Skyfire and Opera Mini Updated

Making a decision on a next-gen Windows Mobile Browser just got tougher again, friends. SkyFire has been updated to 0.8.5 and the new version brings a few new features. Namely: support for larger screens (hi Touch Pro!) and the best feature of all: an immediate download of the open beta. Just head to http://get.skyfire.com/ to get the SMS punched out to your phone (US and Canada seems to be the focus here, though). Since Skyfire is proxy-based, it is able to render fairly quickly server-side and them push the page out for your zooming pleasure. It's also the best browser for multimedia since it's able to handle most Flash video and media embeds on that proxy server and then send it out.

If you're looking for a simpler proxy-based solution and you have an inexplicable yet abiding love for Java Virtual Machine, you might also be interested to know that Opera Mini (opens in new tab) is tapping in at 4.2 now with skins, performance enhancements, and some minor syncing abilities with Desktop Opera. Early support for video is here as well, but only for those dirty Symbian users.

WC Staff
4 Comments
  • This post prompted me to download skyfire. It seems nice, it's a keeper for now, but it had some connection issues. I wonder if they're having a run on their system now?
  • I have been using skyfire since first beta. works great on wifi and evdo but is really tedious and slow over 1xrtt.
    Mini works great on my 700wx, not so good on my Touch and I have not tried it on the 800W yet.
  • SkyFire will never be a long term solution while it only operates in one market ignoring mobile phone usage is already advanced in Europe.
    Set a shortcut for Opera Mini and you'll never notice that it runs on Java.
  • So far SkyFire seems to be pretty nice. It can do somethings on the net hat are impossible to do with Opera or IE such as,,,, some buttons/links on some web pages are not accessible with other browsers.