Skyfire (browser)

Skyfire is a mobile web browser for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (formerly known as the PocketPC platform) and Symbian S60 v3. It is currently in beta testing. Although, officially, only people with a US phone number can sign up, Canadian numbers registered for the open beta have begun receiving links to the beta. [Lawson, Stephen (January 29, 2008). "Skyfire demos free mobile web browser". PC World|http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141937/article.html]

SkyFire Browser is now an open, rather than invitation-only beta. [Ars Technica|http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080928-hands-on-skyfire-browser-brings-gecko-on-windows-mobile.html]

It is the first browser software for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 which allows viewing of inline Flash animation and streaming video.

Features

* With Skyfire you can shop, watch web video, listen to web music and stay connected on your social network -- just as you would on your PC. You can view all the full-featured PC versions of your favorite websites. Skyfire gives you speedy page loads, full audio, images and video. From Myspace, Facebook, YouTube to Hulu - it's the full web experienced on your phone.
* Unlike other mobile browsers, Skyfire supports the desktop version of Adobe Flash applications, including Flash 9, so sites that serve-up video and music are rendered exactly as you would expect - just like your PC. You will instantly recognize the content, be familiar with the page layout -- which is not true for most mobile browsing experiences. Skyfire supports all of the rich-media features of the web today - not just Flash, but also Silverlight, Ajax, QuickTime and more. And even better: Skyfire evolves with the newest capabilities without any .CAB file update.
* In speed tests against the iPhone 3G and Opera, Skyfire significantly beat both mobile browsers in page load times. The test was performed using Flash-heavy websites such as NYT.com, ESPN.com, Hulu.com and NetVibes.com.
* Skyfire is designed to make web content easily accessible given the phone’s form factor. Content is often one-click away in tabbed search results, history and bookmarks as well as pre-populated popular websites. Web pages are presented in full screen and thumbnails with adaptable and fast zooming modes.
* Skyfire released Windows Mobile 0.8 beta with improved video streaming and zooming as well as new features. SuperBar in version 0.8 is a field that combines the address bar and search into one. In version 0.8, web pages can be easily shared and sent via text messages.

Technical Notes

Skyfire is a web browser which operates solely by server-side rendering of web pages and meta-content (see web proxy). Skyfire servers transcode (and pre-render) websites as interactive images, tagging items such as links and text-fields as interactive. Skyfire report the user-agent as a Firefox 2.0 browser running on Windows XP; theoretically using an application hypervisor to create and maintain per-user sessions (ex: you can maintain an authenticated session, such as accessing Google's web application suite with your username).

References

External links

* [http://www.skyfire.com Official Website]
* [http://www.skyfire.com/press Buzz about Skyfire]