iPhone-Like Web Browser

[Billbeme]

Dennis,
Wow! Thanks for taking the time to clear up the history of Picsel Browser, and BETA for me. It has given me insight into what I may or may not install onto my new Pocket PC, which I will know nothing about.

For that reason, I may avoid some BETA's until I get my feet wet sticking to secure and time tested applications.

I really appreciate all the help.

If anyone has tried Picsel Browser, Net Front, Deep Fish, Minimo, or various verisions of Opera Mini, I would love to hear of your impressions.

Please include:

• Browser
• Version
• Device/OS Version
• Impressions and Expreiences
• Recommendation

I look forward to everyone's advice and hope to keep a good Browser discussion going. Thanks!!

-Bill

[Adama D. Brown]

The Deep Fish website informes me that all BETA (BTW, whats BETA?)

It wouldn't surprise me if Deepfish is actually a preliminary component for a "selective zoom" mode in Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 7.

The only available web browser is Opera Mobile, and it is version 8.0, when the BETA (?) version is 8.65. If I read correctly all the zooming capabilities, and tab options are after 8.0 and therefore makes the $24 price tag less digestable.

The final version of 8.65 should be available now.

[dmccunney]

Dennis,
Wow! Thanks for taking the time to clear up the history of Picsel Browser, and BETA for me. It has given me insight into what I may or may not install onto my new Pocket PC, which I will know nothing about.

For that reason, I may avoid some BETA's until I get my feet wet sticking to secure and time tested applications.

You're quite welcome.

My experience has been that betas are fairly stable, but I know a bit about the devices I use, and how to recover from problems. Brand new users of devices they don't know anything about yet probably are better advised to stick to "release" code.

If anyone has tried Picsel Browser, Net Front, Deep Fish, Minimo, or various verisions of Opera Mini, I would love to hear of your impressions.

I look forward to everyone's advice and hope to keep a good Browser discussion going. Thanks!!

Okay, I'll start. I've used NetFront, Picsel, and Opera Mini.

Caveat: my device is a Tapwave Zodiac 2, running Palm OS 5.27. There will be differences on a Windows Mobile device from what I see.

I've looked at an assortment of browsers for Palm devices. Mine came with one called Tapwave Web, which is based on the Palmsource V2 browser. I've also tried NetFront, Novarra nWeb, Mobirus Xiino, Opera Mini, Picsel Browser, the old Eudora web browser, and a couple of other things.

I don't consider any of them very good. (I'm spoiled by Firefox on a 19" monitor in 1600x1200 resolution.) JavaScript support is spotty. CSS support is largely non-existant. Speed can vary depending upon the browser. For instance, in a set of speed tests, Tapwave Web reported 60K/Sec downloads, nWeb reported 150K/Sec, and Xiino reported 400K/Sec. The speed test used JavaScript, so I assumed differences in the JavaScript implementation as the culprit. nWeb's results were what I expected to see. Xiino was out of it's electronic mind.

NetFront 3.1
This was originally bundled with some Sony Clie models. The version I have was ripped from a Clie and patched to run on any Palm OS 5 device.

It runs well enough, but required assistance from a shareware Palm OS utility called UDMH. Palm devices have a portion of memory called "dynamic heap" which is used by application as work area. How much dynamic heap is supplied depends upon the device. Some applications want more dynamic heap than is provided by a device, and fail to run. UDMH takes device RAM and and makes it appear to be dynamic heap, so programs can get what they need. My Zodiac provides 10MB of heap, but that wasn't enough: NetFront would run, but crash and reset the device on exit. Installing UDMH and telling it to give NetFront 20MB of heap fixed the problem.

Another quirk is that the Zodiac has a 320x480 screen with a "virtual" Data Input Area, but NetFront only used a 320x320 portion of the screen. The answer to that was another shareware app called Code Diver. Originally written for a Clie, Code Diver can force some applications to use the full screen on a 320x480 device. (You just have to try it and see whether it works for any particular program.)

