Windows Mobile Browsers War!

mobiletechbykevin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:46:34 +0000

Introduction

Since the release of the Apple iPhone, the Window Mobile world has been trying to release a competitive browser to Apple’s Safari. Pocket Internet Explorer, first introduced in Windows CE 1.0 around November 1996. Up until the shocking new Safari browsers, surfing the internet through mobile devices had issues. It never display full HTML website correctly.

Now in 2009, there are several new exciting browsers that could compete with Apple Safari.

Iris Browser – http://www.torchmobile.com/

This baby is based upon the same engine as Apple’s Safari. How will it hold up on Windows Mobile?

See it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpX5JZWtu-g

Opera Mini – http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=455655&highlight=Opera+Mini

A lighten fast browser, but limited support for Flash and other stuff. http://www.opera.com/mini/features/

Opera Mobile – http://www.opera.com/mobile/

The big brother of Opera Mini with flexing power, still in beta but has great potential. Some popular devices such as Samsung Omnia and HTC Diamond comes with this built in and was developed specifically for those devices.

There is a thread on XDA stick hoping to track the latest version / build of Opera Mobile (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=486502). Several builds are available out there with slight variation from each other. These had been extracted from the latest ROM released on popular phones, such as Samsung Omnia, HTC Diamond, HTC Touch HD, etc.,

SkyFire – http://www.skyfire.com/

Great potential and support actual Flash pages

See it in action: http://www.skyfire.com/product/demo

Bolt – http://boltbrowser.com/

The latest addition to the WM family. In actual, group behind bolt was in the browser business on WM before others. They had a version pre WM2003!

Fennec – https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile

How can we have a browser war without Mozilla involvement? The team that brought us Firefox on the desktop is working heavily on a Windows Mobile version, code name Fennec. More information to be release soon. They just release their initial pre-alpha (http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/12/new-firefox-fen.html)

Which one will is the best? Why don’t you try them out and decide. My personal favorite has been the original Pocket Internet Explorer and Iris Browser.

There several flavor of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile port available for Windows Mobile devices. You could find them on http://www.xda-developers.com

Various Opera Mobile Build Versions

NOTE: There are several version of these between QVGA and VGA. Make sure you use the correct one for your device. For example HTC Touch Pro uses VGA version, not QVGA. Samsung Omnia uses QVGA version. Also read the thread and their detail, some version are not unistallable and does require hard reset on your device if you want the original Opera back!

Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 2392 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=401643)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 2745 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=442252)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15086 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=458542)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15200 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3042791)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15233 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=401643)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15316 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=467852)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15445 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=477179)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15529 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=476447)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15613 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3352911)
Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15746 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3229267)

From the Omina ROM i900XXIB5

Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15895 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=486380)

This version is the same as Opera Mobile 9.5 b2 w/ Gear currently found on Opera website. It is not an actual build that was extract from other phones, similar these other builds listed.

Opera Mobile 9.5 Build 15954 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=486799)

Speed Tweaks / Tips / Interesting Info

Twelve Opera 9.5 Speed Tweaks (http://namchangkorpa.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/twelve-opera-95-speed-tweaks/)
Browers Performance Smackdown (http://www.pocketables.net/2007/09/browser-perform.html)

Additional Notes / Updates

EDIT 02/26/09: I came across a really good thread from Mennisys @ XDA on browsers for WM devices. Check it out! (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=467173)