Ovi Browser, First Look – With Download Links

Nokia’s Beta Labs introduced a Beta of the Ovi Browser Wednesday.  It’s based on the Vision browser from Novarra, which Nokia acquired five months ago. The Ovi browser is a proxy based browser, similar to Opera Mini. It renders and transcodes web pages on a server before sending them to the phone client in a highly compressed format. Nokia claims that the compression reduces web traffic by up to 90%. The Ovi browser supports the Nokia 2700 Classic, Nokia 2730 … Continue reading

Verizon Using Novarra’s Transcoder

The largest US mobile carrier, Verizon Wireless has started funneling traffic between Verizon feature phones and the  web through a transcoder from Novarra.  Verizon calls the service “Optimized View” and has added promotional information and a FAQ to their customer website  There is also a page on the carrier’s developer site which has links to a opt-out form and to a  PDF document detailing the rules that the transcoder uses to determine which sites to transcode. Given the disastrous effects … Continue reading

Opting Out of Transcoding

Remember the furor that erupted on the web and the wmlprogramming Yahoo group over transcoders? Specifically, the ones that Vodafone UK and other carriers implemented with the goal of making non-mobile web pages more usable on mobile handsets? The issue was that these services had the (hopefully unintended) consequence of degrading or completely breaking numerous mobile web sites and services. Ring tone and game downloads no longer worked, some mobile web sites didn’t load or displayed malformed content. Sites that … Continue reading

Avoiding Yahoo and Google’s Transcoders (When You Want To)

Transcoders, web services that convert full websites to a mobile friendly format, can be great.  If you are trying to use a site like The Economist‘s that doesn’t have a mobile edition on a phone with an, ahem, limited browser like a RAZR V3, a transcoder is the only way.  You can bring up Google on your RAZR, search for “The Economist”, click the first result and get something that will load on your phone and is readable if not … Continue reading