Pocket PC Web browsers – the complete roundup

[Menneisyys]

UPDATE (04/04/2007): this document is officially deprecated now that a brand new Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible has been published. Please see http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=433756
(End of update.)



One of the most frequently asked questions on Pocket PC boards concerns Pocket PC Web browsers.

As this question is far more complicated than most PPC users would imagine and questions like ‘which browser should I use’ just can’t be answered with a short answer, I’ve decided to devote a complete, full-fledged roundup of all the available Web browser solutions so that, knowing your particular needs, you will have enough information to choose.

Unfortunately, all the current Pocket PC browsing solutions have severe flaws. They are all far dumber than any decent desktop browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Safari etc) and have sometimes totally diffuse capabilities (for example, one may be great at running Java applets, another is the only browser capable of in-page text search, the third excels at running your favourite JavaScript-based game etc). It’s highly possible you end up using three or four different browsers because of this.

Enough already with the talk! Let's get to the browsers.

There are several Web browsers for the Pocket PC. They are as follows:

Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE)

The Web browser that shipped with all Pocket PC’s as part of the ROM. It has both advantages (for example, it doesn’t do pixel doubling on VGA devices at rendering text and its default RAM usage is very low, compared to other browsers. Furthermore, its cookie, proxy and cache handling is the best and standards-compliant) and disadvantages (it has almost no configuration options; it offers no tab support; it’s too much tied to pixel doubling in non-native VGA modes (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39544); it is pretty slow with pages that contain several different images and its cache should be in the RAM (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376)).

Due to the severe functionality limitations listed above, several add-ins (in PIE parlance, plug-ins) have been developed for PIE. As these plug-ins can’t entirely take over rendering the document (for example, can’t add a better JavaScript engine, can’t change the default rendering in SE VGA (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39544) to a more VGA-friendly one etc.), standalone browsers have also been written/ported to the Windows Mobile platform. Standalone browsers, however, aren’t necessarily better than PIE in some areas, especially in VGA compliance, cookie, proxy and cache handling, the major weak points of third-party browsers.

First, let’s take a look at the PIE plug-ins. There’re three of them. The fourth, ftxPBrowser, operates quite differently from the other three, but I still list it in this section because it still uses the PIE engine to render HTML pages and (fortunately) uses the PIE low-level framework, so, it has no problems with caching/cookies/proxies.

PIE plug-ins

MultiIE 3.1 d 59 (http://www.southwaycorp.net/multiie.htm)

A very good and popular PIE plug-in. Much as it’s resident in the memory (as with all the other two true PIE plug-ins), it doesn’t consume any CPU cycles when inactive (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376).

It really has a lot of features at the expense of its memory usage, which, particularly on VGA devices, can be pretty breathtaking – if you open a new window, it may even take 2 Mbytes of RAM.

Furthermore, the “close window” icon is located far too close to the MultiIE button and can’t be hidden. There will certainly be cases, especially in native VGA mode, when you click it instead of the MultiIE button. PIEPlus and SPP are certainly better at this.

Another annoying problem with MultiIE is that the built-in browser identification change support (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101028) requires a soft reset. Fortunately, you don’t need to use it if you use the nScriptm script I’ve provided in the linked article.

Its unmatched goodies are, for example, full page saving is the same as the default page saving option in the desktop Internet Explorer – it not only saves the HTML file itself, but all the resources it uses (images, JavaScript pages, CSS files etc – everything!).

Also, support for the built-in, no-reset screen orientation change feature of Nyditot is unmatched.

Another excellent feature only MultiIE has is the URL editor, which is great for people that often want to edit URL’s using a SIP (Software Input Panel) as an input device.

Also, it has another unmatched feature, the ability to call third-party programs (see "Enable Page Extensions" and "Enable Link Extensions"). I’ll devote an entire article and, possibly, some self-written utilities/MultiIE enhancers to this subject later.

Its also has an enhanced GO button (see the arrow on the right side of the traditional Go icon, right to the Address Bar) with rudimentary macroing capabilities. This can make the life of users of services like Google, Skweezer (http://www.skweezer.net/) or WebWarper (http://webwarper.net/) much easier.

I show the usefulness of this feature by some examples. If you’ve read my article on reducing Internet bandwidth usage on the Pocket PC (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062005CompressionTester/), you may have spotted the URL Skweezer uses to directly translate a Web page into a one-column like format.

This URL has the following form:

http://www.skweezer.net/skweeze.aspx?m=2&url=<URL>

(where url= can also be written as q= ; I used the latter in my article. Also, you can leave the http:// from the beginning, but you don’t have to.)

As clearly can be seen, the URL of the target page needs to be inserted in this URL verbatim, at the end. This is where the macro scripting capabilities of MultiIE can be of real help.

Instead of copying the entire http://www.skweezer.net/skweeze.aspx?m=2&url= prefix in the address bar of your PIE manually and, also manually, adding the target URL of the page you want to translate, you only need to enter the target URL to the Address Bar of your PIE, click the drop-down menu in the right (again, the GO button menu) and choose Skweezer (PDA) from there. The built-in macros will take care of inserting the actual contents of your Address Bar in the pre-defined URL and load the page addressed by the compound URL.

Defining a macro doing something like this is very easy. For example, the above (pre-defined) macro looks like this (MultiIE Options/Misc/Address bar macros):

http://www.skweezer.net/skweeze.aspx?m=2&url=*^;-Skweezer (PDA),http://www.skweezer.net/skweeze.aspx?m=3&url=*^;-Skweezer (Text),*^;-Skweezer (Off)

If you understand the introduction, then, you also understand what this means. This macro instructs MultiIE to put three Skweezer macros in the Macro menu; the first with the PDA, the second with the Text and the third with the Off suffix. The URL that must be copied verbatim into the Address Bar is before the ;- ; the place where the user-entered string must be placed in this URL is denoted by *^. The string to be displayed in the GO button menu is between the leading ;- and the trailing , (comma), just after the verbatim URL it includes in the Address Bar.

Knowing this, you won’t have a hard time understanding the pre-defined ‘Open Button: Search’ macro either, which has the definition for four macros:

http://www.google.com/ie?q=#^;-Search Web - Google,http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=#^;-Search News - Google,http://quote.money.cnn.com/quote/quote?symbols=#^;-Stock Quote - CNN,http://maps.yahoo.com/mapsch?country=us&csz=#^;-Street Map - Yahoo

Now, a little bit of excersion: let’s add WebWarper support in MultiIE, in the same (Proxy) macro group as Skweezer!

As WebWarper has two main modes, the standard ( av ) and the text only (s) mode with different URL’s:

Standard: http://webwarper.net/ww/~av/<URL>
Text-only: http://webwarper.net/ww/~s/<URL>

we define two new macros:

http://webwarper.net/ww/~av/#^;- WebWarper - Standard, http://webwarper.net/ww/~s/#^;- WebWarper - Text

and insert this at the end of the Proxy macro:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MultiIEWebWarperMacro-1.gif.png

Then, we just enter the page we would like to see “one column”-ized in the Address Bar field (example page here (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119616)):

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MultiIEWebWarperMacro-2.gif.png

and choose, say, WebWarper - Standard from the GO button menu:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MultiIEWebWarperMacro-3.gif.png

The results:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MultiIEWebWarperMacro-4.gif.png

Based on this explanation, you will be able to write any macro.

Please note that MultiIE doesn’t support any ‘advanced’ macroing capabilities (for example, regular expression-based automatic translation), “just” verbatim including, but it’ll work in most cases where parameters are passed in GET HTTP requests like with Google, WebWarper or Skweezer.

This method, therefore, can’t be used with anything that gets it parameters through a POST request (some other Web-based GZIP on-the-fly HTTP compression services, for example). Also, you can’t make MultiIE include more than one parameters during running a macro – this means you can’t, for example, pass your login name and password at the same time to authentication server-side code via a macroed script.

Reensoft PIEPlus 1.3b2 (http://www.reensoft.com/download/PIEPlusSetupV1_3_Beta2.exe)

Please note that the beta isn’t directly linked from the developer Reensoft’s (http://www.reensoft.com/) homepage. The homepage only has the older version, 1.2, online. However, the beta is publicly available (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35615).

Another very good PIE plug-in, with considerably smaller memory consumption than MultiIE.

It’s definitely less featureful than MultiIE, however; except for the ‘Pocket View’ mode, which is a welcome addition to all pre-WM2003SE Windows Mobile users (PIE has only started to have the “One column” view mode from WM2003SE; this feature is almost exactly the same). Of the PIE plug-ins, only PIEPlus and ftxPBrowser add this feature.

It has some other goodies that makes it much better than the rest of the contenders (except for MultiIE): the built-in User-Agent identification change (which is, unlike that of MultiIE, isn’t buggy), screen dragging and full screen mode without scrollbars. However, it doesn’t support for example page saving at all.

An example of Pocket View in action, on a WM2003 device:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/OneColumnWM2003-PIEPlus-PocketView.gif.png

Without that, you would need to read the page like this (this is all the WM2003 PIE is capable of if you enable View/Fit to screen):

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/OneColumnWM2003-PIEPlus-StandardView.gif.png


PIEPlus has problems too. The first is that the height of the tabs can’t be set (unlike with MultiIE) and, consequently, especially in Landscape mode, they take up too much screen estate. Furthermore, if you don’t disable them, they will cause scrolling problems in the default (page) scroll mode in both the full screen and the default non-full screen mode. Some examples (all taken in SE VGA; note that I haven’t directly inserted the images in here because I don’t think many people would be interested in them):

Pocket View mode on - 1 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSEScrolling-1.gif.png) and 2 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSEScrolling-2.gif.png) (as you can see, you need to scroll back a bit in order to be able to read the row that starts with ‘integrate into PIE’).

Pocket View mode on - 1 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSEFSScrolling-1.gif.png) and 2 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSEFSScrolling-2.gif.png) – the same Pocket View mode, now, in full screen. The same bug.

Pocket View mode off, but the WM2003SE PIE One Column mode on - 1 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSENoPocketViewOneColumnScrolling-1.gif.png) and 2 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSEFSScrolling-2.gif.png) – the same problem. Also, the same in full screen: 1 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSENoPocketViewOneColumnFSScrolling-1.gif.png) and 2 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSENoPocketViewOneColumnFSScrolling-2.gif.png). Furthermore, these two shots demonstrate that hiding the address bar won’t help either: 1 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSENoPocketViewOneColumnNoAddressBarScrolling-1.gif.png) and 2 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusSENoPocketViewOneColumnNoAddressBarScrolling-2.gif.png).

Finally, some shots of PIEPlus with disabled tabs: 1 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusTabsHidden-1.gif.png) and 2 (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PIEPlusTabsHidden-2.gif.png) (it behaves the same way in full screen). As can be seen, it’s only by disabling tabs that there won’t be scrolling problems.

