Skyfire’s New Beta – UK and Probably World Availability

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Skyfire LogoGood news from Skyfire. Beta 0.85 of the Skyfire Browser has been released! Best of all, it’s now a direct mobile download and registration is no longer required.  Skyfire Home ScreenUntil today Skyfire was only available to users in the US and Canada.  With direct download and no registration I’m thinking anyone in the world should be able to use it now. The Skyfire website mentions that UK users will be connected to a new UK server but doesn’t say anything about other countries.  Can someone outside of the UK, US and Canada try installing Skyfire and see what happens?

I installed the new Beta on my N95-3 by simply visiting get.skyfire.com with the phone’s built in WebKit browser.  You can also download it from the same URL to your PC and install it with PC Tools. The first time I installed I got a warning that I must un-install ny existing Skyfire Beta first  After canceling the installation and removing Skyfire Beta 0.6, I restarted the download and install, which seems to have succeeded.  I was somewhat put off by the message “Component Symbian OS Pipe is missing, Continue Anyway?” that appeared while installing but I ignored the message and pressed on and Skyfire works.

Registration isn’t required, but it allows you to backup your bookmarks and history on Skyfire’s servers so that they are preserved across upgrades and when you change phones.  Existing Skyfire users can log in when they start Beta 0.85 for the first time, new users can create an account from within Skyfire.

uStream video in Skyfire browser

SkyFire is a proxy based browser that is currently available as a native application for most Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (touchscreen and non-touchscreen) and Symbian S60 3rd edition phones.  It uses Firefox as its back-end rendering engine and pages look stunning.  Skyfire’s best feature is great support for web based animation and video.  Unlike the Flash support built into S60, which is limited to obsolete Flash 8 .flv files, Skyfire supports the latest Flash 9 plus Microsoft Silverlight and can play virtually all web based Flash and Silverlight content.

I’ll post a full review of Skyfire 0.85 later.  For now here are the release Notes:

Skyfire 0.85 Release Notes

Released: November 21, 2008

Skyfire brings the PC internet experience to your mobile. Watch videos on YouTube or Hulu, connect with your friends on Myspace or Facebook, shop on Amazon, or listen to music. If you can experience it on your computer, you now can do it with Skyfire on the go.

Skyfire is fast, easy to use and available for free for many smart phone models.

Skyfire 0.85 Beta adds (standard) VGA support for Windows Mobile devices and brings the feature set for our Symbian client in line with Windows Mobile. Skyfire will continue to maintain both platforms in future releases.

We greatly appreciate your participation in our beta community. Your support and feedback on the forums at http://support.skyfire.com/forums/ helps us to constantly improve the product.

What’s new in 0.85 for both Windows Mobile and Symbian:

  • Simple Download: This is big for us and we hope for you as well. Now, there is NO requirement anymore to register in order to download, access, and use Skyfire. With this release, downloading is as simple as pointing your existing mobile browser to http://get.skyfire.com. We detect the device and provide the installer for your phone.
  • Optional Registration: Once downloaded and installed, you can use Skyfire right away. Browse away, create bookmarks, and check your history. Everything will work.
    Why create an account? So you can retain Bookmarks and History in case you lose your phone or have to switch phones. Furthermore you can post and participate in the Skyfire user forums.
    Already have an account? You can still access your existing account by simply logging in on your device. Or, create a new account. Or, migrate your account between phones. It’s now all done from your phone on the Skyfire start page.
  • New UK Data Center: We are looking forward to providing better service for our UK based users and are currently building out a new data center. If you are in the UK you should automatically connect to the new data center and experience better performance. If you are not based in UK, then you will automatically connect to the US data center. Please bear with us as we work out some of the kinks – especially with account migration.
  • Overall Improvements: Client and Server robustness, streaming performance, recovering from lost connections.
  • Improved rendering of mobile pages: We better detect and render more mobile pages. The list continues to expand.
  • Updated Skyfire User Portal: We continue to evolve our user portal and start page. Although some of it was already visible before 0.85, it is worth mentioning:
    • Google Search & Search Results: It’s the best and the most used.
    • Updated weather widget: Now supports Canada and UK postal codes, in addition to US.
    • Region specific start page: Custom feeds and pre-populated bookmarks for US and UK.

