New UCWEB 6.6 Beta

UCWEB 6.6

Last week UCWEB released a new Beta of their namesake product, a fast server based browser similar in concept to Opera Mini and Bolt but with some great additional features including tabbed browsing and the ability to copy text from web pages.  The new release is version 6.6 and is only available in Chinese from official sources. Fortuanately for English speakers, the Java version of  the Beta has been translated by the same two UCWEB Forum members, New88 and Mannuforall, who have done unofficial translations of previous releases.

New88 has posted three different versions to  this thread on the forum:

1. UCWEB 6.6 Beta using the 6.6 Chinese server. This version has server side performance enhancements and 6.6 specific tweaks:
UCWEB-6.6_beta_chi_trans_by_New88.jar (262.47 KB)

2. UCWEB 6.6 Beta using the UCWEB 6.3 English server which is based in the U.S. and is not subject to “Great Wall” censorship. Some features may not work with this unsupported server/client combination:
UCWEB-6.6_beta_eng_trans_by_New88.jar (262.24 KB)

UCWEB 6.6 Beta using the UCWEB 5.1 Chinese server which is supposedly the fastest server of all:
UCWEB-6.6_beta_5.1server_trans_by_New88.jar (262.2 KB)

Mannuforall has done four translations which are discussed in another thread.

1. UCWEB  6.6 Beta using the 6.3  English server for Nokia and most other phones.

Ucweb 6.6 Beta Nokia.jar (263.58 KB)
Ucweb 6.6 Beta Nokia.jad (393 Bytes)

2. UCWEB  6.6 Beta optimized for Sony Ericsson phones with English server.
Ucweb 6.6 Beta SE.jar (263.57 KB)
Ucweb 6.6 Beta SE.jad (390 Bytes)

3. UCWEB  6.6 Beta with 6.6 Chinese Server.
Ucweb 6.6 Beta Chinese Server.jar (263.55 KB)
Ucweb 6.6 Beta Chinese Server.jad (402 Bytes)

4. Ucweb 6.6 Beta with the MyZone tab and English server. MyZone lets you backup and restore bookmarks, read RSS feeds, and use a UCWEB hosted online disk storage service and an Email client. It has a Chinese-only user interface but there’s a cheatsheet for English speakers here: UCWEB Tutorial
Ucweb 6.6 Beta MyZone.jar (263.57 KB)
Ucweb 6.6 Beta MyZone.jad (397 Bytes)

UCWEB 6.6 URL auto complete and search history

I’m not 100% sure what is new in 6.6. There are Google translations of the original Chinese release notes in both the Forum threads listed above but they are pretty hard to follow. I think main new features are:

1) Auto refresh settings are now persistent accross sessions. With Auto Refresh enabled UCWEB will reload the page on a timer.  It’s configured  in Menu > Preferences > Auto Refresh. This option sounds useful for chat and live sports sites. Unfortunately it’s only enabled for WML pages (image below right).
2) Improvements to the prompts associated with the download block feature added in 6.5.
3) URL auto suggestion based on previously visited pages (image above left).
5) Rendering optimizations for WML pages.
6) The built in search form has a new option to reuse previously entered queries (image above right).
There are also a number of bug fixes including:
1) Fixed a problem with downloading .jar and .jad files with some Nokia S40 phones.
2) Fixed for a screen drawing bug.
3) Fixed an error that was occurring when setting the screen brightness on Nokia S40 phones to 5%.
4) Fixed a bug with the Add Bookmark shortcut key.
5) Fixed a bug that prevented file system browsing on Amoi phones.
6) Fixed a text entry bug on the Nokia E60.
7) Website specific fixes.

I’ve tried all three of New88 translations and Mannuforall’s English server one. They all work well. The quality of both translations is excellent but Mannuforall’s seems a little more complete. New88’s have some untranslated Chinese characters in the application name as it appears in the phone menu and in some of the prompts in the download manager.

Mannuforall has also modified the User Agent that UCWEB sends when you specify “Opera” in the settings to a one that more sites seem to recognize as a desktop browser. With this change Google defaults to the desktop version rather than the mobile one.

I found all the UCWEB 6.6 variants that I tried fast and stable. The new auto completion and search history features are handy time savers.  However, I don’t think I will be using 6.6 very much. The big problem I have with it and all the othe unofficial translations of UCWEB Chinese releases is that they send an HTTP header (accept-language: zhcn) indicating that the user’s preferred language is Chinese. This causes many sites to default to their Chinese versions. It can be very hard to figure out how to switch sites back to English, particularly if your phone doesn’t have a Chinese language pack and all the Chinese characters appear as identical box graphics. I know that Mannuforall has tried to find a fix for this problem but without success.