Fortunately, if you have a jog dial on your PDA and switch to line-based scolling from the default link-based scroll, this problem will also go away, at the expense of the need for scrolling far too more.

Also, it has another minor problem: if PIEPlus is active, the PIE context menus (image/link menus) become small on VGA devices, meaning not really 100% VGA compliance.

Spb Pocket Plus (SPP) 2.5 and 3.0 (http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/pocketplus/?en)

The third famous PIE plug-in. It doesn’t know much compared to the first two plug-ins (MultiIE and PIEPlus), but the feature set it has may be well enough for a lot of WM2003SE VGA users that don’t need, for example, full screen without scrollbars or for whom, for example, the Nyditot support in MultiIE or the Pocket View mode of PIEPlus are useless.

During the 2.5 -> 3.0 update, SPP received a new important feature: it is capable of loading new pages in the background, without your explicit switching back to the tab you’ve been reading. A new bugfix is also welcome: the <TITLE>-extraction bug, which was a real pain in the back in older versions, has been fixed.

ftxPBrowser 0.1e (http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=686)

This is not a plug-in physically; therefore, it has both advantages and disadvantages over the first three solutions, which integrate better into PIE. However, it still uses the PIE framework with all its goodies (reliable cache/cookie/proxy handling/international encoding and character support).

First, the advantages. It consumes far less memory than any of the other solutions (some 20 kbytes, as opposed to the sometimes 2 Mbytes of MultiIE – that’s a difference of two orders of magnitude!) when it opens a new browser window (tab). Also, it has, just like PIEPlus, a built-in One Column-type of view, which is good news for pre-WM2003SE users:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/OneColumnWM2003-ftxp-FitToWindow.gif.png

(This has been taken on a WM2003 device which, consequently, doesn’t have a built-in One Column-mode.)

The third advantage is the ability to directly save binary files like CAB files – no other browser/PIE plug-in is capable of this. (More on this later.) And, the fourth, it’s, as with Minimo, free, unlike all the other solutions.

Now, the disadvantages. As it doesn’t integrate into PIE and uses its own engine to do everything, it has some (not very annoying) shortcomings. For example, WM2003SE VGA users will notice at once the lack of native VGA support (which isn’t a big issue though). More important is that the Layout menu is missing from View on WM2003SE devices:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/ftxPBrowserViewMenu.gif.png

Yes, there is no ‘One Column’ view mode.

Fortuntately, that’s not that big a problem if you use the built-in renderer that is pretty similar to One Column.

Bottom line: much as it has not as many features as MultiIE or PIEPlus, it’s 1. again, free 2. has very limited memory consumption. Therefore, it’s a worthy contender.

Standalone applications

NetFront (NF) 3.2 (http://nfppc.access.co.jp/english/)

As of now, the most important alternative browser. Has both advantages over PIE - and also disadvantages; on VGA devices, the lack of native VGA support being the biggest.

As far as advantages are concerned, it’s the only browser to sport in-page text searching. Also, it has clearly better JavaScript support than PIE and also has a very nice feature, Auto-Cruise, which is like an automated web extractor (read more on external, PC-based solutions at, say, regarding my Mobipocket Web Companion Support Pack, here (http://winmobiletech.com/mwc)). It’s the only browser to have built-in Flash support. (Note that adding Flash support to PIE isn’t complicated and it’s free, though.)

However, it still has problems, mainly because it’s not based on the PIE framework. Much as it has definitely fewer bugs than version 3.1 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,41008&/netfront_3.2_english_finally_released.htm), it still has problems with cookie handling, DST-wise (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=351433), its JVM is still prone to memory leaks and generic slowdowns (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=352806) and it has problems with Oriental languages like Korean (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=4179). Furthermore, the tabs and the scroolbars in the full screen mode can’t be hidden – this is a major flaw! It’s still a big step forward, compared to NF 3.1, if you don’t take the lack of native VGA support into account.

Its benchmark results, memory consumption etc. are all OK – nothing to write to home about, but not bad either.


ThunderHawk (TH) 2.1 (http://www.bitstream.com/wireless/products/pocketpc/)

ThunderHawk has always been one of the best PPC browsers, especially on QVGA devices. Its major strengths are:

- without any kind of “One Column”-type modes, it’s capable of displaying even multicolumn tables without problems
- the server it uses strips all unnecessary HTML markup from the HTML files it sends, resulting in sometimes major bandwidth usage savings.
- its memory consumption and speed is very good

However, it has major flaws:
- on VGA devices, it still uses QVGA resolution, which is particularly annoying with images/applets
- it is only able to display Western characters – no Chinese, no Japanese, no Arabic, no Hebrew, not even East-European characters.
- its persistent cookie handling is buggy
- it doesn’t have a multitabbed mode – that is, you can only browse/load one HTML page a time
- its monthly/yearly fee may be a bit on the steep side (50 US$/year). It, however, also has a 30-day free trial version.
- it doesn’t use any kind of local cache, which may result in far higher bandwidth usage than with browsers that have
- it can’t use HTTP proxies – that is, you can’t use any further GZIP compression, unlike with all the other browsers (except Minimo). This may also be a big problem – see my bandwith consume-benchmarks here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062005CompressionTester/)
- it has absolutely no features like image saving, link copy, HTML page save; not even page content copying works
- much as its Java VM (a welcome addition to version 2.1) is pretty capable, it uses a special client/server model that makes a lot of applets very hard to use or even useless. (See for example this article (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=774170) on the Radar applet – using TH, not only map dragging/GUI handling are almost impossible, but also the labels are impossible to read.)

However, if you’re looking for a great browser for QVGA devices, ThunderHawk may be the way to go.

A remark on the buggy cookie handling. First, you need to explicitly enable inter-session cookie storing in Settings (it’s not enabled by default; you need to enable this in the Settings dialog. For people more interested in the config files used by TH: the state of the cookie storage/allowing is stored in properties.txt in its home. It’s 2 if persistent cookies are allowed but third-party cookies aren’t (meaning cookies issued by different pages than the current page) and 1 if yes).

Upon (re)start, TH only uses cookies stored in its Cookies subdirectory, not that of SessionCookies. If you navigate to a page, it’ll automatically move the cookie of the page (if present) from Cookies to SessionCookies and (generally) doesn’t move it back (that is, they will be ignored next time) when you exit TH. There’re cases when it moves cookies from Cookies to SessionCookies, but it doesn’t happen to all cookies. This means you may end up having to re-login to your sites after every browser restart unless manually save each cookie that isn’t copied to Cookies to a third directory and manually copy them to Cookies before each browser restart.

Minimo 0.007 (http://www.meer.net/~dougt/minimo_ce/MinimoCE_0.007.zip)

This application is being developed continuously and is progressing by leaps and bounds. This (0.007) is the first build to include tabbed multipage support; this is why I’ve included it in the roundup. Its page loading times and the memory consumption of the rendered pages/additional tabs aren’t that bad (it’s only its program memory consumption that IS high – around 10 Mbytes, while all the other browsers consume way less program memory!)

Unfortunately, it seems it’s not possible to make it work without pixel doubling on VGA devices. Neither the traditional forced VGA hack nor Mad Programmer’s Hi-Res tool (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=3754) work in SE. Neither does native VGA work.

Furthermore, much as it worked on my Pocket Loox 720 great (the device had some 80-90 Mbytes of free RAM) and, albeit very slow, on my iPAQ 2210 too, several people have reported fatal errors (it doesn’t even start) with other devices, mostly with the hx4700 and the x50v.

Its rendering engine leaves a lot to be desired. There’s not any kind of small-screen optimization (meaning you’ll need to scroll horizontally a lot), and only uses non-proportional fonts:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/Minimo007Jarscom.gif.png

Also, its operation is awkward: in most cases, for example, it doesn’t use the D-pad/jog dial.

Now, its advantages:

- its additional memory consumption for each tab is very small
- its scripting support seems to be the best: it’s the only current PDA browser to render (and navigate) Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) (quite) properly. The same stands for the redhotpawn.com/ test (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41265), where it was better than even TH.

Some examples of the Google Maps test:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MinimoGoogleMaps-1.gif.png

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MinimoGoogleMaps-2.gif.png

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MinimoGoogleMaps-3.gif.png

All in all, it’s still pretty useless for generic browsing, but already has some areas (namely, running advanced scripts) that it’s the only PPC-based Web browser that actually works.

Co-existing of browsers/PIE plug-ins on the same PPC

In general, all these apps peacefully co-exist on the same PDA, except for PIEPlus and MultiIE. Never install them on the same PPC! Always, at least, delete the shortcut of the already-installed, other application in \Windows\Startup and reset your PPC to reboot in order to avoid major crashes – once, my iPAQ 2210 was even hard reset because I’ve installed PIEPlus while MultiIE was still active.

SPP, on the other hand, does co-exist with both MultiIE and PIEPlus. So does ftxPBrowser and all the third-party, standalone browsers.

Enough already with the talk! Let's get to the major feature, the benchmark/bug/feature table!

Here you are :) (http://winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/browsertable.htm) (Sorry, as the local forum engine doesn’t support inline tables, I had to relocate the table onto my homepage.)

Explanation for the table:

Application type : either a PIE plug-in or a standalone app.

Screen estate utilization group: everything related to how browsers are able to make use of the available screen estate.

Full screen mode? : can you switch to full-screen mode, hiding the taskbar at the top and the command bar at the bottom? I’ve also noted the way to switch back to normal mode; it’s, for example, a little icon as with all the three (real) PIE plug-ins, which is the best and least space-consuming.

Scrollbar (may be) hidden in full screen mode? : better browsers and browser plug-ins may be configured to hide the horizontal/vertical scrollbars in full screen mode. Unfortunately, only MultiIE and PIEPlus support this.

Dynamic landscape switching compliance? : can you dynamically switch between Portrait and Landscape in WM2003SE+ while the program is running? Fortunately, yes, even with NetFront 3.2 in forced VGA mode with the address bar displayed (in 3.1, it resulted in a very thick address bar).

Memory occupation & benchmarks group: everything related to memory occupation (with all its aspects), loading times etc. I’ve measured memory consumption with the SOTI Pocket Controller (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=355320) (Tools/System Info); in most cases, I’ve even jotted down the free (in some cases, occupied) memory size (in Megabytes) in all the fields. For example, the 25.48/ 24.73/ 23.64/ 22.92 / 22.19 sequence means in the Memory / tab; WM2003 row, with MultiIE that the PPC had 25.48 Mbytes of free RAM before I opened the second tab, while, after opening it, this decreased to 24.73 Mbytes and so on.

