28 2009 (as opposed to November 30 2008 for build 636)
(These pics were taken at 480x800 and resized to 384x640 for the XDA file upload FTP)

It's now Nov. 30 and the version that was supposed to expire today still works. I've since started using Opera 9.5 beta 2. It seems to render faster and doesn't flicker like NetFront often does and rarely gets the out of memory.

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