What’s new in Windows Mobile 0.85 since Windows Mobile 0.8?

  • Standard VGA support: We are excited to now provide VGA support for the number of new devices that recently entered the market, including the HTC Touch Diamond, Diamond Pro, HTC/ATT Fuze. Please note that we support Standard VGA support (e.g. 640×480). Widescreen WVGA (e.g. 800×480 etc) is NOT supported yet.

What’s new in Symbian 0.85 since Symbian 0.6?

  • More devices: We now support popular new devices such as the N85, N78, N79, N96.
  • SuperBar: A handy new feature to perform a search or enter a URL from a single field – it’s a great time saver that is easily accessible on the top of any page. Search results are provided by Google.
  • Content sharing: You can now share web content by SMS. We even make the URL short enough that it will fit easily into an SMS text message. Especially useful for the really long URLs used by many sites. You can now also share Skyfire itself with friends via SMS.
  • Faster application launch: Skyfire launches much more quickly so you to get to your content quicker.
  • Reconnect: Skyfire will automatically reconnect, so you don’t need to restart when your wireless connection is dropped.
  • Content download: Allows you to download images and other content from most web pages.
  • Bookmarks have been significantly enhanced – giving you much better control.
  • Improved battery life: We won’t drain the battery when you forget to exit Skyfire. Promise!

Downloading and Installing:

For Symbian users PLEASE UNINSTALL YOUR EXISTING CLIENT FIRST! This is due to a change in the way we sign Symbian installers and Symbian security measures require the uninstall. Sorry for the inconvenience. Uninstall 0.6, install 0.85 and then log in to your account (in Skyfire Browser) to get your bookmarks back.

To install onto your Windows Mobile or Symbian S60 device simply point your Pocket Internet Explorer or Symbian browser to http://get.skyfire.com. We will detect the phone and provide you the appropriate installer — download, install, and you are up and running!

For more details on installing you can follow our guide here:
http://staging-www.skyfire.com/users/help-install/

Known Issues:

  • UK Users (UK Data Center)
    • If you have an existing account in our US data center your account might not migrate successfully to the UK. Please have patience.
    • If you switch devices on a regular basis you might end up in the US data center and your account details may not be available to you. We are actively working on this and should have a solution soon.
  • WiFi enabled Symbian devices might sometimes take their time to start. This is related to the device scanning for available WiFi connections.
  • When leaving the phone idle for more than 5 minutes Skyfire will display the start page. (Issue 2892)
  • Playing video for a long time (> 5 min) might disconnect Skyfire. (Issue 2827).
  • Downloading files with long filenames might truncate file extensions. (Issue 2726)
  • Links to media files (MP3’s etc) currently only play back, and do not initiate download.
  • Scrolling through very long list boxes has slow behavior. (Issue 1202)
  • Video will not play on CNN.com or video.yahoo.com. (both plug-in incompatibility)
  • SmartFit on will break some sites (notably Gmail). Please switch SmartFit off.
  • Limited multi-line text entry on Symbian phones

Not supported:

  • WVGA phones (e.g. 800×480 or similar resolution) are yet not supported.
  • DivX and XviD Video formats are not supported.
  • Quicktime movies which require playback external of browser are not supported. (Quicktime clips embedded in a page are supported).
  • FTP browsing and access is not supported. (e.g. URL’s with ftp:// )
  • Anchors (In-page links) are not supported.

15 thoughts on “Skyfire’s New Beta – UK and Probably World Availability”

  1. I am not able to use it .. Its saying not avaible for ur country india … !?? What to do it wheh i will able to use skyfire ?