Overall storage mem. occ.; ROM/RAM (the latter after possible hacking!) : ROM, in this case, means storage (which can be a storage card). RAM means the required part in the main memory needed for static storage (not runtime execution!). “The latter after possible hacking! ” means I’ve always taken into account the possibility of hacking part of the given application to flash ROM-based media to save precious RAM. This is only necessary with the two SPP versions (please read this article on this subject (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20460)); other apps can be entirely installed to alternative media. The ~ mark meaning approximately 0 kbytes means that only .unload files and AppMgr DLL’s are copied to main RAM (which, incidentally, can also be deleted/relocated (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=357766)).

PIE plug-ins: persistence in memory? Where started from? : with PIE plug-ins, which are resident in memory (ftxPBrowser is different from the rest of PIE-related apps in this respect too!), this row describes how they are started. You may need this in order to be manually remove/disable these applications, without uninstalling them. For example, if they are started from \Windows\Startup, you just move the .lnk file that starts them to another directory. If they are started as a system service (that is, from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Services in the Registry), you may want to change the linked DLL name in there to temporarily disable the service and to make sure it’s completely removed off the memory after the next reboot.

PIE plug-ins: dynamic program memory occupation? Another resident PIE plug-in-related test: how much memory do they occupy after booting in the PPC, before starting PIE – that is, if you use them, how much RAM memory do you permanently lose (until you uninstall / disable them). As you can see, if you don’t enable any other SPP service (battery bar, X button), SPP consumes 370kbytes of RAM (quite much, taken into acount the fact that SPP is by far the least-capable PIE plug-in), while MultiIE 270k and PIEPlus only 190k.

Overall runtime program mem. occ. after start; measured in VGA: this test shows how much dynamic program memory the given browser/ PIE plug-in + PIE combo consume. I’ve measured this with the default pages loaded (which don’t take much memory – say, 100 kbytes at most, if you also take into account the necessarily, in most cases, about an order of magnitude bigger memory consumption of a parsed HTML file). As you can see, PIE without plug-ins is the best (around 1 Mbyte memory consumption) in this respect, TH being the second. Then come the PIE + plug-in combos. They are followed by NF (4 Mbytes) and, finally, Minimo with a whopping 10 Mbyte (an order of magnitude worse than that of PIE!)

PPCMag demo HTML page (600kbytes + images) load time & memory consumption of the in-memory HTML representation : It’s a well-known fact that if you load a HTML file in a browser, it has to parse it and transfer its content to an in-memory (say, W3C DOM) representation. This will, however, result in a memory representation that consumes far much more memory than the original HTML file.

In this test, I’ve used a 600 kbyte HTML file, saved off the Pocket PC Magazine forum (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/PPCMagTest/). I used a long file in order to both safely measure its memory consumption and the loading time.

As you can see, TH was the fastest to load the page (14 secs) and it consumed the least memory (300k); the second fastest was PIE with a whopping 9 Mbyte memory consumption. Minimo wasn’t much worse than PIE loading-time wise and the memory consumption of the parsed HTML file was clearly less than that of PIE (kudos to Minimo!). Netfront was the slowest (but still not much slower than PIE!), but its memory consumption was about half of that of PIE. Please note that all browsers except NF were able to render the start of the page almost instantly; in NF, you need to switch to the Rapid-Render mode (a new, highly useful feature in NF 3.2) to combat the lack of this.

Memory / tab; WM2003 and Memory / tab; WM2003SE VGA : how much memory each tab (which, with PIE plug-ins, almost always – except for ftxPBrowser – results in reloading about half of PIE into memory) consume. For this test, I used a very small HTML file that only displays “test” (available here (http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/small/test.html)) so that only the real plug-in + PIE code that is counted in, and not the size of the parsed Web page.

As can clearly be seen, there’re big differences between the alternative browsers.

First, the “native”, standalone applications like ftxPBrowser, Minimo and, to a certain degree, NF consume far less memory than PIE plug-ins, which, in effect, reload (part of) a completely new PIE instance into the memory. This is why ftxPBrowser only consumes 20 kbytes of RAM if you open a new tab in it, while the memory-hog MultiIE can allocate even 1.5-2 Mbytes – two orders of magnitude more memory.

It’s also worth pointing out that the memory allocation needs of some programs are greatly dependent on whether they are run on a QVGA device or on a VGA device, in VGA-enabled mode. This, to a certain degree, understandable – you need, for example, 4 times more memory to store uncompressed images in VGA than in QVGA. However, I do think that with some more optimalization, even the memory-hog MultiIE could have been made much more memory-friendly.

The leap in memory consumption is clearly visible with MultiIE and NF. It’s worth pointing out that ftxPBrowser consumes the same 20 kbytes even in VGA mode. Way to go ftxPBrowser! :approve:

Context switch between the two PPCMag 600k test pages : many people have been complaining about the time needed for switching between browser tabs (pages). This is why I’ve decided to include this test in the roundup.

For the test, I’ve used the same 600 kbyte-long PPCMag HTML file as with the in-memory HTML representation test. I’ve loaded these two pages in two different tabs within the same browser and measured the time needed for switching between the two windows. For this, I’ve underclocked my originally 520 MHz Pocket Loox 720 to 104 MHz so that the differences can be more clearly seen and measured. (I’ve used the same benchmarking methology as in my image viewer test here (http://winmobiletech.com/PICVIEWERS/).)

As can clearly be seen, even the slowest-to-switch browser, Minimo, and PIE plug-in, MultiIE, can swith in 3 and 1.5…3 seconds, respectively, at 104 MHz. This, assuming a much faster PDA, means that there are very slight differences between the tab switching speeds of the current PPC browsers/plug-ins and are all well under 1 seconds in today’s PDA’s running at least at 300 MHz and on WM2003+. (Note that I haven’t made any PPC2k2 tests for this roundup. The PPC2k2 PIE is by far the slowest PIE I’ve ever benchmarked (non-English link!) (http://www.winmobiletech.com/gprs).)

Network connection group: accessing the Net – part one.

Proxy support? Is the given app able to use proxy servers?

Proxy servers can be very handy in a lot of respects. Please see this article (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062005CompressionTester/) (also linked from this (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/newsl_jkwg/JKWG_06-07-05.htm) PPCMag article) on the usage of proxy servers. Also, you may want to read this article (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=28878) for more information on configuring proxies on the PPC/switching between them.

As you can see, PIE, starting with PPC2k2, uses a system-level proxy server setting. PIE plug-ins also use them as they have access to all the PIE resources. NF is also able to do the same, but you can also supply a different proxy server to it locally (which is the preferred and easiest solution in most cases).

TH and Minimo, on the other hand, has no proxy support at all. (Minimo will most probably have it in the future.)

Proxy-based anonymity? If you use proxies, you can also anonymously surf the Web (please see this (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062005CompressionTester/) and this (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101028) article on anonymity). This is why PIE (with all its plug-ins) and NF are preferred for anonymous surfing. TH, while it doesn’t support proxies, doesn’t pass anything client-related (no IP, no ThunderHawk username) to the HTTP server, so, it can safely be used for anonymous Web surfing too. Minimo can’t be used for this as yet.

Does use the PPC2k2+ Connections framework to diff. between The Internet/Work connections? : You may have already run into the The Internet/Work distinction, which effectively plagues the life of a lot of people (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17263). PIE is based on this paradigm; this is why you run into a lot of ‘can’t connect’ messages because of just using the opposite type of connection of what’s needed, like in the following image:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/WorkResourceAccessViaTheInternetConnectionPIE.gif.png

NF, TH and Minimo aren’t based on this framework, which is a big plus with them, at least for people that don’t understand the The Internet/Work distinction ( it’s not an easy stuff; furthermore, it’s not really documented either (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39784)).

Security: : HTTPS/SSL? This speaks for itself – it’s only Minimo that doesn’t support SSL. The next build, 0.008, will most probably have SSL support, though.

Bandwidth reduction group: HTTP browsers that support GZIP compression (please read this (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062005CompressionTester/) article on this subject) and support working through proxies (the case of Toonel – more on this later) may deliver a big win in bandwidth usage. The same stands for the other two bandwidth compression clients, Globlity GHO and OnSpeed.

GZIP/Compress support? Does it really work? The HTTP protocol and most Web clients supports GZIP compression. In this test, I’ve forced an external Web site, WebWarper.net (http://webwarper.net/), to send back a GZIP-compressed page. All browsers (even Minimo), except for TH, which doesn’t directly communicate with Web servers, passed this test.

Toonel-compatibility? Toonel (http://www.toonel.net/downloads.html) is a great and, even better, free online HTTP compressing service. It requires a JVM to run and explicit proxy support (and manual configuration) in the Web browser, unlike the two other compression clients, which don’t need manual configuration. In this test, I’ve noted the compliance of PPC Web browsers with Toonel. As can be seen, both PIE (also meaning all PIE-related apps) and NF is able to make use of Toonel because of their proxy support.

Globility GHO client The Globility GHO client (still in beta) (http://globility.co.nz/) is another great tool to reduce bandwidth usage. It works differently from Toonel because it doesn’t require the user to explicitly configure the Web client to use the proxy. However, as it’s more PIE-related, other browsers may not work with it, especially new ones. For example, it’s not guaranteed that you will be able to reduce your bandwidth usage with, say, Minimo as soon as it gets proxy supports with this client, unlike with the generic Toonel client. Exactly the same stands for the next bandwidth-reducing service, OnSpeed (http://www.onspeed.com/us/index.php).

Saving; cache, download group: everything related to saving Web pages to the local file system (like File/Save As in the desktop Internet Explorer) and local caching. The latter may result in a much lower bandwidth usage but may also introduce a lot of bugs if written sloppily, which was the case with NF 3.1 (this bug has been fixed in 3.2 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,41008&/netfront_3.2_english_finally_released.htm)).

Page save? This shows if the browser is able to explicitly save Web pages. As can be seen, only SPP and MultiIE are able to save Web pages. The latter can even make a full save, downloading all the resources as the desktop IE in File/Save As - see the default Web Page, complete option in the Save as type: drop-down list.

Please note that the inability to explicitly save pages shouldn’t be a showstopper: you can get the Web pages from the cache of browsers that have local caches. It requires some manual work and searching, though (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20402). Also note that much as NF can’t explicitly save, its cache is much easier to browse than that of PIE (no separate subdirectories) and has an index file, cache.fat, containing both the source URL’s and the in-cache file names of all the cached resources.

A side remark: many people have complained about unreadable HTML files produced by PIE when saved with SPP/MultiIE. These files are all in binary and can’t be loaded back into PIE (or to any desktop browsers). The solution to the problem is very simple. Please see mainly this (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=775396) or, alternatively, this (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=4441) thread on this problem and my solution to this problem.

Save link directly to file, w/o opening? and Co-working with VITO MobileDownloader?: You may want to read this article (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20402) on these subjects.

