I haven't heard the best reviews about Opera Mobile. Last time I checked, it wasn't free, and in beta. Skyfire appears to be better than Opera, so I'm not going to worry.
Is it correct that some the browsers mentioned (esp. Opera and Skyfire) use a pass-through their servers? Does this affect the security of passwords, etc.?
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-Duncan
"If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science, it is opinion" - R. Heinlein
Skyfire beta 2 is pretty dang amazing, now that I've had some time to play with it. I take back what I said about the flash video, kinda. Some sites like Youtube the video does play pretty nicely, still not AS smooth a framerate as through Coreplayer/TCPMP/vTap, but definately watchable. However, the browser does not like if you move around, zoom in and out, or things like that while the video is playing, and will get very choppy or the audio and video will get out of sync.
Other than that, sites do load very quickly, I'd say it is VERY comparable to the speed with which Opera Mini 4.1 loads sites, but of course you get all the little animations and stuff going on with Skyfire. It is still somewhat buggy some times... like, if the phone goes to sleep with the browser open, forget about using it anymore until you close it and reopen it. Also, the search just randomly stopped working today, and sometimes I get connection errors when trying to start the browser.
Conversely, it seems to load and run just as fast from the memory card as it does from internal memory, and doesn't seem to store ANY cache anywhere on the phone (I assume all cookies, history and cacheing are done server side), so no unexplained eating of your memory.
The interface is bleh... moving around is rather clunky, but there are some good features too such as the freely resizable zoom window. Another downside is that it kills my battery very fast if I"m not on a charger.
At any rate, I still use Opera Mini more for stuff like forum browsing and such... but yeah any sites where I know there is stuff going on I will load up in Skyfire.
Opera Mobile IMO is not worth the time... it is a VERY big install, is a total memory hog while it's running, and loads pages very slowly even over very high speed wi-fi, and this is with several builds I've tried including the latest diamond build and the latest free beta. It is far slower than even PIE.. I don't see how anyone is touting this browser unless you are infinitely patient.
i heard skyfire will be releasing something good. Welcome to Skyfire!. it's like desktop internet on your cell phone.
Speaking of Skyfire, that is what I use primarily. My biggest gripe is the inability to save pdfs to your device (If there is a new beta version, I'm still using the previous one - this may have been corrected.) For that I use opera mini: Before their latest upgrade it would prompt an opening of PIE and the download would commence. I like PIE, however some sites will force the mobile version of their page to load not allowing access to download the aforementioned pdfs. I have tried picsel but found it waaaaay too limiting. I never got Minimo to operate the way in which it was intended to on the i760. From all the responses I would say that it depends on your browsing styles and content. I happen to like Skyfire the best with opera mini in as a close second. I'd say picsel would be in dead last. I just think it was just a big tease due to it's limitations.
I think Skyfire is great. My biggest problem is that it is really slow compared to Opera Mini.
Skyfire takes several seconds to render the screen every time I move around while zoomed in. It gets pretty old.
I am also not that impressed with the YouTube/media integration. Sure it plays but could they not integrate some smart zoom for videos so they play in the screen or at least crop to the embedded player? By the time I have the video centered in the screen the video is over!
I think Skyfire is great. My biggest problem is that it is really slow compared to Opera Mini.
Skyfire takes several seconds to render the screen every time I move around while zoomed in. It gets pretty old.
I am also not that impressed with the YouTube/media integration. Sure it plays but could they not integrate some smart zoom for videos so they play in the screen or at least crop to the embedded player? By the time I have the video centered in the screen the video is over!
In my experience Skyfire is much, much faster at rendering pages than opera mini. I also like the interface better as I never really liked opera mini. And I think it's quite easy to center video on the screen by taping once and adjusting the zoom frame to the video size. Takes about 2 seconds. Works well for me - I've been watching nbc.com olympic videos while waiting for clients all yesterday and today and haven't had a problem yet.
OK, I am now a convert to Opera Mini. I fussed through all the installations and tweaks required to make it work, and it is the best one out there. (Better than full Opera as far as I can tell). My only wish is that it had continuous zooming like Picsel, rather than just the zoom in/out mode.
I am trying to figure out how to make Opera Mini the default browser. There was a hint that this was possible back in post #20, but I must be missing something. My searches have turned up nothing. Sorry to be a idiot on this, but can someone point me in the right direction please?
In particular, I'd like to have the today screen search add-in "Search Today" default to it, but I cannot set it up. I tried setting up a link and putting in the custom browser slot, but it did not work. My thinking is that if I can make Opera Mini the default for everything it will just go there from "Search Today".
Is it correct that some the browsers mentioned (esp. Opera and Skyfire) use a pass-through their servers? Does this affect the security of passwords, etc.?
If this is true that they use a pass-through, then YES it';s a huge security risk. Even if not intentional by the place running the pass-through, their servers would be a prime target for the *real* threats on the internet.
Their REAL intent, is probably to track your web usage and habits.
Opera mini does render whole, large pages faster than Skyfire. With large pages that require a lot of scrolling, Opera mini loads them all at once, and then you can freely scroll around. Skyfire "loads as you go"... as you scroll around there is a few second delay as the next section of the page loads and/or focuses. This does get annoying, and is why I still use Opera as my primary browser whenever viewing pages that dont have any media/flash content that I'm interested in viewing.
As far as initial rendering, i.e.: how long it takes a page to load after clicking a link, Opera mini and Skyfire are both very fast and very close in speed, usually within a couple seconds of each other on several pages I tried, and neither was consistently faster than the other.
For all of Skyfires advantages with supporting flash, it streams a uses a LOT of data and can be killer on your battery, Opera does such a good job of compressing the pages (most pages fully load with pictures in less than 100 KB) that it really helps your battery life when browsing.
I honestly feel that anyone who does not have both of these great free browsers on their phone is missing out in one way or another.
Opera mini does render whole, large pages faster than Skyfire. With large pages that require a lot of scrolling, Opera mini loads them all at once, and then you can freely scroll around. Skyfire "loads as you go"... as you scroll around there is a few second delay as the next section of the page loads and/or focuses. This does get annoying, and is why I still use Opera as my primary browser whenever viewing pages that dont have any media/flash content that I'm interested in viewing.
As far as initial rendering, i.e.: how long it takes a page to load after clicking a link, Opera mini and Skyfire are both very fast and very close in speed, usually within a couple seconds of each other on several pages I tried, and neither was consistently faster than the other.
For all of Skyfires advantages with supporting flash, it streams a uses a LOT of data and can be killer on your battery, Opera does such a good job of compressing the pages (most pages fully load with pictures in less than 100 KB) that it really helps your battery life when browsing.
I honestly feel that anyone who does not have both of these great free browsers on their phone is missing out in one way or another.
Very well put, that's exactly how I feel about the two
i have tried them all and i am having difficulty signing in to a few key websites. they will let me put my user name and passwords but when i hit the login button it just keeps refreshing the page. i deffinately like skyfire for video feedback, and the pic qualit is pretty good. skyfire and opera seem much faster for some sites and slower than PIE for others. if pie had video playback i would stick with it.
It's easy enough to install a Midlet manager and then install Opera Mini, but you end up with Opera Mini as an "untrusted program" which is a pain.
I wanted to mention that when I upgraded to the latest Skyfire my sound wouldn't work so I downgraded to the last version which I think still works great and I prefer it's start page.
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