NetFront invokes relatively quickly. Palm OS devices default to having programs stored in RAM using "execute in place" to run them, though it's possible to run from an expansion card. NetFront is in RAM. Page load speed is adequate, given the relatively slow Wifi connection provided by my SD Wifi card. NetFront is capable of accessing content (HTML files on a card) as well as content on the web.

Overall experience depends upon the site. The fundamental problem is that mobile devices have a small screen size. Some site have "mobile friendly" versions that strip out a lot of the graphics and provide text that will reflow to fit the browser screen. Graphics are normally displayed as thumbnails and can be zoomed into if desired. Browsers have different approaches to handling content on the small screen. nWeb, for example, provides three different viewing modes, and offers a proxy server you can access the web through that tries to reformat content for the device screen before sending it along.

NetFront takes 1.8MB of RAM on my device.

Opera Mini
Opera Mini is a Java applet, and requires a Java Virtual Machine on your device. Palm offers one created by IBM for current devices. The one offered by Palm now won't run on the Zodiac, but I found an older release that would.

I've looked at Opera Mini 2, 3, and 4. It runs, and renders beautifully. The problems are that it's sluggish on a Zodiac, doesn't use the standard Palm UI, and won't use the full 320x480 screen. Sluggishness is probably due to the fact that the Zodiac is a 200mhz device. It's probably nicer on a TX, which has a 312mhz CPU. TX users report it does use the full 320x480 screen on that device, so not doing so on the Zodiac may be a result of running on an older JVM version.

The Opera Mini Jar file is 234KB on my device. The IBM JVM is about 680K.

Picsel Browser
The version of Picsel I have is another rip from a Clie. (When I got it, Picsel wasn't offering a version to consumers.)

It's a generalized browser capable of viewing all manner of content. It can browse the web, and can also display things like JPGs and PDF files.

The UI is unlike anything else on a Palm device, and takes a lot of getting used to. I haven't actually tried to surf with it. I was more interested in PDF viewing, but now use an open source product called PalmPDF for the purpose.

Invocation is helped by a freeware speedup app. Like NetFront, it needs assistance from Code Diver to use the full screen. This was curious, because Code Diver didn't even see in device memory. the issue is apparently that Picsel is pure ARM code, and not a hybrid MC68K/ARM app like most Palm programs for OS5.

My launcher provided the missing piece. I use a launcher called Launcher X. One LX feature is "shortcuts". There are programs you would like to store on and run from an expansion card to save RAM, but you also want to hotsync them with your desktop. Hotsync doesn't see applications on a card. LX can move an application to the card and create a shortcut to it. the shortcut is a tiny stub program that lives in RAM and points to the app on the card. Hotsync sees the shortcut, and things work as expected.

So I moved Picsel to the card with LX, and created a shortcut to it. Code Diver saw the shortcut, and I could configure it to force Picsel to use the full screen. After that, I could copy Picsel back to RAM. As long as it was invoked from the shortcut Code Diver knew about, things worked as expected, but it was in RAM, and invoked much faster.

Picsel takes about 1.7MB of RAM in the version I have.

What I wound up using was NetFront, with nWeb in second place. NetFront got the nod because of a UI that worked like other things on the PDA, and faster startup. Browsers based on Novarra's engine have a lengthy startup delay while they initialize. Also, NetFront has a more attractive interface than nWeb. nWeb's advantage is an actual version for the Zodiac that doesn't require UDMH to run or Code Diver to use the full screen

-Bill

______
Dennis

[Genjinaro]

Picsel Browser
The version of Picsel I have is another rip from a Clie. (When I got it, Picsel wasn't offering a version to consumers.)

It's a generalized browser capable of viewing all manner of content. It can browse the web, and can also display things like JPGs and PDF files.

The UI is unlike anything else on a Palm device, and takes a lot of getting used to. I haven't actually tried to surf with it. I was more interested in PDF viewing

Dennis

Yeah same here, P-Browser is great for PDF veiwing on WM as well, its very quick to render and zoom, actually it is the fastest veiwer to date on Windows Mobile.