Note that, as has been shown in the table, Minimo tries to save binary contents, but it (still) doesn’t work:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MinimoTryingToSaveBinaryContents.gif.png

Cache? Does the given browser have a local cache? PIE does, NF also (the latter is also easily browsable and can be accessed with a local, built-in cache browser – also see the Explicit cache navigation? row). TH and Minimo, on the other hand, don’t.

Cache relocatable? Sometimes, it’s very important to be able to relocate the local file cache of a browser because of the following:

- if you install, for example, NF 3.2 on a slow storage card because of the sheer size (9 Mbytes for the Java-enabled version) of the browser, you’ll have a hard time waiting for the cached files to be written to the card (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376) every time you go to another page

- if, on the other hand, you have a very fast card and you know relocating the PIE/NF cache to it won’t result in serious speed decrease, you may want to do this. This is especially important with PIE, which, by default, keeps its local cache in the main memory and which, especially with WM2003SE devices, can grow to be as large as 20 Mbytes.

Of the browsers that use local caches, the cache of both PIE and NF can be relocated. (This, as far as NF is concerned, is a big leap forward, compared to version 3.1 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,41008&/netfront_3.2_english_finally_released.htm).)

Images group: does the given app offer image saving capabilities (in the desktop Internet Explorer, right-click a picture in a web page and choose ‘Save Picture As’; see the row Save Image As in the table); can you also get the contents of the “alt” attribute in < img > tags ( View Image Text – on the desktop, just move the mouse cursor above the image and let it be there for a second); and, finally, can you set the image as a Today wallpaper (“Set as Background” on the desktop IE 6). As far as the latter feature is concerned, please note that you should refrain from using the Set as Wallpaper feature of MultiIE, the only PPC Web browser that supports setting the Today wallpaper directly. The reasons for this is that it only renames the image to the standard \Windows\tdycust.gif, without resizing/downsampling it. This means only 640*640 pictures will be usable as wallpapers (no more, no less) on VGA devices and the menu background image won't be changed either. It isn’t capable of setting the transparency level of images either, which is perfectly possible with advanced tools (http://pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=342367). You really should avoid using it.

Tabs; opening new pages group: information on the tabs and how new pages can be opened.

Open in background without the need for switching back manually? Feedback on loaded pages? : Especially over slow connections with loading times in the area of tens of seconds, it may be desirable to have a browser that allows for pages being loaded in the background so that you don’t need to manually switch back from the tab containing the page being loaded to the one you would want to continue reading. It’s not an essential feature, but certainly welcome. One of the two aspects in which the PIE plug-in in SPP 3.0 is better than 2.5 is the ability to do this. Also, some kind of (configurable) feedback on loaded pages is also welcome.

Settable tab height? Can tabs be hidden? : many people will find the default tab height in MultiIE, PIEPlus and NF too large (the tabs are taking up too much screen estate). In MultiIE, you can decrease this, unlike in the other two apps. PIEPlus only allows for hiding them completely (which is a must on VGA devices because of the anomalies with the page scrolling). Unfortunately, NF doesn’t offer any kind of configuration capabilities – tabs will be shown even in full screen mode, which is really a pain in the back.

Copy/paste support group:

Copy link address : is the given application able to copy the address of a link (see “Copy Shortcut” in the desktop IE if you right-click a link). This feature is painfully missing from NF. Fortunately, all the PIE-based apps have this feature.

Text select/copy to clipboard? : are you able to select some text in a Web page and copy it to the clipboard? While it should be natural to have this feature, both TH and Minimo lacks it. Actually, Minimo doesn’t have any kind of copy/paste features, not even from/to textfields…

Form autocomplete? A very useful feature of the desktop IE. On the PPC, only NF has something similar.

Buttons, D-pad/Jog Dial navigation group: everything related to scrolling without using the touchscreen; also, accessing browser (plug-in) functionality from the hardware buttons of the PDA. It’s very nice to, say, assign “back to previous page” to a hardware button, “toggle full screen mode” to another, “format this page with Skweezer” to a third etc.

HW buttons assignable? : see above. Unfortunately, only MultiIE, ftxPBrowser and PIEPlus support hardware button assignment; SPP, Netfront and TH don’t. Minimo goes even further: you can’t use any hardware buttons (to, for example, rotate the screen or quickly start other programs) while it’s active.

Scrolling - D-pad : Can you scroll down/up with the Directional Pad (D-Pad). By default, pressing it down scrolls down a page (and pressing it up results in a page up) with most browsers (except for Minimo). With advanced browsers/plug-ins, this can be reconfigured to scroll by lines or links. With NF, you can even set the percentage of scrolling.

D-pad configuration capabilities? See above: can you configure the browser to override the default scrolling behaviour?

Scrolling - jog dial The same as above, but with the jog dial. By default, jog dial scrolls to the next link in PIE. This can be very frustating; therefore, most people prefer reconfigurable jog dial scrolling too. In this table row, I’ve collected the information on how the jog dial scrolls and whether it can be overridden. Fortunately, with MultiIE, NF and PIEPlus, you can override the default behaviour. Bad news for TH users is the complete lack of jog dial support, however.

Page scrolling on QVGA devices - problem-free? and Page scrolling on VGA devices - problem- free? In these tests, I’ve scrutinized each browser in Page scroll mode to see whether the cause scrolling problems (unreadable rows, the need for scrolling back etc – see the explanation for PIEPlus). Only PIEPlus had problems when its tabs were enabled.

User-Agent customizable? group: this group discusses what User-Agent header is sent to the Web server whether you can override the User-Agent HTTP header. Please read this thread on this question (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101028).

Built-in browser identification change : does the application explicitly support changing identification information right within it? Note that, as I’ve pointed out in the last-linked article, you don’t need this in PIE plug-ins in order to be able to even dynamically change your User-Agent string. It’s still a nice-to-have feature if you don’t want to install the external nScriptm.

As you can clearly see, MultiIE is buggy: it even resets the PDA after toggling the User-Agent information. PIEPlus is better in this respect, but it, on the other hand, doesn’t remove the unneeded string values from the Post Platform subkey (again, more on all these things in this article (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101028).) Therefore, you may want to choose an external program to toggle the User-Agent information. See also the next row.

On-the-fly external browser identification change visible without PIE restart in tabs opened after change? As has already been pointed out, most PIE-based apps (except for ftxPBrowser) load an almost new copy of PIE into memory when a new browser tab is opened. This, on the other hand, also means that registry changes, which PIE only notices when it’s started, will also be visible after opening a new window (because PIE also reloads the registry), without even exiting PIE.

This can be of tremendous help. Let’s assume you prefer visiting a banking site pretending to be desktop browser (because the page just doesn’t let in say, non-desktop-IE browsers), while you would like to access the, say, Pocket PC Thoughts or PocketMatrix forums as a Pocket PC client so that you receive lightweight-formatted content. And, you would prefer doing this at the same time: in one window you browse the online banking pages, in another one you browse the Pocket PC-optimized pages of the above-mentioned sites. It’s indeed possible if you always remember which tabs you opened after toggling the User-Agent.

JavaScript, scripting , Java group: generic JavaScript (JS) and Java compliance. (Yes, I know JS and Java have nothing to do with each other. It’s just that I wanted to put all ‘scripting/applet running’ stuff in one section.)

JavaScript : generally, PIE has the least compatible/capable JS interpreter and Minimo the best.

redhotpawn.com test? The online chess game at 'Red Hot Pawn' (http://www.redhotpawn.com/) is entirely JavaScript-based. This is why I’ve chosen it as to be one of the JavaScript tests. Please also read this article (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41265) for more information. Minimo 0.007 runs the script even better than TH 2.1.

Google maps? Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) is another great ‘test page’ to test JavaScript / scripting capabilities on. As you can see, Minimo is the winner in this category too.

Java quality : The quality of the Java support (if there is) is a question worth long articles. In a nutshell, PIE has no built-in Java support, but there are decent Java Virtual Machine (JVM) plug-ins for it, CrEme being the best. NF has a decent JVM; so does TH 2.1. Their usability, however, is radically different. If you really want to know what to use them for, read Using Java on the Pocket PC - the complete tutorial (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41081) , Java support in Thunderhawk 2.1 scrutinized (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=352806) and Some new information on the Java compliance of PPC Web browsers (5/07/2005) (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=774170) .

Cookie handling group: cookies are a must. However, unfortunately, third-party applications (except for Minimo, which is entirely standards-compliant and, therefore, haven’t failed any of my tests) have sometimes serious flaws with their cookie handling. This group explains this.

Cookies browsable/editable? it’s both useful and dangerous to store cookies as text files in the file system. Dangerous because, even if your passwords aren’t there in the cookie file, anyone that has access to these files can reuse the session ID’s stored in them and pretend to be you, even from a completely different computer. He, then, doesn’t even need to know your password.

On the other hand, it’s useful to have them in a readable/editable form if you need to know what cookies are issued by a given site and you even want to edit them (for example, to tailor their expiry date for your needs to avoid, for example, the need for re-login after an expiration time).

As you can see, all browsers except for NF use plain text files to store non-encrypted cookies. It’s only NF that encrypts cookie files.

Inter-session persistence test : in this test, I’ve checked whether cookies are indeed saved and resent to the Web server after a browser restart. As it has turned out, TH has major flaws at this area. Please read the section on TH above for more information and how you can circumvent the problem manually.

DST taken into account in cookie handling? : Dailight Saving Time is another area where some browsers fail. NF fails too. Please read my article here (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=351433) on this problem and for a usable fix if interested.

Misc group: I’ve put here all those tests/aspects that I couldn’t find a group of their own.

In-page text search : Much as Microsoft has put in-page text search in the PIE version built into H/PC 2000 devices (for example, the HP Jornada 72x) five years ago, they still haven’t done the same to the Windows Mobile PIE’s. This is certainly a big problem – none of the PIE-based solutions can search for a string in the text of a page. You can, of course, use, say, Pocket Word or uBook (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=343111) to search for the string, but it’s not the cleanest/easiest solution.

Unfortunately, it’s only NF that has text searching capabilities. Microsoft, BitStream, wake up! :)

Quick URL builder? : on Pocket PC devices without a keyboard, entering URL’s can be very slow. In these cases, an editor with a pre-definable, editable list offering for example URL’s in the form of http://www..com, http://www..net, http://www..<anything> is welcome.

Screen drag? : in addition to navigation with the scrollbars, hardware D-pad or the Jog Dial, screen dragging offers a nice alternative, especially if you switch off the scrollbars or want to scroll in a more fine-grained manner than with the D-pad. This is especially true with horizontal scrolling.

Of the PPC browser(plug-in)s, only MultiIE, PIEPlus and NF are capable of this. It’s, not taking into account NF, pretty easy to switch between the two modes.

