Bitstream's Thunderhawk Browser & Service Reviewed

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pdajunkie.net/thunderhawk.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.pdajunkie.net/thunderhawk.htm</a><br /><br /></div>Josh over at PDAJunkie.net has written a brief review on Bitstream's browser and proxy service:<br /><br />"If you use have ever tried to use a Pocket PC to browse the internet, you have probably realize the hard truth that the Internet Explorer which ships with all Pocket PCs is no more then a barebones browser which does nothing to increase the friendliness of browsing the web. Sure, it has favorite places, and a nice GUI to change options and such, but when it comes down to actually browsing the web, Pocket IE just cannot do the job adequately. After getting a Toshiba e740 and a WIFI access point, I just had to find a way to browse the web adequately. After searching a little, I found Bitstream's Thunderhawk. How does it stack up? Read on..."

[Rirath]

Dang it... why does it have to be subscription software? It looks so good too. :cry:
All I want is the browser, I have no use at all for the proxy service.

[Janak Parekh]

Rirath, the proxy is required as the reformatting and image resizing is done server-side. The browser in-and-of-itself is only a small-font renderer. :)

--janak

[ledowning]

I have been using Thunderhawk since about July and have found it quite useful for browsing the web, etc. on my Jornada 568. The downside is, of course, the cost associated with this method. Not only do you have to pay Thunderhawk $50.00US a year, but you would also need to find a dial-up ISP to do your surfing with when you are on the road, unless you have a wireless connection, which again, is quite pricey.

I have found that Thunderhawk is really good at rendering web pages as they should be seen and they are quite readable on the Pocket PC screen without too much scrolling. Many times I dial in using my cell phone on CDMA to synchronize with AvantGo and to browse a few pages of the web. Connection speed is 14400 kbps, but Thunderhawk still works fine.

It really is too bad though, that Microsoft hasn't provided the right tools for the Pocket PC to browse the web properly with Pocket IE and don't get me started on Word and Excel! Maybe these will change with the CE.net software due for release next year? Maybe they can include Access for the PDA as well. For me, that would be very handy.

[jet8810]

Jason, thank you SO much for posting this news article! If you don't mind answering, how did you find out about that article anyway? I didn't submit a news item on it 8O . Anyway....

My 2 cents on ThunderHawk is obviously expressed in the review, but I did not realize the extreme convenience of this browser until yesterday. I am on vacation at a relatives house in Jamaica, and I have the new Belkin keyboard for my Toshiba e740 and also a CF modem which I planned to use to connect to the internet. Using this combo, not only can I retrieve and reply to email, as well as IM people and update AvantGO, but I can post on Pocket PC Forums (like these!) very easily. It truly is amazing how they were able to make the fonts readable when compressing everything on the display. I highly reccomend this browser!

[Rirath]

Rirath, the proxy is required as the reformatting and image resizing is done server-side. The browser in-and-of-itself is only a small-font renderer.

And it looks like a great service for some. Personally what I'd like to see though is an actual browser with many of the listed featues. Landscape, 640x480/800x600, advanced font rendering, and etc. Doesn't seem to me it'd be impossible to do. Now, if they sold that, I'd be very interested. (And sure, it can be done through 3rd party software, but not as well it would seem.)

[Jonathan1]

ANY type of subscription = bad. IMHO.

I just can't see why they couldn't offer 2 options.
1. The method they are using now. Bitstream hosts the proxy for some money.
2. You purchase a bundle package that contains proxy software and browser. The proxy runs off of your desktop. When your PPC is connected to the “net” it links back to your desktop which renders and formats the web page you are going after.

Would this not be possible? Always on. High speed internet access it very common now a days. This should be do-able shouldn’t it? :?:

[Janak Parekh]

2. You purchase a bundle package that contains proxy software and browser. The proxy runs off of your desktop. When your PPC is connected to the “net” to links back to your desktop which renders and formats the web page you are going after.
They do offer something like this, but it's aimed towards corporates, e.g., not cheap. http://www.bitstream.com/wireless/server/info.html has the details.

Since the technology is pretty cutting-edge, this is unsurprising. They probably have several proprietary technologies embedded in the proxy.

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

You purchase a bundle package that contains proxy software and browser. The proxy runs off of your desktop. When your PPC is connected to the “net” it links back to your desktop which renders and formats the web page you are going after.

Sounds feasable, but many high-speed ISPs are very sensitive to servers being run from computers on their network. Around here, our local cable modem ISP does port scans looking for servers - they don't want people dominating their bandwidth.

[urologyhealth]

What about NetFront 3.0 by Access?

[JonnoB]

What about NetFront 3.0 by Access?

Does not compare to Thunderhawk. Netfront is more of a replacement for PIE. I think the ball falls in MS' court and they should update the browser to that coming close to IE6 on the desktop. At least show animated gifs, multiple windows, etc.

[Macguy59]

What about NetFront 3.0 by Access?

I read that review over at Brighthand to. Need to d/l it and give it a wirl.

[Macguy59]

What about NetFront 3.0 by Access?

Does not compare to Thunderhawk. Netfront is more of a replacement for PIE. I think the ball falls in MS' court and they should update the browser to that coming close to IE6 on the desktop. At least show animated gifs, multiple windows, etc.

It may not compare in overall look of the displayed page, but it IS better then PIE. With the upgraded version it can even run java applets.

