Slashdot Mirror
Web Browser Wars Go Mobile
alphadogg writes "A new generation of mobile Web browsers is finally making the Web a reality on handheld devices.
The latest example is last week's beta launch of Opera Mobile 9.5, a native Web browser for high-end smartphones. It's an evolutionary release for the Norwegian software company, but it comes just days after Apple's iPhone 3G, with its highly capable Safari browser, went on sale. Other brand-new entrants, such as Mobile Firefox and Skyfire, are expected later this year, at least in beta form. But the evolving mobile browsers are only one part of the picture. Mobile browsing is affected by the client hardware, ranging from the processor to the kind of wireless network being used, all of which have improved markedly. It's also affected by the design of Web sites being targeted, and there's new attention being focused on optimizing these sites for mobile users."
Opera Mini is the only way to go for mobile devices. It is a graphical client running on micro-java on your phone that talks to a proxy server which actually brings up the web page you want, then translates it into a highly compressed data stream, and then is presented on your mobile device in hi resolution goodness! Obviously flash doesn't work, and some Ajax (although a surprising amount is supported), but the web pages come up fast and in the same format as your browser. The same cannot be said of other mobile browsers, since they have to deal with the original data streams on very slow 3g connections. Opera mini is a much more pleasant experience. Try it!
The writing in the description is poorly constructed. When someone reads "It's an evolutionary release for the Norwegian software company, but it comes just days after Apple's iPhone 3G, with its highly capable Safari browser, went on sale" they would reasonably assume that in the context of the article, this "Browser War" has suddenly sprung up, and that all of the opening shots are being fired right now.
Of course, the "highly capable" Safari browser has been out for a year on the pre-3G iPhones too, a distinction that the text confuses terribly.
The 'browser war' has been mobile since the first day God crapped out a WAP-enabled cell phone, and just as humans went from sticks and rocks to atomic weapons, the years of mobile browsing 'warfare' has progressed to a point where the phones are almost within eyeshot of being as capable as the desktop machines.
To declare this a 'new war' is disingenuous at best, and manipulative of page hits for the purpose of generating advertising revenue at worst.
I've gotta say, it's a relief, because so far the situation was pretty abysmal. I regularly browse the web from my N95, both with the built-in Nokia-Apple browser as well as Opera Mini 4.1. The experience is quite abysmal.
Both of them fare quite poorly at rendering the layout of web pages, the Nokia browser is incredibly bloated memory-wise and crashes silently all the time. Opera Mini is much more stable, but functionality wise pretty poor. And both have glaring flaws. For example, on the Nokia one, editing a comment on a forum will often duplicate it. On Opera Mini, it annoyingly leaves the pages everytime you have to type something into a form. Slashdot is pretty much broken in both iirc.
So hallulejah for proper browsers! They're much needed.
You just got troll'd!
As long as clicking links works and the screen can adequetely display fleshtones then I don't really care what else it can do.
an expensive reality on a handheld.
There. Fixed that for you.
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Where is Lynx?
I was tasked with getting Opera to run on Set Top Boxes not too long ago, and the problem with opera is that its not just install and go like on windows or linux. Granted, it was a custom set-top-box build on linux, once you get the demo binary from opera, it doesn't run and says "cannot open fb0 frame buffer device". Apparently their business trick is to charge you for implementing every driver. They sell a very expensive sdk (more like a ddk), but then you have to develop all of your drivers. We were using a pretty well know SoC (system on chip) from sigma designs, but still didn't have the display drivers and ir drivers. I would suggest going with Mozilla or something that you have the source, otherwise a vendor will tie you in to their solution, and not even give you header files with which to get the embedded browser to work with custom hardware.
Opera Mini kind of sucks, it gets all crashy on my Centro, yet no other mobile browser is coming out for Palm. I like the feel of Opera Mini, but the proxy, or the fact that it's Java, means that pages load much more slowly than with Blazer.
Does anyone have any suggestions, beyond cranking up the memory available for Java apps and threads (which I've done, and it made a huge positive difference), that might make it more stable?
I like music
They only work if you have a nice flat, stable surface. It wouldn't work too well in the passenger seat of a car or on the bus.
Gone!
Opera Mini is the only way to go for mobile devices. [...] Opera mini is a much more pleasant experience. Try it!
Ugh, I've had a terrible experience with this browser on my Treo 680 (and before that on my Treo 650). I've tried various versions of Opera Mini starting with version 3, then 4, now 4.1, and each time it's been a pain to try to figure out how to keep it from crashing. I was able to get 4.1 working a little better using these instructions, but even then Opera Mini 4.1 still frequently locks up the device, forcing me to have to remove the battery. With earlier versions of Opera Mini 4 I've even reset my Treo to factory defaults and reinstalled everything, and that didn't fix the problem.