PIEPlus also has a very useful feature: you can set the multiplier between the page movement amount and the stylus dragging amount (between 1 and 16).

Access to standard favorites? : PIE stores favories, as with the desktop IE, in the file system, under \Windows\Favorites (please note that the built-in, pre-defined Favorites are stored in the Registry, under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FavoritesEntries\. You can freely delete this key, it won’t cause any problems.) All the tested programs had access to them, except for Minimo.

8859-2 test : browsers should be able to display non-Western (non-ISO-8859-1) characters as well, just like their desktop counterparts. Both NF and PIE (the latter also meaning all the PIE-based solutions) are capable of this – to a certain degree ( you need to install fonts on your PDA etc (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15228). You can find more information on installing fonts on your PDA for example here (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17326)). TH, because it only has the Western character set, isn’t able to display anything that use other characters – it just displays a negative sign (-) as a placeholder when encounters them. An example with a text that uses some ISO-8859-2 characters:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/HungarianCharsNotDisplayedInTH.bmp.png

Minimo is a bit better in this respect – it displays characters with foreign, non-Western accents, but in a rather strange way:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/MinimoInternationalChars.bmp.png

Please note that I’ve only run tests with East-European character sets. I haven’t checked Oriental/Arabic/Hebrew etc. character set compliance. NF 3.2, unlike its predecessor, may have problems with Korean (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=4179). Also, there may be some other language/page encoding bugs with NF (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16594).

That is, try before buy if you want to browse pages written in non-European languages with NF.

Built-in one-column view on WM2003 devices; its BH quality? As has already been pointed out, some of the browsers/PIE plug-ins have their own implementation of the infamous One Column view mode of the WM2003SE PIE. In this row, I scrutinize these implementations.

NF needs a bit more explanation. Much as Just-Fit Rendering is able to eliminate the horizontal scrollbar (unlike the “Fit to Screen” mode in WM2003, which is the same as the Default view mode in WM2003SE), it is pretty useless because, in general, it produces very ugly results:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/NF32BHJustFit.gif.png

On the other hand, Smart-Fit Rendering is almost exactly like the One Column view mode in the WM2003SE PIE:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/NF32BHSmartFit.gif.png

For comparison, the results produced by the Normal view mode in NF are as follows:

http://winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/NF32BHDefault.gif.png

View source? Is there any way to display the Web page source from inside the browser? Please note that, if the given browser has a local cache, the lack of this feature (for example, in the non-plug-in-augmented PIE or in NF) isn’t that problematic. Also note that the GZIP bug (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119616) also affects this; therefore, there’ll be cases when not any PIE-based solutions will be able to display the page in question. In these cases, you need to manually uncompress the given GZIP’ed HTML file and, then, load it in a text editor.

IFRAME support (for example, Yahoo AutoComplete)? Iframe is a useful feature of current browsers and a lot of popular tricks, for example the entirely client-side Yahoo AutoComplete, are based on it. Unfortunately, PIE (and, therefore, not any PIE-based solution) doesn’t support Iframes. All the other (self-standing) apps do. However, it doesn’t mean they are able to run Yahoo AutoComplete – unfortunately, they aren’t. (I’ll scrutinize this some day to try to find out what causes AutoComplete to refuse to work on these devices. Hope I’ll be able to come up with a solution that works on non-PIE browsers.)

(continued...)

EDIT: the < img > tag fixed

[Menneisyys]

Platform compliance? group: this speaks for itself.

WM2003/ WM2003SE -compliance? Both WM2003 and SE (VGA, which is a far more problematic question, compliance-wise, is discussed next!) is a go for all browsers. It’s just with ftxPBrowser that the lack of “One Column” view mode should be emphasized because of the WM2003-only GUI.

VGA? If not VGA-enabled by default, is it 100% usable in forced/native VGA? : this is a more important question. Except for some issues related to pixel doubling (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39544) (this article has also made to the PocketMatrix frontpage (http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21256)), PIE (and, consequently, all its plug-ins; ftxPBrowser isn’t!) is the clear winner in this category.

ftxPBrowser must be forced into VGA in SE; then, it’s adequate, except for the dialog fonts, but that’s not a big problem.

NF isn’t VGA-enabled by default: you need to force it into VGA and completely remove NF32ResVGA.dll in order to make it adequate (but not perfect!) in SE VGA. It’s, however, still leaps and bounds better VGA compliance-wise than the previous, 3.1, version (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,41008&/netfront_3.2_english_finally_released.htm).

TH displays the same contents in VGA as in QVGA and this can’t be helped because its entire infrastructure is tied to QVGA devices only. I wish at least high-resolution support were added for images/applets; this wouldn’t involve developing a new, VGA character set; that is, the heart of the entire TH infrastructure.

Minimo 0.007 completely refuses to work properly in forced SE VGA and native VGA modes. Interestingly, some of its previous versions were able to display high-resolution content in these modes.

PPC2k2-compliance? I couldn’t entirely test the PPC2k2 compliance (which would have involved installing everything on my iPAQ 3660) because of the lack of time. This is why there’re several question marks in there. I’ve only tested NF3.1 and NF3.2; neither of them run. Upon popular demand, I may test the rest some time.

PPC2k-compliance? : unfortunately, it’s only MultiIE and ThunderHawk that have SH3/MIPS-compatible versions. Much as PIEPlus is advertised as PPC2k-compatible, it has only an ARM build, no SH3/MIPS.

That’s all, folks :)

Some other reviews of Pocket PC Web browsers

Generic:
Browsing the Web with Your Pocket – Pocket PC Magazine (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/_archives/mar04/online.asp)
GeekZone’s (old!) roundup (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=505) – note that this article has some errors (for example, PIE has always supported HTTP proxies – even in the PPC2k version).

NetFront (no real 3.2 reviews as yet!):
InfoSyncWorld’s review of NetFront 3.1 (http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/n/4621.html)
’s review of NetFront 3.0 (http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Apr/bpd20030423019383.htm)
PocketNow’s review of NetFront 3.1 (http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=reviews&id=309)
pocketpclouisville.com’s review of NetFront 3.1 (http://www.pocketpclouisville.com/reviews/netFront_v3_1_review.htm)
GeekZone’s review of NetFront 3.1 (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=2226)

PIEPlus (no 1.3b reviews as yet!):
PPCT’s review of PIEPlus 1.2 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,19807)
mypdacafe’s review of PIEPlus 1.2 (http://www.mypdacafe.com/articles.php?id=41)
Geek.com’s review of PIEPlus 1.2 (http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Jun/rev20040609025322.htm)
PDA Phone Home’s review of PIEPlus 1.2 (http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/showthread/t-9287.html)
PPCT’s review of PIEPlus 1.1 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,19807)

MultiIE:
PPCT’s review of MultiIE 3.0 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,24848)
PocketMatrix’s review of MultiIE 3.0 (http://www.pocketmatrix.com/reviews/multiie/)
the::unwired‘s review of MultiIE 3.0 (http://www.ppcw.net/index.php?itemid=1839)
PocketNow’s review of MultiIE 3.0 (http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=reviews&id=293)
mypdacafe‘s review of MultiIE 3.0 (http://www.mypdacafe.com/articles.php?id=158)
iPAQ HQ‘s review of MultiIE 3.0 (http://www.ipaqhq.com/articles/articles/154)

TH:
Bitstream’s review page (http://www.bitstream.com/wireless/news/archive_articles.html)
PC Mag (old!) (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,5939,00.asp)
Unwired (http://www.theunwired.net/?itemid=558)
PocketNow (http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=reviews&id=502)

[Darius Wey]

All right, this is going on the front page. ;)

[MitchellO]

Whoa!!!! That was HUGE!!!! Very nicely done. How long did that take?

[UnLoGiC]

Awesome article, I really hope that minimo manages to cut memmory usage abit and add support for SEVGA/ForcedVGA or that PIE in WM5 is a big improvment cause I not having a decent browser for the PPC is a pain....although it's still a big leap over the old Palm browsers :mrgreen:

[dochall]

Where's the notworthy smiley? Great job! Thank You.

The most depressing thing is that we don't have full featured browser which supports VGA without poking about with it.

[Menneisyys]

Whoa!!!! That was HUGE!!!! Very nicely done.

Thanks :)

How long did that take?

Some days - started working on it on 26-July and have spent some 4-10 hours a day on it since then. It was a great help that I've previously written some sections (Java support in general; NF 3.1 vs 3.2; TH 2.1 Java; JavaScript compliance and comparisons; Skweezer/WebWarper-like compression; proxies) which I only had to link now.

Unfortunately, as I had to come up with the testing methology (because noone has really tested and compared PPC browsers as yet, except for GeekZone, but their test was not a feature comparison/ memory benchmark, mostly "just" a W3C compliance comparison), had to benchmark on two PDA's (WM2003 QVGA vs WM2003SE VGA) and have found out for example the PIE cache bug (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119616) during writing it, sometimes I had to completely eliminate previously existing tests/sections. For example, when I found out the above PIE cache GZIP'ing, I had to delete an entire section and several test rows off the article/table (in the table, I've compared the saving capabilities of the browsers off several Internet sites) because they all became non-topical. (And, of course, I had to reorganize the table several times.)

[dave]

i was actually hoping for a more detailed analysis....



:mrgreen:

good stuff.

[ikesler]

Wow!
That is a fantastic write up! :D
Thanks!

[volwrath]

So MultiIE stil lhasnt found a workaround for the picture doubling?

Good job on the reviews!

[Menneisyys]

So MultiIE stil lhasnt found a workaround for the picture doubling?

Nope, it's "only" a PIE plug-in (not a standalone browser with its own Web page renderer engine) and, therefore, can't really have an effect on how PIE renders pages.

Good job on the reviews!

Thanks :)

[d-roC]

This is a really good read. Any chance in getting it in a more compat html downloadable version (I'm being funny). I liked the analysis and may have to employ it for my own testing of CMS systems at work.

I posted about the at my Mobile Ministry Magazine site, as part of wanting to minister, is being able to know what you can do online. Having a good browser (thats at least partically standards compliant) is part of it.

[that dan guy]

I have a verizon xv6600 ( non vga, wm2003se) and I am getting a little bothered with how pie works. I have been looking for something that would allow me to view regular web pages in portrait or landscape mode with out having to scroll horizontally are there any recommendations? I have about 20 meg available for programs and 60 meg available for system memory resources. I hate the idea of paying $50/year for firefox and would prefer a solution that is free.

thanks,

Danno

[Menneisyys]

I have a verizon xv6600 ( non vga, wm2003se) and I am getting a little bothered with how pie works. I have been looking for something that would allow me to view regular web pages in portrait or landscape mode with out having to scroll horizontally are there any recommendations?


First, did you try the built-in One Column view mode in PIE? It's the best for crunching stuff if you don't need additional content stripping/GZIP encoding because you aren't over GPRS, and it's built-in.