The new releases are fun to play with but too many sites come up in Chinese for me to recommend them for regular use unless you are bilingual and have a handset that can display Chinese characters. Hopefully UCWEB will release an official English version of 6.6. The last official English release was 6.3 and that’s what I continue to use as it sends a proper English accept-language header. Using the translated Beta’s is just too painful when Google, My.Opera, Facebook, etc appear in Chinese on an English handset.  The good news is that if you want to give 6.6 a try it installs alongside previous versions including 6.5 and 6.3 rather than overwriting them.

UCWEB 6.6 auto refresh and shortcut keys

Related Posts
Mobile Browser Test – UCWEB6
UCWEB 6.3 Official Signed English Version Released for S60
UCWEB 6.5 English Beta
How to Copy PC Bookmarks to UCWEB
Automate Mobile Browsing With UCWEB Searchlets

28 thoughts on “New UCWEB 6.6 Beta

  1. Hi i have a samsung gt b3410 i cant download apps and it keeps saying “jar and manifest do not match” what do i do to get apps and also is there a way around watching youtube clips on my phone as that says “content not supported” its doing my head in lol

  2. hi..SAMSUNG GT-B3410 this is my mobilel model in this model not suitable for any ucweb softwere…so i want full working ucweb application….in my mobile model plz send me thats it….

  3. Sir,can u help me?? Im using 6680,i use ucweb 5.1 jar.Why it does not show all of pictures when i open page of web that contain many picture and also cannot download???

  4. Sir,can u help me ?i can’t download anything using ucweb,when I’m downloading,it doesn’t even move,it stays on 0 byte,I’m using 3110c,ucweb v6.3 en.jar,I’ve no problem using n70,please help me,I’ll be very grateful,tq

  5. Sir would u please tell me download link of Ucb 6.3 (java) english version for my nokia N70. Because ucb(.sis) were not working in my mobile. Please sir help me.

  6. My phone is Nokia N73.I’m trying mp3 songs to download.But I can’t download it.Can download frm ucweb?

  7. Sir,
    before i already told ucb browser(.Sis) English and Chinese both version were not worked in my n70 using Airtel NOP/LIVE.

    So sir want to know How can i Ucb(java) download in my n70 and it will work or not? Bcoz i m very much interested about ucb. So sir plz help me

  8. Susanta,

    That’s a strange case. Are you using the same Access point for Opera Mini and UCWEB?

    If you are and it’s still not working try experimenting with UCWEB’s settings. Try it with and without proxy and with WAP compression on and off.

    If yoy still can’t get it to work I suggest you ask for help on the UCWEB forum (http://forum.ucweb.com). There are many knowledgeable users there including some who are using Airtel. I’m in the U.S. so it’s not really possible for me to troubleshoot problems with Indian operators.

  9. Sir u’ve told me my java settings are wrong nd thats why i am not able to initialize UCBWEB6 on my n70. But sir i want to say i have been already useing ‘opera mini 4.2’ browser since 2year and it work properly in AIRTEL NOP/LIVE setting then why ucb has not worked.

  10. I cant able to initialize Ucweb6 in my nokia n70 and every time it failed to initialize. Plz help me how to initialize ucbweb by using airtel live/nop.

  11. Thanks new88,

    ghees, whether or not free browsing is possible depends which mobile opperator, country and plan you are on. If you share those details in a new comment perhaps someone can help you.

  12. Yeah. Congrats New88 on the great job you’re doing. i guess the next time you’ll release your translation before they could release the Chi version :lol:. Coz you are so faaaaast :D

  13. Hi Dennis, Actually the chinese characters in the app name appears because I didn’t edit it in the manifest file of the app. As I posted it quickly within two hours of the official chinese release.
    And if you had used my translated chinese server version, then you would have noticed chinese prompts in download page. You didnt get chinese prompts in download page of mannu’s translation because you had tried the english server version.
    I am working to make the english server version(ucweb 6.3 server) of uc6.6 beta perfect, I guess the http header zh-cn is mentioned in the server class file of ucweb. I had made ucweb 6.3 patch3(chinese) version of ucweb work perfectly with english server by replacing a class file from official english version to ucweb 6.3 chinese patch3. Hope I fix ucweb6.6 beta also to work with english server(ucweb 6.3) perfectly.
    Two new features features in ucweb6.6 beta java which you didn’t mention was:-
    1)Download Successful prompt when downloading is finished.
    2)Information about renaming .jar to _jar while downloading java apps.
    Yesterday ucweb 6.6 beta for s60v2, s60v3 and for the first time in ucweb history s60v5 version was released, hope Nokia 5800 users are happy. Jbpseudo and akushah are on translating it. Hope they release it soon :)

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