Your mileage may vary, but Opera Mini has been extremely crash-prone and disappointing for me.
the JoshMeister on Security
I was watching homestar runner on my 2001 pocket pc, but flash is still a pipedream for handhelds?? what the hell. many of the highly successful and even nerd oriented websites are flash required (yes I know iphone has a youtube client)... Why the hell am I still not watching zeropunctuation on the subway??
It is super annoying that the palm client for flash (which still functions btw, just not the latest greatest) and the Pocket PC client for flash both have been around for half a decade, yet somehow the mobile internets are still "well yeah everything except the second most prolific format for web content"
I've got a Blackberry through T-mobile. The only time I use the internet on it is if I absolutely must have some information, like an address or phone number, that I forgot to write down before I left.
It is so painfully slow it makes dial-up, which I haven't done in over a decade, look good.
What is the appeal of wireless internet if this is as good as it gets?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Invent a better bandwidth and webmasters will come with even more junk to fill it.
I guess you don't remember when 14.4 kbps modems were considered blazing fast
The main difference on the intertubes is that back then, there weren't already java- or flash- based ads that take 1/4 of your screen estate and play video and audio.
Speed of internet connection isn't the same as back then but neither is anymore the content of the pages itself (at least if you disable for a moment AdBlock / FlashBlock / NoScript or whatever is your tool to keep the web usable )
because to me bringing up most websites in Safari on my iPhone 3G is very snappy unless
This is one of the little situation where it is a blessing that the iPhone uses plain standard HTML/CSS/Javascript and has no (official) support for "thick clients" like Java of Flash. Which are currently the web <strike>vandals'</strike> advertisers' tools of choice to spit their scum.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Opera mobile does exist for WM5. I use it. It is far better than the other browsers, but does have a few small missing features. IIRC, there is no find on page feature for example. For the free trial see http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Skyfire is already in beta. I got my invite in April after I applied a couple of months prior.
I'm using it on a Motorola Q with EVDO from Verizon. It's a really powerful browser. Finally, I'm able to surf just about any website and it just works. Flash embeds work perfectly. It really broadens what I can do with my phone while on the road.
Skyfire does server-side rendering, therefore it's not really a browser. It's more like a viewer. Because of this, start up times are annoyingly slow (15 - 25 seconds). But pages load really fast and I don't experience breaks in audio or video when listening to podcasts or YouTube videos while driving down the interstate.
I kind of like the idea of offloading page rendering/transcoding to a server. Then again, if the Skyfire servers ever go down I'm SOL.
I rarely use the browser because using mobile websites in pocket IE is good enough for 90% of what I do. If the Motorola Q was a touchscreen device, I would enjoy Skyfire more.
-516
The writing in the description is poorly constructed.
And by the way, they are confusing
- Mobile Firefox which is a 3rd party (not Mozilla-made) version of FireFox 1.5/2.0 repackaged in a way that make it executable from whatever computer you want, without installation, from a simple USB stick.
It's mobile as in "movable between desktops", not as in "small protable device".
(which is globally similar to Portable FireFox.)
and the Mozilla projects :
- MiniMo Mozilla's browser engine (Gecko) ported to portable devices running Linux or Windows CE
- Fennec - Mozilla's effort to create a FireFox for mobile device.
Given releases are announced very soon, I think, Fennec is the project the description was referring to.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The Safari browser on my iPod touch is entirely capable of displaying full, un-mobile-optimized sites just fine, thank you. It's irritating when a site detects that it's a mobile device and pushes out the lame, mobile-optimized version. As browsers improve on all mobile devices, seems like developers could just can the optimized version and have one-size-fits-all content.
I own a HTC Wizard which unfortunately came with windows mobile.
Mobile IE sucks so much as entire windows mobile.
All the UI design is a failure, one has to constantly move the horizontal and vertical scrollbars to view the webpage.
If the screen wasn't small enough, Back/Stop buttons are extremely BIG which makes the viewport area even more small.
Also, Mobile IE is unable to properly handle mime types, it fails to save binary files other than .zip
And of course, like the desktop IE, Mobile IE is incapable of correctly rendering the "small" footprint html used on mobile webpages.
It doesn't support tabbing browsing not even multiple windows!!
I wonder what a piece of crap like this is doing on a PDA with GPRS/EDGE and WIFI
I really don't care (and I've seen Safari on iPhone). Mobile browsing is just horrible.
Give me a real simple site that does the things I might want to do on your site in a mobile context (so, Mr Railway Company, a "what time is the next train") and keep it real simple.
Browser wars should fuel hardware advances on mobile devices, since it will likely follow that Flash, YouTube, and dare I say Silverlight (shill-verlight as I refer to it) will be expected to run smoothly. Some browsers are mostly there already, but there will be more hardware accelerated graphics, higher resolution displays (OLED plz k thx), more memory, and faster CPU's (et tu AMD?). And the sad part is that while the browsing experience will be great, all these companies don't give a crap about your battery life.