If you, however, would welcome some additional GZIP crunching, you may want to give a try to Skweezer.

[yanathin]

I'm not sure if this has been asked anywhere before, but will Windows Mobile 5.0's Internet Explorer Mobile fix the double-pixeling issue in WM2003 SE's PIE? OR at least will there be an option to disable double-pixeling? I would really like to know this..

[serpico]

I appreciate your time in writing this article, it was a great read. But I still see web surfing on the PPC still lagging and not too usable. I downloaded the latest update for my Sony PSP, and the web surfing is amazing close to your desktop experience. I've given up mobile surfing on my HP iPaq and stick to using the PSP now. It really is much better if you get the chance to try it.

[Menneisyys]

This is a really good read. Any chance in getting it in a more compat html downloadable version

Ok, done :) (http://www.winmobiletech.com/072005BrowserRoundup/index.html). I haven't converted my linked articles/posts into plain HTML, though. May do it though some day to avoid losing them upon a server crash (like was the case with the Pocket PC Passion hardware breakdown) - some of them ar eonly present on only one PPC site.

I liked the analysis and may have to employ it for my own testing of CMS systems at work.


Cool :) Make sure you also check out the other benchmarking articles I've linked from them; also the ones not linked from the article but present on my homepage (for example, Wi-Fi throughput benchmarks, CPU and audio recorder benchmarks, image viewer/JPEG decoding benchmarks etc). You may find them interesting too.

[SteveHoward999]

I've been using PocketIE Plus for a couple of years, and so far it fits my needs better than any of the other options. I saw your review of the .3b version a couiple of months ago and was convinced to stay with the .2 version at that time. Is the .3b version any better yet? Any clues as to when it should be released as a final version?

[Menneisyys]

I've been using PocketIE Plus for a couple of years, and so far it fits my needs better than any of the other options. I saw your review of the .3b version a couiple of months ago and was convinced to stay with the .2 version at that time. Is the .3b version any better yet? Any clues as to when it should be released as a final version?

Dunno, their current version is still 1.2 and no new beta of 1.3 has been released after b2.

When I wrote the old b2 review you refer to (http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20782), I didnt notice that the scrolling problems go away with just disabling tabs completely. This is why I didn't recommend b2 for VGA devices at that time. Now, I do recommend it.

[SteveHoward999]

Thanks - I guess it's time to check it out :-)

[Menneisyys]

Other PPC Web browsing, connection management, native VGA-related threads/articles written after posting the article and worth checking out:

- Netfront 3.3 1.0 and 1.01 preview information/review (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,42788) (really worth checking out for, for example, the text copying bug/the new link copy feature in 3.3 1.01) (alternative: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=109832), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=818186), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18024), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=38847), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=777469))
- A quick review of Minimo 0.009 (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=366244) (alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=112839), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=834961), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18348), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=40460), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=778600))
- Reducing Internet bandwidth usage on the Pocket PC - A complete roundup & comparison of Toonel, OnSpeed, Skweezer, WebWarper and the like (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=360414) (alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=105394), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=792874), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17567), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=36610), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=776152))
- Everything you wanted to know about GPRS connection setup utilities for PPC's and mobile phones (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17837). (Alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=108167), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=807945), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=362593), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=37713), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119989))
- Opera on the Pocket PC - a setup tutorial & quick review (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=38051) (Alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=108674), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=810606), PPC Magazine (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17894), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120014))
- New bugs found in PIE (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=363466) (Alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=109204), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=814276), PPC Magazine (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17965), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=38431), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120078))
- Free up your memory and optimize your Internet access speed - relocate the PIE/NF cache (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17997) ( Alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=109432), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=816277), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,42768) (frontpage!), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=38622), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=777367))
- VGA demystified - the definitive guide to OzVGA, SE_VGA and everything VGA-related (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,43014) (PPCT frontpage!) (Alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=111622), AximSite (sticky in both the x50/x51 (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=98163) forum and in the Tips and Tricks (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=827585) forum), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18237), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=39887) (the comments are worth reading ;) ), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120309) )

[jnrob]

Hi Menneisyys,
Thanks for this great article as well as for the bandwidth reduction one.
I am about to buy my first pda and want to get a wifi enabled one that will allow me to browse the web. So these articles have been very, very instructional.

Now, although this is a PocketPC forum, this article is so good that I have to ask whether, now that the Palm TX is out, anyone could somewhat objectively comment how does the new Palm Blazer 4.3 browser compare.
Thanks

:)

[Menneisyys]

A very important remark on ftxPBrowser : if the 'New Window' mode is enabled (represented by the 'New Window' icon,

http://www.winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/ftxpBrowserNewWindowIcon.png

,on the toolbar), then, HTML forms using POST won't work at all. Therefore, for every page that you would like to fill in forms in, click this icon before submitting the contents of the form!

BTW, I've also posted a quick intro to the app to my PPCMag Expert Blog at http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=do_you_know_ftxpbrowser&more=1 .

[Menneisyys]

NetFront 3.3 Technical Preview 1.02 is Out! A Comparative Review & Bug Report

I've just finished scrutinizing the latest build, 1.02 of NetFront 3.3 Technical Preview. It has a lot of news (and still some not-fixed bugs); anyone interested in browsing the Web should check out the article to see what's new.

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=326&more=1

In addition to the above article, it has extensive information on the three scroll modes of Netfront.

[Menneisyys]

Just posted:

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=one_of_the_best_alternative_web_browsers&more=1 – NetFront 3.3 TP 1.03 review – it has excellent JavaScript support, as opposed to previous NetFront versions!! Also with new Minimo 0.011 JavaScript compatibility tests.

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/ConfigureToonel45.asp - New Version of Free, Great Bandwidth Saver, Toonel, is Out – now, With Huge Image Downsampling Savings! A must for everyone on a restricted/slow connection.

[pocketpcadmirer]

Great review !!

Atta boy !!

Sunny

[Menneisyys]

Recently posted:

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=441&more=1 : Minimo 0.012 review

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=427&more=1 - using Opera Mini on the Pocket PC

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=430&more=1 - Toonel .50 review & benchmarks. Highly recommended!

[Menneisyys]

Another, NetFront 3.1/3.2 & VGA-compliance-related thread of interest: http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=968940

[gibson042]

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for the continuing updates to this thread. It is my definitive source for current PPC browser information, and allows me to keep a close eye on Minimo without the effort of actively seeking out news.

[Menneisyys]

I've finished writing a large report on a generic Pocket Internet Explorer bug I've just discovered. If you have problems dowloading files from Web sites that use Referer-based filtering to avoid linking files from unrelated sites, you will definitely want to read http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=464&more=1

[Menneisyys]

I've just published a benchmark of file download efficiency/speed of all the download-capable Pocket PC browsers/add-ons, including the beta version of Opera, NetFront 3.3 TP 1.03, PIE and the two additional PIE-based download-enablers, ViTO Downloader and ftpxPBrowser. As it is shown, PPC browsers have tremendously different download speeds/efficiency when it comes to download files to the storage card. The article is really worth reading if you often download files with Pocket PC-based browsers using high-speed connections and wondered whether you can speed up the downloading process.

Please see http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=466&more=1 for more info.

[Menneisyys]

Some new reviews/tips:

Opera 8.5beta for WM5 (it rocks!): http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=478&more=1

Opera 8.5beta for WM2002/WM2003SE (it isn't as good as the WM5 version, stability-wise): http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=457&more=1

Browsing Wap under PPC2k/PPC2k2: http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=483&more=1

[Menneisyys]

PIEPlus 1.31 finally released!

We've been waiting for over a year for an updated version of PIEPlus, one of the most important Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE for short) plug-ins. It's, now, here, with some welcome additions – and, a new bug and still lacking WM5 compatibility.

Changes

* Now, just like in MultiIE, the tab height is configurable (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13TabHeightConfigurable.bmp.png) (as opposed to previous versions (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus12TabHeightNOTConfigurable.bmp.png)) – the lack of this was one of the biggest annoyances with the previous version.

* The "Close button" and the "Screen drag button", however, are gone from both the General tab dialog (compare the two screenshots above) and the right end of the tab row. A screenshot of the tabs is here (1.31) (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13OneColumnNormalViewTables.bmp.png) and here (1.2b2) (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus12ButtonsInTheTabRow.bmp.png)

* Strangely, the "Language – Default character set" drop-down list (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13MissingDefCharset.bmp.png) is no longer available in the PIE tab (version 1.2 screenshot is here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus12DefCharset.bmp.png)).

* There's a new main context menu menu item, Tab bar (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13MainContextMenu.bmp.png), to quickly hide/unhide the tabs. It wasn't present in the latest beta (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus12MainContextMenu.bmp.png). The other (link/image) context menus have not been changed.




Please note that the <new> features in the "Feature List" section on the official homepage does not compare the new, 1.31 version to the two, publicly available, one-year-old betas but to the old, official, non-beta version 1.1. This means Tabbed multiple PIE windows, Screen drag to scroll, View HTML source and Save image (the four "new" features) have all been existing in the previous betas and are nothing new; they are only additions compared to version 1.1.


Cons, bugs


* sometimes, the toolbar just disappears, as can be seen for example in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13DisappearedCommandBar.bmp.png). In here, the standard Today toolbar is displayed instead of the standard PIE + PIEPlus one. This seems to be an acute problem as you can't bring it back without shutting down (minimizing won't suffice!) PIE.


* no WM5 support. Absolutely none. Do not attempt installing it on a WM5 device if you don't want to run into severe system slowdowns and other problems (fortunately, a simple uninstall will get rid of these problems). Unfortunately, right now, only ftxPBrowser is compatible with WM5 devices (to some degree), as far as Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile plug-ins/add-ons are concerned. The current version, 3.1-d59, of MultiIE (http://www.southwaycorp.net/multiie.htm), the other PIE plug-in, isn't WM5-compliant either.




Please note that


* In PIEPLus, the "Pocket View" mode is enabled by default, which will render tables quite differently (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13PocketViewTables.bmp.png) than the One Column view mode (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlus13OneColumnNormalViewTables.bmp.png) of WM2003SE devices. The former displays all cells in a table row one after another, without inserting newlines in between them; the latter does insert newlines. In my opinion, the latter approach is much better in most cases - it separates the contents of distinct columns far better.

PIEPlus puts all concetanated rows in a real table row; the One Column mode of PIE doesn't. The former approach is definitely better because, at least, it shows the row boundaries.

Therefore, if you have a WM2003SE device, you will want to consider which of the two approaches you prefer and accordingly set your settings (either enabled "Pocket View" and the browser in Standard View mode, or disabled "Pocket View" and the browser in One Column mode).


