Skyfire 1.0 web browser now available for most platforms!

[slitchfield]

After a lengthy (but evidently productive) beta period, the Skyfire (cross-platform) web browser has now been released as a full v1.0. You may remember that Skyfire, like Op

era Mini, is a proxy-based browser, in that all web content is parsed and compressed before making its way to your phone, saving time and bandwidth. Skyfire's main advantages over Opera Mini are that it offers full multimedia (including Silverlight, Flash video, RealMedia, etc) and Ajax support, meaning that it should work with just about any web site. Skyfire's Raj Singh claims that Skyfire have effectively reduced 'click fear'. Read on for what's new and some useful links.

Read on in the full article.

Hi,

Any idea when it'll be available for the 5800?

Thanks,
T.

[natanlevine]

This may be the biggest threat opera mini has ever faced.
The sheer simplicity of opera mini still seems to hold out for but I see myself solely using skyfire, in a few editions time.
Right now I'll use both depending on particular sites

[rottie]

Their server is down...

[slitchfield]

Yes, just like Ovi Store yesterday, they're experiencing high announcement day server load. High time for a company to get this sort of thing right though - I still say, for both companies, I'd have gone for a drawn out roll-out, managed by device or region.

[joeyfallon]

Loved it on a previous version but getting weird "POSTDATA" errors when trying to log in to my skyfire account on 1.0

All in all an excellent product but with that tiny tiny font it could drive you blind quicker than ... whatever you're having yourself.

[sjgore]

Seems very unstable on my N96. Within seconds of trying it, visiting news.bbc.co.uk crashed my phone and restarted it. Love the variable zoom levels, though. If Opera mini had variable zoom levels, it would be even better.

Steve.

[shoobe01]

> Skyfire, like Opera Mini, is a proxy-based browser, in that all web content is parsed and compressed before making its way to your phone

This could be a little more accurately stated. Skyfire is not really sending content to your phone at all. It's more like VNC or some other remote access sytem. A computer somewhere is doing ALL the rendering, and sending [something proprietary] to the handset. The Skyfire "browser" is just a viewport for their system, not /exactly/ a web browser.

Not that this is bad, but it explains why they can render all sorts of other stuff most cannot, and leaves them open to adding other plugins without an upgrade. It's a neat concept.

[AndyM]

Well, it looks interesting, but on the QVGA screen of an E51, it's just unusable. As mentioned above, the font size is just way too small, both on the web pages, and also the menus and URL entry. I have no problem using Opera Mini on the same screen.

ETA: I've just noticed it seems to be very active even when you're not browsing, and my battery has run down.

[UKJeeper]

I'll give it another try, but the previous beta's sucked on the E90. Just WOULD NOT work on the main screen.


And for all those who have been burned by Skyfire in the past, repeat after me:


"At least it's not Fennec, at least it's not Fennec, at least it's not Fennec, at least it's not Fennec, at least it's not Fennec, at least it's not Fennec, at least it's not Fennec...."

[seki]

uninstall the Beta .. it failed to do a straight update.

Second time around it went fine.
Most impressed with the speed, amazed that it happily plays NASA TV stream just like a PC.

Nice job hope it comes to 5th edition soon.

Yes, I'm an ardent supporter of this excellent browser but the designers would really have to make in sort that HTTP Authentication (e.g. the native browser dialog that asks for username and password when going to certain sites) is supported !

[Micky!]

Had quite a play with Skyfire 1.0 yesterday, and although I too had initial issues with the server, and slow start up, once it was up, and running, it was a joy to use, loading pages very quickly, and playing videos straight from the browser, and letting you zoom right into the videos also. Very impressed.

Many screenshots I took lastnight while multitasking with Gravity can be found here..

http://www.twitpic.com/photos/Mickyfin

[malerocks]

Not recommended if you have one of the older Nseries devices with limited RAM. Hangs the system a lot and loads of memory full errors. Surprising since the site says that it has been tested on devices like the n73.

[Albie999]

Is there anyway of making Skyfire the default browser on N95 8Gb, so that either when I click a link in an email, or a press and hold the 0 for shortcut to browser, skyfire loads rather than the inbuilt browser