Skyfire Mobile Browser

It’s not like we have to actually worry about a mobile phone browser as any handset you buy will have its own native version. However, in this day and age we will never have to stick to anything that’s ‘included with the package’ as they say. There’s always room for either improvement or customization. With Mozilla’s Fennec browser making waves other companies have launched their offerings. One of the newest is Skyfire that promises to be as good as any other browser out there now in the freeware (or otherwise) division.

I decided to see what it was like by installing it on two different handsets – A Windows Mobile device (ASUS P835) and a Symbian Series 60 handset (Nokia E51). I was curious to find out about the mobile browsing experience that it provided so here’s my experience.

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Firstly let me just start off by saying that when I downloaded and installed the Skyfire browser on to both devices, I was logged in to our local Wi-Fi connection. Deciding that that was not the best way to check the kind of speed I should get while opening pages, I switched to normal GPRS for test purposes. The Windows Mobile device with a LOOP Mobile WAP plan refused to connect to the internet with Skyfire, although both the onboard Opera and IE browsers did so with no issues. The Symbian handset with a Vodafone connection also had no issues. I swapped the cards and found the same scenario. It was absurd to say the least. Perhaps Skyfire implores the use of only full EDGE plans. Either that or LOOP Mobile just doesn’t get along with the browser, go figure. I decided to stick with Wi-Fi, at least for the Windows based handset.

Layout – Look and Feel
Skyfire appears to be a pretty well laid out browser. What I particularly liked is the fact that users can very easily customize the main page. You can set up and authorize the browser to log into your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, et al accounts as well as other sites which is brilliant. The integration of Social Networking directly into the browser with easy access is aces in my book. So far so good.
The Asus has a pretty large 3.5-inch touchscreen with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution which I figured should give the browser a serious work out in terms of rendering content. I opened up our Tech2 Home page and was thrilled to see Flash content moving rather smoothly. I was quite impressed, till I noticed that even after a minute; the images on the page looked rather shabby as compared to IE or Opera.

I looked for settings that would allow me to adjust that, like you’d find in Opera and to my disappointment there weren’t any. In fact the settings menu is rather limited – you can choose to set it as your default browser or have a Search Bar placed on your desktop and the advanced settings menu only allows you to clear cookies and history and check if there’s mobile version of any page. Another negative point is that Skyfire took about 2 seconds longer to load than Opera or IE on Windows but was super fast loading on the Symbian handset.

Features
Besides being able to run all flash content with the ease of a warm knife though butter, the Skyfire browser, on the whole, made web pages look pretty good, if only the images didn’t look so darned pixilated. The layout of even complex web pages was well balanced in terms of only the overall look. The address bar automatically starts looking for sites the moment you begin typing your first alphabet. The engine used for this search feature is super quick and really quite accurate.

For touchscreen handsets, a double tap allows you to zoom into pages, whereas a camera-like focus section appears in the Symbian version. You can double tap the selected icon (middle of the nav-pad) to zoom in or out and also use the keypad shortcuts. The browser will frequently offer up the shortcut options available when you switch pages. You can discard this feature by a click of button. There’s virtually no lag at all when it comes to rendering of images (as bad as they did on a WinMob handset) and content while moving around web pages.

The fact that it has support for full Flash and Windows Media videos, including Flash 10 and Silverlight 2.0 as well as other options like Ajax and Javascript makes it quite an appealing option. But on the downside, on YouTube, I was unable to get any audio or switch to full screen mode. The browser itself didn’t seem to switch orientation when I turned the Windows mobile handset either, which didn’t bode too well with me. But this could also be because the ASUS’ accelerometer isn’t built to change orientation on all screens, so I can let that slide. Skyfire also doesn’t seem to have any support for opening multiple pages, which is definitely not a good thing. Things were not looking too good with the Windows device at this point.

The oddest thing is that I faced hardly any issues with the browser on the Symbian handset. Images looked perfectly clear including the flash content graphics. Of course I still couldn’t open multiple pages but the browsing experience overall was much better than the Windows version. Thus as a recommendation, the Skyfire browser is absolutely perfect for a Symbian device so if you are a Symbian user this is a good option to go with.

For a list of all supported devices and Operating Systems click here.
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Since I was testing Skyfire I figured I ought to see if it actually compared well to Opera Mini, at least for Symbian users. Opera Mobile is usually preloaded onto a lot of Windows Mobile handsets these days, but Mini is not yet a pre-loaded feature with all Symbian devices but is still a freeware option. I do believe that Skyfire has a little way to go before taking on Opera Mobile for Windows though. If you are WinMob handset users and Opera Mobile is available on the device, stick to that, it has great features and a better option compared to IE.

First off, Opera Mini takes a little too long to load as compared to Skyfire. It loads pages almost as quickly as Skyfire and even manages to shave off a second here and there when you adjust images settings to Low. Of course I have to attribute this to the lack of flash support sometimes. That aside some of the features going for this browser would be the support for saving pages that can be stored on the handset for viewing later offline. The newest edition also allows users to customize their browser with colored skins according to the running theme on the handset or just personal preference. Opera’s Link feature, that’s also built into the Mini version, allows users to sync bookmarks and Speed Dials with a PC that’s running Opera 9.50 or any other mobile device that’s running Opera Mini.

Some of the other features included with Mini that don’t seem to feature in Skyfire, is searching for information ON a particular web page and opening multiple web pages. It also uses the double click option for zooming in or out of pages along with several other keypad shortcuts.

So which one’s better?
The thing is, with Opera you end up with quicker access to web pages but not the best possible viewing. I’m sure there are plenty of users out there who would disagree with that statement and I’m sure their arguments will be valid, but in this day and age of technology I personally expect aspects of a mobile handset’s experience to be as close to a PC’s as possible.

On the other hand if you are using a basic WAP connection and looking for a quicker browser, Opera Mini is by far the best, but if you’ve got the speed already streaming in with a full GPRS/EDGE connection Skyfire, with its desktop like viewing experience is the way to go for sure. Though you can still use Skyfire with a normal connection, (maybe not through LOOP mobile though), it’d be a lot easier on the phone bill, if you were getting charged per Kb downloaded to use Opera Mini. Plus the Opera does have a lot more to offer in terms of speed as well.

The Bottom Line
Skyfire is definitely a good freeware browser but it doesn’t seem to play too well with Windows Mobile devices. It has quite a few setbacks when it comes to large touchscreen handsets and their rendering of images on pages. However, it’s just possible, that bug might just get fixed with the next version. But if you are tired of your mobile’s native browser and looking for a new experience, Skyfire is one option. Then again Opera Mini is also a free browser with speed and personalization as available now. So the only factor to take into consideration is personal preference, not that you can’t just have both. But I’d go with Opera, on both, a Windows or Symbian handset.

To Dowload Skyfire click here and for Opera Mini go here.