[DaleReeck]

I have both Thunderhawk and Netfront and they both work well. Thunderhawk is a bit faster and sucks down less bytes to your PPC because it doesn't have to do all the front end loading and downloading that Netfront and PIE do. TH also has a nice landscape mode that works well on the small PPC screens. However, it is a fee service whereas Netfront has a one time charge. If Bitstream ever goes under, Netfront is a nice alternative that you do not have to worry about if the company is going to disappear one day.

My biggest complaint about Netfront is that it doesn't support storage cards. Neither does TH, but TH is a small program of about 1 MB in size. Netfront is huge, 6MB, which can be a problem, especially on 32MB devices. Even though my Toshiba e740 has 64MB, it would be nice to put Netfront on the SD card, leaving the CF slot free for the wireless modem and keeping that huge chunk of program out of main memory.

[dlauri]

Sorry, but there's no way I'd pay $50/year to surf the web on my PocketPC. I'll just limp along with JSLandscape and MultiIE.

[dml]

Thunderhawk is a really impressive service - there is a definite wow factor when viewing web pages using it having been used to Pocket IE. The latest version seems to be much better at handling different connection speeds etc. Still, at $49.95 per year, you probably really need to be a dedicated web browser on your Pocket PC.

I'm not too keen on Netfront. I had a look at it, and the feature list is impressive, but on the sites I tested the rendering wasn't great - problems with font sizes, positioning etc. Of course, if the site(s) you're interested in won't work at all in Pocket IE, it might be worth investigating further.

Personally, I'm sticking with PocketIE, NYDITOT Virtual Display and MultiIE for now...

If you're interested, have a look at my article on browsing the web on a Pocket PC in the latest edition of Foxpop: http://www.foxpop.ndirect.co.uk/PocketPC/browser_01.htm

On a related point, I'm still of the opinion that more needs to be done to encourage people to design sites that cope better with different clients. More people are going to be using Pocket PCs, smartphones etc in the future, and the technology to separate content and presentation does exist, and isn't so hard to implement if it's considered from the outset.

[denivan]

I just ended my 30 day trial period of thunderhawk and I must say it's great...Problem is : it's not 50 USD/year great. Believe me though, nothing comes close to browsing the net with thunderhawk, it's really magic that they can resize everything and make it still be readable on our tiny screens...but 50 USD is a price i can't justify, even though I realize they need to maintain proxy servers etc. Untill price comes down I'll use a landscape tool and crappy PIE.

Greetz

[TMAN]

I purchased Thunderhawk in October after my 30 trial period. I have not looked back. This is trully a great service. I look at it like a magazine subscription that gives me acces to the content I want in a format that is quite a bit easier to deal with.

I frequently dial into my corporate LAN over a BT connection with my T68i. The connection is typically 14.4K. Thunderhawk makes browsing painless because of the compression/optimization the Bitstream servers perform. Try to browse using PIE with graphics on at 14.4K. When I show the software to people, I typically go to cnn.com in both TH and PIE. Imagine which one takes forever and a day to load.

GPRS connections usually yield better performance than HCSD. I typically do not connect over GPRS because more data is passed through the pipe.

Over a WLAN connection there is no comparison. Thunderhawk is BLAZING FAST.

[denivan]

Problem is : I don't want to feel like I keep paying for the same thing, I paid lots of cash in total for my phone, ipaq, mobile phone subscription, gprs subcription...so I don't want to add the extra yearly subscription to Thunderhawk, even tho their software is great....For those who can feel that they can justify the purchase for themselves, enjoy the piece of amazing software ;)

[John Walkosak]

I hear the arguments about the cost, and it really does come down to being a type of luxury item. I got completely hooked during the trial and bit the bullet. I looked at it this way: $50 / 12 months = 4.17 a month; it was worth it to me just in the faster loading times to truly be able to surf while on a wifi connection.

[denivan]

I just received an e-mail that I could prolong my trial period with another 30 days if I take the time to fill out a survey, hopefully they'll send me a survey every month :lol:

[octop8]

Hi wondering if anyone else has this problem....I can't seem to use Thunderhawk over my home wifi connection. If I connect to the net using GPRS, it works fine, but it does not seem to work over wifi. This is strange because I can use PIE fine to surf the net via my home wifi network. Have emailed Bitstream and they say they can't think of any reason why it doesn't work and suggested I uninstalled and reinstalled it again, which I did. Could it be hardware specific? I have a Toshiba e550g and I notice that this is not on the list of devices officially supported.

[denivan]

Strange, I've used it mainly while surfing the net on my iPAQ over my Lan, so basically using it in a WiFi environment should be the same, can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work...

Ivan

[Mona13]

I am using the trial over Wlan at home and I have also used it at work. I really like it.

When I used it via bluetooth, T-Mobile, T68i, my Spb GPRS monitor didn't work. I am really disappointed. Has anyone else had this problem? Hopefully I have a setting wrong and someone will let me know. I used it quite a bit and I'm scared to use it now because I don't want to go over my plan.

[Brianflys]

I'm using TH on a WiFi home network and it generally works fine. Sometimes it fails but I figure it's a transient network issue.

I'm in the demo period. Basically TH is a "7" and all the others are less than a "5".
$50 a year is reasonable considering how well it renders pages. Not tied to PPC web pages.

Three improvements I'd like to see:
--Input using normal options. The keyboard is ok for short entries but not messages (like this.)
--Scroll interval less than full screen. When picture or text extends beyond screen, you cannot scroll slightly to get the image entirely on screen.
--Browse while streaming WMP audio. Audio pauses and skips now (ipaq 3970) whe browsing. At least PIE will allow good audio streaming.