* Never ever install PIEPlus and MultiIE on the same device at the same time, both enabled, if you want to avoid some serious boot-time problems! (Of course, this was true of previous versions too.)



Differences, compared to MultiIE

In addition to the Roundup of Web Browsers (see the link in the "Recommended reading" section) comparison, I've also directly compared the two plug-ins as follows:

I've also tested the known problem (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=93085) of MultiIE: if you use word completion with the built-in Software Keyboard and select a word to complete, the tab underneath (if a tab is under the clicked word) will be activated at once. For example, in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/022006PIEPlus131/PIEPlusNoActivatedTabsOverWCD.png), the first tab would activate if you used MultiIE and clicked the word "today" where the mouse cursor is. The new version PIEPlus doesn't suffer from this problem.

Verdict

If you haven't used the 1.2 betas in the last year but used the even older, non-beta version 1.1, you will indeed welcome the changes. If you did use the betas, you won't find much in the new version – except for the fine-tunable tab height, which is indeed welcome.

If you've paid for previous versions of PIEPlus, get this version – it'll be free for you. However, look out for the 'disappearing toolbar' bug – I don't know if you'll be facing it or not.

Other users may also want to give the new PIEPlus a try – it has a trial version. Whether it's worth the money – I don't know. If you want to stick with PIE, compare it to MultiIE and ftxPBrowser and decide which one to get.

Alternatively, you may want to abandon PIE completely and switch to an alternative browser – particularly on Windows Mobile 5, which has a wonderful Opera port.

Recommended reading

Roundup of Web Browsers (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,42026&/pocket_pc_web_browsers_-_the_complete_roundup.htm) (alternatives: iPAQ HQ (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=102643), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=780770), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=35739), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17343), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=775428)). Please also make sure you follow the links in the threads to the newer articles too.

[Menneisyys]

New stuff:

Minimo 0.013RC1 – a full review (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=549&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27908), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=117454), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=5751), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46519), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122275))

New version of popular Web browser, Thunderhawk, out - now with LH Landscape support! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=new_version_of_popular_alternative_web_b&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27911), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=117479), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5755), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=389198), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122277))

Windows Mobile 5: How do I modify the default scrolling behaviour of Web browsers? (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=547&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27898), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=117355), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=5748), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46500), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122270))

New version of Pocket Internet Explorer plug-in, PIEPlus, has been released! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=538&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27864), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=117169), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?t=5737), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=388838), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122252))

How do I listen to online radio stations in Windows Media Player on my Pocket PC 2002 Pocket PC? I've heard it can't play WM9 audio streams. Is that true? (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=how_do_i_listen_to_online_radio_stations&more=1) (alternatives: PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46239))

Having problems with MSN Messenger and some other applications while using the OnSpeed service? Here's the solution! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=511&more=1)

[Menneisyys]

Another article, now about the WM5 compliance of Internet Explorer Mobile Plug-Ins:

Internet Explorer Mobile Plug-Ins and WM5 Compliance (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=551&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=143944), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=1001337), , [url=http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=49393]FirstLoox (]PPC Magazine[/url), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=389450), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122287)).

[Menneisyys]

Release Candidate 2 of free, great Pocket PC Web Browser Minimo ver. 0.013 released! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=552&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=144027), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=117583), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=49412), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=389583), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=785970))

Final version of Minimo 0.013, the free, great Web browser, is out! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=553&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=144123), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=117630), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=49443), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=389784), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=786042))

[Menneisyys]

ESSENTIAL (NEW, UNIQUE BUGFIXES!!!) to know about the great Web browser, Opera beta! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=558&more=1) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=144397), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=1003311), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=49533), PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46611), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122322))

[Menneisyys]

Upon answering a question over at <em>microsoft.public.pocketpc</em>, I've collected the links to my latest reviews of the Web Browsers for the Pocket PC. As a collection like this can be very handy for all Pocket PC users, I publish it here too:

Stand-alone browsers:

Opera 8.5 beta 2 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=583&more=1)
NetFront 3.3 TP 1.05 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=alternative_web_browser_netfront_3_3_tec&more=1)
Thunderhawk 2.10302 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=new_version_of_popular_alternative_web_b&more=1)
Minimo 0.013 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=553&more=1)
Opera Mini (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=427&more=1)

PIE plug-ins/shells:

MultiIE 3.1 d 59 (no new version released since the Roundup of Web Browsers ; see review in there)
PIEPlus 1.31 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=538&more=1)
Spb Pocket Plus (will publish a review of the latest, 3.1 version soon; the review of 3.0.4 can be found here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=551&more=1))
ftxPBrowser 0.1e (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=do_you_know_ftxpbrowser&more=1)
Webby 2.0 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=592&more=1)

The article (the Bible) that you should start with is the Roundup of Web Browsers (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,42026) (alternatives: MobilitySite (http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=102643), AximSite (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=780770), FirstLoox (http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=35739), PPC Magazine (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17343), BrightHand (http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?postid=775428)). Please make sure you also follow the links in these threads to my newer, more up-to-date articles, reviews.

[Menneisyys]

I've posted a detailed review/roundup/ compliance report / tip collection of current, midlet-capable Java environments on the Pocket PC (including some remarks on the midlet-compliance of the Netfront 3.2 Web browser). It's a must for anyone wanting to run midlets (for example, Opera Mini or Mobile Gmaps) on his or her Pocket PC.

The article can be found at

Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Expert Blog: http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=644&more=1
FL: http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=50584
MobilitySite: http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=148245
PPCT: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=393834
BH: http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122613
AximSite: http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=120659

[Menneisyys]

ANN: Windows Mobile 5 and Internet Explorer Mobile Identification in the Registry - a lot of new info & tips

In my previous article on how Pocket Internet Explorer (of which the new
name is Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM for short) under Windows Mobile 5
(WM5)) computes the request headers (of which you can also seen some
examples of in this article - with alternative browsers too), I've
elaborated on this under pre-WM5 operating systems.

In this article, I do the same - now with WM5. The affected registry keys
are slightly modified here (a 5.0 has been added in the name) - and also a
new Templates subkey has been added.

Read more at the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Expert Blog:

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=648&more=1

Also crossposted to PPC forums I'm a regular poster/helper/contributor at:

AximSite: http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?p=1027944
BrightHand:
http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122636
FirstLoox: http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=50633
MobilitySite: http://www.mobilitysite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=148484
PPCT: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=394001

[Menneisyys]

Here are the links of the latest Web browsing-related articles since my last post in this thread. Feel free to check them out.

A nice, new bugfix for Web Browser Opera: no longer ugly/unreadable fonts in the tabs / textfields! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=another_nice_bugfix_for_opera_8_5b2_no_l&more=1)

Here's a fix for the flaky file association of great Web browser Opera (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=here_s_a_fix_for_the_flaky_file_associat&more=1)

Web Browser News – Webby 2.1: New, Free, Not so Good (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=652&more=1)

Web Browser News - Minimo: Nightly Builds Available; a review/report of the March 18 build (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=651&more=1)

Java Midlets on the Pocket PC - the Complete Tutorial (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=644&more=1). It also contains a lot of information and a complete setup tutorial on the latest version of Opera Mini, the free, midlet-based Web browser.

New Versions of Fastest, WM5-compliant, Pocket Internet Explorer applet plugin-enabled Java Virtual Machine, CrEme, out! (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=637&more=1) Yes, at last, real applet support in Internet Explorer Mobile under WM5!

[Patrick Y.]

WOW! 8O AWSOME TUTORIALS!! How did you manage to write SOOO much stuff??? 8O Anyway, thank you especially for the Java and minimo ones. I'm going to try new Minimo to see if it will work on WM5 x50v. The last version I tried suddenly won't start and crash the PPC.

Now, would you PLEAZZZZZZZE start working on the bluetooth stack? :clap: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy:

[Menneisyys]

WOW! 8O AWSOME TUTORIALS!! How did you manage to write SOOO much stuff??? 8O Anyway, thank you especially for the Java and minimo ones. I'm going to try new Minimo to see if it will work on WM5 x50v. The last version I tried suddenly won't start and crash the PPC.

It will work (tested) but I don't recommend it. Opera (Mini) are just FAR better.


Now, would you PLEAZZZZZZZE start working on the bluetooth stack? :clap: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy: :werenotworthy:

I can't promise anything - it requires far too much time (which I don't have now - I'd like to write a lot about other subjects and the local MS MVP submit is also approaching (in 7 days )...)

[Menneisyys]

WOW! 8O AWSOME TUTORIALS!! How did you manage to write SOOO much stuff??? 8O

Well, the more you write, the easier and faster it goes (much as my mothe tongue isn't English, which complicates the matter a bit).

[maikii]

Thanks for the great roundup, Menneisyys!

One thing the alternative browser people need to add to their programs is: proxy support!

I saw your article (on another forum, you referred to it in this thread) about a way to setup the system proxy settings (which are rather convoluted, the whole "Internet" and "Work" thing), to change them via reg files.

The problem with the alternative browsers is, they don't read the system proxy settings at all! That makes it harder to change the settings.

For instance, one has a phone (such as HTC Wizard) that includes wi-fi as well as GPRS/EDGE connectivity. For the GPRS connection one has to use a proxy server to access web pages, although not for e-mail. When connected via wi-fi that proxy doesn't work, so one wants no proxy when connected via wi-fi.

Although complicated and convoluted, it is possible to set that up to work automatically for PIE, e-mail, etc., to use or not use the proxy according to the connection type.

I don't see how to do that with the alternatives, however. Netfront has the capability to set the proxy within itself (not reading the system settings). However, it would be a hassle every time one connects via wi-fi, to go through the menus and delete the proxy, and later set it again when one connects via wi-fi.

With Opera Mobile one can set the proxy in the opera.ini file. Once again, even more of a hassle to change though--to edit the .ini file every time the connection type changes.

With others, such as Minimo and Opera Mini, not only do they not read the system's proxy settings, they don't have their own way to set a proxy. Therefore, these browsers are impossible to use with a connection that requires a proxy server.

I guess the best choice for someone who needs to be able to change proxy settings, and wants more functionality than plain PIE, is to use one of the PIE plugins or ftxp. There are some great featues to some of the alternative browsers like Opera and Netfront, but they need to improve proxy switching capability.

I hope someone can get across to the alternative WM browser developers that they need to improve proxy handling.

[Menneisyys]

NetFront does support the system-level proxy - that's the default configuration. Just make sure the "Auto-retrieve" checkbox is checked in.

Minimo also has proxy support. I think it's stored in a file; that is, with a simple file swap (using two config files and just swapping the two before starting the app from a script written in a scripting language) will work just great.

The same staands for Opera: it's pretty easy to write a script in for example in nScriptm or MortScript a simple script that just swaps the config file before starting the app. (See my blog for nScriptm or MortScript -related info and sample scripts if interested).

