Category Archives: Browsers

New Opera Mini 5 Release Fixes RTL, DST and Text Entry Bugs

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Today the Opera Mini Blog announced a “silent” release of Opera Mini.  I’m not sure how anything announced on the corporate blog is silent, but no matter this appears to be a pretty significant release. It adds 32 new languages and fixes several notable bugs, specifically: RSS feed links should now appear at the top of pages again. RTL (Right To Left) languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, etc. ) should now display properly on phones with supported fonts. Problems with daylight … Continue reading →

Skyfire 2.0 For Android Examined

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Less than 24 hours after I chided Skyfire for only offering only a limited closed Alpha of Skyfire for Android,  the Skyfire for Android 2.0 Beta was released to all comers. Coincidence, almost certainly but cool nonetheless. As soon as it was announced I grabbed a copy of Skyfire from the Android Market with my T-Mobile MyTouch 3G (HTC Magic).  You should be able to easily find it by searching the Market for “Skyfire”.  If not or you have a … Continue reading →

Mobile Browser Wars: Firefox for Android “Pre-Alpha” Released

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The battle of the mobile browsers heated up today with the release of a “pre-alpha” version of Firefox (aka Fennec) for Android 2.0 and above.  Details are on Firefox Mobile developer Vladimir Vukićević’s blog. There’s also a  Google Group that’s been setup for user feedback. The apk can be downloaded from bit.ly/fennec-android. Mozilla suggests disabling Apps2SD (if you use it) and installing Firefox to device memory. AndroidCentral seems to be the first site to post impressions of Firefox on Android … Continue reading →

Bolt 2.02 Released

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Bitstream updated the Bolt browser to version 2.02 today. There doesn’t seem to be a changelog,  but according to a post by one of the admins on the official Bolt user forum its “..a minor update which will speedup the connection in some devices and also fixes the cookies/login-save issues in some devices.” Bolt will prompt you to update every time you launch it. Updating over the air is pretty painless with most platforms. If you have problems updating, visit … Continue reading →

Crazy News Day: Opera Mini Approved for the iPhone!!

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The last 18 or so hours have been crazy with announcements in the mobile world. Opera Mini was approved for the iPhone, Nokia announced three new QWERTY phones at impressively low price points and there’s a new Bolt browser release. I don’t think anyone expected that Apple would approve the Opera Mini iPhone app. But the app store rules are so vague and approval process so opaque that you can never predict what Apple will bless and what they won’t. … Continue reading →

Debunking the iPhone’s 64% US Mobile Browser Share

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Image: Engadget At the iPhone 4.0 SDK release announcement yesterday Steve Jobs made the claim that the iPhone has a 64% US Mobile Browser “User Share”. An accompanying slide showed shares for all mobile browsers as: iPhone: 64% Android: 19% BlackBerry: 9% Other: 8% I’m skeptical of this number as it’s considerably higher than other estimates I’ve seen that put the iPhone’s share of mobile web traffic considerably lower. The source for the slide is given as “Net Applications, Feb … Continue reading →

How to Change the Bolt Browser’s User Agent

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A lot of people seem to want to change their mobile browser’s User Agent header. The subject comes up all the time on the Opera Mini MyOpera forum.  The complaint is always the same, some web site is redirecting Opera Mini users to a limited mobile version of the site when the user wants the full site.  This happens because every browser sends a User Agent header which identifies it. Web developers often use the User Agent to direct browsers … Continue reading →

Bolt 2.0 – Now With Tabs And Facebook Integration

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A Beta version of Bolt 2.0 was released  today.  The biggest change is the inclusion of tabbed browsing. This brings Bolt’s feature set closer to its chief competitors in the proxy based Java browser space, UCWEB and Opera Mini both of which already have tabs. Also new in this release is the ability to share links on Facebook and update your Facebook status from within Bolt. The tab implementation in Bolt is pretty nice.  When a link or bookmark is … Continue reading →