[Billbeme]

Dennis, Thanks for taking the time to help with all that insight. My only question is response is: "How does your provided information vary from Palm OS to Windows Mobile?

To all others: Thanks for the insight thus far gang.

The final version of 8.65 should be available now.

I checked the website, and 8.65 is still BETA at this point.

I suppose if I want to stay legitimate and enjoy an advanced, stable web browsing experience the best route is Opear 8.5.

To try for Picsel Browser might be a stretch considering the files were withdrawn from Samsung Devices, and I am just getting started with Windows Mobile. I don't think I can afford instability.

On the other hand, everyone seems to speed VERY highly of it's capability.

Either way (PB or OM) I think I will be in good shape.

If anyone has anything else to add, or wants to comment on their own experience with various Web Browser, please feel free!

-B

[dmccunney]

Dennis, Thanks for taking the time to help with all that insight. My only question is response is: "How does your provided information vary from Palm OS to Windows Mobile?

I don't use Windows Mobile, and have no idea.

Some of what I posted is specific to Palm OS, like the tricks needed to get things to work as expected, and won't be true for Windows Mobile. Others, like browsing speed, UI considerations, and rendering of sites on a mobile device screen should apply.

I wasn't overly disappointed because my expectations weren't that high to begin with. Your milage may vary.
______
Dennis

[Adama D. Brown]

I checked the website, and 8.65 is still BETA at this point.

Upon checking, I see they haven't yet updated the site. However, the 8.65 final is available for download here:

http://get.opera.com/pub/opera/winmobile/865/

[Adama D. Brown]

Oh, I should add that the file you want is this one:

http://get.opera.com/pub/opera/winmo...m5_ppc_865.msi

It's a desktop installer for the right Opera version, for WM5/6 Pocket PCs.

[Billbeme]

Thank you very much Adam. It seems as though OM is a great compromise between the capability of PB and the instability of Minimo. In other words, it is a great browser that will prove capable and stable.

Do I need to purchase a registration code for the links you posted, or are those verison Opera has give out? Something to that effect?

I am very excited to get my new device and start surfing with 8.65. To my understanding it has "desktop view" like that of the iPhone, zooming, tab browsing, etc.?

Sounds like OM is pretty high end. On the other hand, I was also reading the pocketpcmag.com nominations/awards for best software and NetFront was the winner the last too years. What's the scoop with NF? The website was a bit overwhelming and offered a lot of information in a small package.

Thanks for all the help guys. It is really appreciated. At this poing OM seems to be my pick but I just want to find a bit more about NF. Maybe I will give them both a testdrive and see what is best. But my bet is on OM.

-B

[Adama D. Brown]

Do I need to purchase a registration code for the links you posted, or are those verison Opera has give out? Something to that effect?

There's no free version of Opera Mobile, unless you count their free beta periods. You do get a 30-day trial to decide whether you like it before you need to fork over $24, though.

I am very excited to get my new device and start surfing with 8.65. To my understanding it has "desktop view" like that of the iPhone, zooming, tab browsing, etc.?

Sort of. It doesn't normally do what the iPhone does in terms of presenting a whole page, then letting you selectively zoom in--rather it squeezes the page to fit your screen while still remaining readable. However, you can zoom in and out on a page, anywhere from 25% normal size to 200%. Using the 25% zoom, a 320 pixel wide display would show a web page in dimensions similar to a 1280 pixel wide desktop screen. It also has a desktop mode where the page is rendered the way it would be on a PC, and you can scroll around.

Sounds like OM is pretty high end. On the other hand, I was also reading the pocketpcmag.com nominations/awards for best software and NetFront was the winner the last too years. What's the scoop with NF? The website was a bit overwhelming and offered a lot of information in a small package.

I know that a lot of people swear by Netfront, although I've never used it much myself. I believe that Access stopped offering it to the public with version 3.3, however. You can still get the 3.4 Technical Preview version here:

http://www.access-company.com/produc.../34_wm_tp.html

However it expires on November 30th, and there's no indication that they're going to continue offering a direct-to-user version, since their main market is to businesses.