Decent browser 1

[Nelviticus]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good web browser to replace pocket IE? PIE just isn't ideal for a PDA-type device: quite apart from the fact that it's portrait mode only (unless you're lucky enough to have the new Windows Mobile 2003 second edition) it's bad at other things, such as not being able to turn off image placeholders when you turn off image display and not being able to ignore absolute font size settings. In short it's pretty poor at displaying most web pages on a small screen.

I don't mind paying for a good browser if it comes highly recommended.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[RichardMoran]

I haven't looked at any browsers for a while but the most promising I saw was the Thunderhawk browser by Bitstream.

You can find it at

http://www.bitstream.com/wireless

You can find a review with lots of pictures here

http://www.bostonpocketpc.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=137

The only reason I didn't go for it in the end was that you pay a subscription instead of a one off payment. It's only $49.95 per year, but it was the principle I was opposed to.

Having read more recent reviews, I am tempted myself to have a look again. I think they do a 30 day trial version, so you can see for yourself.

Rik

 

[Nelviticus]

Aha, I believe I've heard of that before but I couldn't recall the name.

The reason for the subscription is that it's not just a browser but a combined browser and service. Web pages are filtered through their servers which do a bit of processing to make them more compatible with a small screen and then serve them to the Thunderhawk software on your PPC. A lot of the processor work needed to make the page look good when small (such as resizing the fonts and images) is done by their servers rather than the PDA so it speeds up what would otherwise be a slow process. At least that's what I remember reading a while ago.

I'll give their trial a go but it could be a bit much for my occasional browsing needs.

Cheers, have a star!

Nelviticus