Skyfire browser on S60 in beta

[Rafe]

Skyfire, which aims to give a PC like browsing experience on your phone, is now available as a limited access beta for S60. Skyfire uses compression and a proxy based technology to deliver full featured (Flash 9, Quicktime, Java, AJAX) web pages to phones. Their aim is to deliver exactly the same page to your phone that you would see on your PC. We've got 100 instant access beta invitations to give away for our US readers. Read on for more details.

Read on in the full article.

[wampyre]

...that I don't live in US.

This browser looks really nice and it tickles my phone and me to try it out.
I tried to sign up to their beta 2 but later found out that it was only available for US.

Hope they open it up for other people soon.
I read somewhere that the S60 browser hasn't managed to quite keep up with the development of the web, which I do agree upon.

Nokia's handsets are after all advertised as multimedia computers and browsing the web is one of those experiences. Without giving us the full web experience it would be somewhat lacking the functions of a multimedia computer.

OMG! How is Skyfire supposed to scale at the server side? A gmail session with my Firefox browser grows to 63M RAM, so with 1TB of RAM, they should handle nearly 16000 concurrent sessions. Opera Mini transcoded 3.2 billion pages in June (1234/sec), but typical browsing sessions range from 10 to 29 minutes (http://www.mmetrics.com/press/PressR...-smartbrowsing), so if Skykire ever gets as popular as Opera Mini, we're talking 46-135 TB RAM here.
And what about bandwith? Opera Mini is around 1/4 of Norway total Internet data traffic (46MM MB in June), and that without fancy video/AJAX/Flash!

[ashu]

hi rafe.

If we go by what 'unregistered' says, then its going to reduce the speed of mobile devices significantly. How much of ram does it actually consumes? Will it be feasible for me to test fire this beta on my n 82? I m not in States so i will also have to wait.

Has any one tried running waywework.in on this browser? Its nokia's promo flash 9 for e71. If it opens and works on skyfire then its worth the try i guess.

[kflyer]

Guys, did any of you read Skyfire's privacy agreement ? http://www.skyfire.com/about/privacy-and-security

It seems a bit different than the one of other proxy browsers and explicitly tells that they collect all your usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information and I'm unsure whether they are going to earn a good money from selling your info. The best part is that, they completely trap you from the beginning, starting from your email address and phone number - they can easily build your virtual character in their databases.

[ashu]

you anyways provide your number and email to receive mails, games from established networks and sites like Handango.

I do not see any trick in this, yes ofcourse, if my credit card details, which i presume happens through a minimum of 128 bit security, now is stored with someone else, i will really be concerned.

But then, isn't it a free ware? are they supposed to make it commercial?

[Rafe]

scalability issues - yes I imagine this is a concern, but I would add the skyfire technology is only based on Mozilla tech. Its not really a copy of Firefox on a remote server it is just the easy way to explain the concept... i.e. its probably just the core rendering engine.

kflyer - its a standard disclaimer. You'll see something similar on other e-commerce websites etc. (and indeed other proxy based browsers).

I actually like this browser a lot.

I'm sick of the built-in browser presenting me with tiny mobile versions of google every time I start searching on my opened up E90

[kflyer]

Ok Rafe, sorry then. I've edited my post now. SkyFire really is a great browser given its functionality, but unfortunately I live outside the U.S. So, no chance to experience it.

Rafe - do you see a reason to port away from Opera Mini to Skyfire? Is there a big USP so far from being a native app rather than a java app?

[quote=kflyer;386202]Guys, did any of you read Skyfire's privacy agreement ? http://www.skyfire.com/about/privacy-and-security

It seems a bit different than the one of other proxy browsers and explicitly tells that they collect all your usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Rafe

kflyer - its a standard disclaimer. You'll see something similar on other e-commerce websites etc. (and indeed other proxy based browsers).

I still think that sounds bad. Does Opera state they'll collect personal info for using as they see fit?
Their site seems to say:
How does Opera protect my privacy?
Opera does not store any users' private information. Opera generates statistics of the usage of Opera Mini, but these are aggregated numbers and no information can be linked to a single user.
( http://www.operamini.com/help/faq/#privacy )

This one is sucky sucky. You guys dont even know if this app is collecting your personal banking data, huh. Wake up AAS editors.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This one is sucky sucky. You guys dont even know if this app is collecting your personal banking data, huh. Wake up AAS editors.

Whatever Skyfire is or isn't doing, I'd think we could at least try and keep this discussion polite.

[mst_dev]

I've registered in the early days of Skyfire, but sadly I'm not in the US. I hope that it's available soon because S60 is a non-US popular mobile platform. I think it worth move from the Java-based Opermini to a native browser if it work like they say. Native apps are more powerful and interactive.

[Hih]

Please look here and stop the hype.

http://www.ucfly.com/English/index.shtml