All in all, it's, with minimal additional work, possible to easily switch between proxies, even when using Minimo/Opera. (And NetFront, as has alreasy been pointed out, is able to read the syste m-level proxy.)

[maikii]

Do you mean that Netfront, with that setting, will recognize whether one is connected via Wi-Fi or GPRS, and use or not use the proxy accordingly? (It took me a lot of time to get PIE to do that, but now it does!)

I don't know much about scripting. Is there a way to write it like a simple DOS batch file: "RENAME operaproxy.ini opera.ini", or something like that? Are batch files supported in WM5? Command lines?

Where does one get programs like nScriptm or MortScript? Does one have to be a programmer to use them, or are they simple enough for ordinary mortals? ;-)


NetFront does support the system-level proxy - that's the default configuration. Just make sure the "Auto-retrieve" checkbox is checked in.

Minimo also has proxy support. I think it's stored in a file; that is, with a simple file swap (using two config files and just swapping the two before starting the app from a script written in a scripting language) will work just great.

The same staands for Opera: it's pretty easy to write a script in for example in nScriptm or MortScript a simple script that just swaps the config file before starting the app. (See my blog for nScriptm or MortScript -related info and sample scripts if interested).

All in all, it's, with minimal additional work, possible to easily switch between proxies, even when using Minimo/Opera. (And NetFront, as has alreasy been pointed out, is able to read the syste m-level proxy.)

[maikii]

NetFront does support the system-level proxy - that's the default configuration. Just make sure the "Auto-retrieve" checkbox is checked in.

I just tried that. Yes, it supports the proxy, but then tries to go through the proxy for all connections. It doesn't recognize different "networks", like PIE does.

So, for instance, I have a proxy set for GPRS web brqwsing, but don't want the proxy for a wi-fi connection. Netfront doesn't recognize which type of connection. It tries to go through the proxy for any connection.

[Phillip Dyson]

Whats going on with Netfront 3.3? Access seems to have gone silent since they acquired PalmSource.

Any updates? Time of delivery?

[linksavage]

Any new updates on pocketpc/wm5 browsers? I just got a new Cingular 8525 and the Pocket IE that it comes with is not what I need.

[Menneisyys]

Any updates?

1. welcome to PPCT :)

2. Check out the main Software forum here - I've posted tons of new reviews in the meantime. I will only competely rewrite this article when the new Opera Mobile is released and we get a picture how good NetFront 3.4 is.

[linksavage]

Thanks!!

Any updates?

1. welcome to PPCT :)

2. Check out the main Software forum here - I've posted tons of new reviews in the meantime. I will only competely rewrite this article when the new Opera Mobile is released and we get a picture how good NetFront 3.4 is.

[Menneisyys]

UPDATE (04/04/2007): this document is officially deprecated now that a brand new Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible has been published. Please see http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=433756

[Paul Martin]

Posted on front page (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=433969&sid=6595efaccfd6da29645b241aa5eb2e65). 12,000 words, Menneisyys? :lol:

[isajoo]

once again excellent article...i could read your stuff all day. now, the but... i tried opera mobile and i just cant seem to understand how it can at the point of "it rocks"... it is better then netfront3.3 in many ways... but even with my old(very old) wm2003 pie with pieplus, nothing comes close(even with the freeze ups). pieplus's hardware button support and the easy of use and the web text layout are unbeatable. sorry to be so blunt, but are u geting paid off to say opera is better(j/k :) ). opera uses a lot of memory resource and with resco keyboard it does not work well. only good part(and nothing new since netfront) is the support for sites that otherwise would not work(or resort to mobile version) opera is good, but not great. the lack of even back/forward/stop touch buttons at the bottom are too annoying. for me ppc's r still suppose to be used as much as u can with 1 hand... unless u want to input data. keep up the work and stay true.

[Menneisyys]

once again excellent article...i could read your stuff all day. now, the but... i tried opera mobile and i just cant seem to understand how it can at the point of "it rocks"... it is better then netfront3.3 in many ways... but even with my old(very old) wm2003 pie with pieplus, nothing comes close(even with the freeze ups). pieplus's hardware button support and the easy of use and the web text layout are unbeatable. sorry to be so blunt, but are u geting paid off to say opera is better(j/k :) ). opera uses a lot of memory resource and with resco keyboard it does not work well. only good part(and nothing new since netfront) is the support for sites that otherwise would not work(or resort to mobile version) opera is good, but not great. the lack of even back/forward/stop touch buttons at the bottom are too annoying. for me ppc's r still suppose to be used as much as u can with 1 hand... unless u want to input data. keep up the work and stay true.

Yes, this is why I've posted the remark at Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:02 am:

"BTW, many have asked why there's neither "Verdict" nor "Most recommended" section in the Bible. The answer is very simple: while I, personally, consider Opera Mobile 8.65 the best browser closely followed by the WM6 (or, at least, WM5 AKU2+ - previous versions were 50% slower to load pages and, therefore, I wouldn't really be able to return to using them) IEM equipped with PIEPlus 2.2 if the bad JavaScript / non-existing AJAX support and the relatively high memory usage aren't a problem.

However, as you may have drastically different requirements, the above may not be the right solution for you. For example, you can ONLY use free software because, for example, you need the cheapest solution for enterprise-wide deployment, which means you'll need to cast a glance at Webby, Minimo or, probably the best free alternative, Opera Mini. Or, alternatively, you want to keep the original page layout on your low-resolution QVGA model; then, the first browser you should check out is Thunderhawk (not taking DeepFish into account).

That is, there was a reason I didn't (and still don't) provide a quick recommendation. There are a LOT of factors you need to consider when selecting your browser of your choice. You WILL want to thoroughly examine the feature / comparison chart, thoroughly compare each feature and consider whether the lack of a given feature is a showstopper for you or not. Providing a some-sentence-recommendation like ""go for Minimo if you need a free and, therefore, easily mass-deployable browser and memory consumption isn't an issue", "go for Opera Mini if you need minimal memory consumption, speed and also being free" or "stay with PIE if you don't need strong JavaScript / AJAX / CSS support and multitabs but want a free, dependable browser"" would have been an oversimplification.

I felt it useless to try to even replicate the information available in the comparison / feature chart in a Verdict section - there's simply too much information, I would have ended up pages on this "simple" subject. This is why I’ve left it out altogether – you’ll need to consult the chart so that you can make an educated, informed decision.."

the one at Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:43 am:

"Finally, I can not stress and emphasize enough: if you have a specific need but lack the time to fully scrutinize the chart, use in-page searching (Ctrl-F) to quickly find the compatibility information you need. For example, if you want to know Flash, AJAX or JavaScript compliance, just use the word in question (for example "Flash") as the search expression and you'll really quickly find out which chart row discusses the given question."


the one at Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:29 am :

"I've just been told by the excellent Opera folks that Opera Mobile, the, taking into everything and giving particular weight to Web standards compliance, best and fastest Web browser for Windows Mobile, will remain WM2003(SE) compatible, even in the forthcoming, 9.x series.

This is very good news for all WM2003(SE) users. Not only because the built-in Pocket Internet Explorer, in WM2003(SE), is way worse than Opera Mobile (it was only in WM5 AKU2 that its rendering / page loading speed, at last, has been seriously increased), but also because, it seems, all the notable, new / forthcoming alternatives (NetFront 3.4, Picsel, DeepFish - see the Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible for more info on all these titles) are WM5+ only."

Finally, the newly-added Verdict section in the Picsel browser review:

"While many (particularly Palm) people love the Picsel browser (and it has a lot of loyal Windows Mobile followers; for example, the excellent vijay555 at XDA-Developers), I don't think it's as good as the leading Windows Mobile Web browsers, particularly Opera Mobile 8.65 and the built-in PIE in WM5 AKU2+ / WM6 with a decent plug-in (like PIEPlus 2.2).

That is, I generally recommend two browsers for mostly VGA users (QVGA users also want to check out Thunderhawk): Opera Mobile and, as a very close second (unlike with the other browsers - they are not very close at all), PIE + PIEPlus 2.2, the latter particularly in WM5 AKU2+ because of the speed improvement over previous PIE versions.

It's just that I don't put much weight on for example hardware button use or Java (in which OPMob really sucks) that I still prefer (the much more standards-compliant and, therefore, with more pages compatible) and still faster OpMob for general browsing.

However, I've also emphasized in the WM Web Browsing Bible, other people may have other preferences - this is why there is a big comparison / feature chart in there.

(I wish I got paid by Opera BTW :) Now I had to temporarily stop buying new hardware because I had to pay some $4000 to my dentist and also paid some $1500 to get a really big shelf to put my Computing Museum stuff on (hundreds of old books, thousands of mags, old cassettes, cartridges, computers etc). This also means I may not purchse new toys for some 3-4 months at least. Fortunately, I have several current devices now so it isn't a real problem for me - that is, I can test the latest software on several WM5+ Pocket PC's.)

[Menneisyys]

pieplus's hardware button support and the easy of use and the web text layout are unbeatable

You mean the Pocket View (aka One column) mode in PIEPlus? All decent alternate browsers support this, including Opera Mobile.

[isajoo]

You mean the Pocket View (aka One column) mode in PIEPlus? All decent alternate browsers support this, including Opera Mobile.

1st, i apologize if it came of rude....i really appreciate your articles and u have made so many great comments on positives/negatives aspects of all apps....so thanks again.

the text layout in pieplus is smart(er) enough to make everything look almost identical to a desktop browser. i think it has to do with the settings in pieplus that control the pocket view, mine is set to split text longer than 22 characters. also my pie text is set to Largest. i dont what to go blind from reading your articles on my ppc. :)

i know the other apps do support this, but for some reason it just does not look the same on ALL sites.

maybe its just me. ??? maybe i am getting paid to say pieplus is better...j/k.

ohhh and the scroll support for my side hardware buttons on opera is only link/link not page/page. very annoying with 1 handed readings.

i will send out a request that u DO get PAID from the developers. :)

p.s. opera on wm2003 does have bugs...browser will just shutdown at times when clicking on links.

[Menneisyys]

i will send out a request that u DO get PAID from the developers. :)


Better not - then, I couldn't maintain independence and being unbiased :) (BTW, this is why I, in general, only request fiulll versions when absolutely necessary and, in general, try to write reviews of time-restricted but still 100% working trials instead. It'd be very hard to bite the feeding hand.)

(Albeit anyone could - officially - contract my employer with mobility-related stuff so that, my employer's finding this profitable, I could officially spend all my worktime on writing articles, tutorials, books and the like on Windows Mobile. Now I need to do some other / additional stuff in my office hours - for example, I've been working on / learning data mining, hidden Markov model-related stuff - via Febrl - for several days. Not that I don't like discovering new stuff; it's just that it takes all my time I would more happily spend on writing WinMob-related stuff.)