    • Effective July 1, 2010 Skyfire is focusing on Skyfire for Android and discontinued development of Skyfire for Symbian and Windows Mobile. As part of the change they are only allowing Symbian and Windows phones to connect from the United States, U.K., Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Korea and Taiwan. Press release here: http://www.skyfire.com/focus-geography-and-skyfire-1-0/

  3. I downloaded SkyFire beta V. 0.85 a few days back on my Nokia E62. However it seems to take a hell long of time to load a web page. Also the speed is poor compared to Opera Mini. Maybe E62 is not the right phone for SkyFire to work with.

    Can somebody give update on suitability of SkyFire for E62 ?

    Thanks in advance.

  4. @ToddMylot,

    SkyFire works on the E62 for other users. “file corrupt” probably means that the install file you downloaded is – corrupt. Try downloading it again.

    I find it seems to work better if you download Skyfire to your PC and use Nokia PC Suite to install it. I occasionally get “file corrupt” errors downloading OTA but never with PC Suite.

    If the problem persists, report it on the SkyFire Beta Support Forum at http://support.skyfire.com/forums/ The forum administrators usually respond very quickly.

  5. I tried downloading Skyfire to my Nokia E62, which this site says it supports. I get the same “no pipes” problem, twice, just before it is supposed to finish installing. But, after hitting ok to “continue anyway”, both times, I get a “file corrupt”, and the whole thing shuts down.
    If any of you have heard this before, let me know, right away!
    I am dying to try this software out. I know I need a new phone soon, but if this site says it works on Nokia E62, then it should work!

  6. @ali, You don’t need an account anymore to download and use Skyfire. However, it’s a good idea to get one though so your bookmarks get backed up. You have to create your account using the Skyfire browser. Click the “Login” link on the browsers start page and follow the instructions.

    If you are having trouble registering for an account, you need to contact Skyfire at [email protected], I’m not affiliated with the company so there’s really nothing I can do to solve registration problems.

  7. i am a new user and want to create my new account but i am unable to do so. so please help me in this matter.

  9. I have always enjoyed skyfire here in zambia Africa. I an enjoying the new beta but up to now I am trying to figure out how I can get symbian OS pipes. That’s how I actually found myself here.

  10. Oh i am back with my comments. I simply cant use this browser even with 85 mb of free RAM on my 5320. It just stops responding after a while. And the RAM meter is already 18mb down. Thats insane! Even when it works, it isnt of much use on my edge network. No 3G in India. Thats insane too!!

  11. Ok, I installed it on a N95 today, the Chinese characters shows as good as desktop firefox. the .flv video played on a Chinese youtube-like site named youku.com is nice. but tudou.com only get the audio, i think they encoding the video in flash player 10.
    @Lewis:
    and the GFW aka Great Firewall of China is not a low but a coercion, we often use some technology like mobile transcode outside to over it.

  12. Downloaded last night, too ( damned trouble trying to login into skyfire/users/login, which doesn’t seem to work and only later found get.skyfire.com. Doh! ). Got the same ‘Symbian OS PIPS’ message, which seems a bug, because, if you look, its installed with it. Or is it because i downloaded it using opera and it didn’t detect my phone, wanting the sisx file as back up. Anyway, do you think us foreign renegades might have forced skyfires’ hand? And, if you read the EULA on installing, they are very demonstrative about not taking responsibility for breaking any country specific laws ( chinese fire wall?). As for this build much more stable but i’ll leave it to an expert to make a proper review and notice, among other things, the gains and losses as compared with the previous beta. Look forward to it.

  13. Yes, I can download it in China, But it says the N80’s Screen Reslution(352×416) is not supported and quit installation :-(, i will get a QVGA device to test tomorrow.

  14. I have just downloaded this release.
    *whispers* “Dont tell’em i am in India” :P.
    Let me see how is this one…….

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