Menneisyys
04-30-2006, 05:39 PM
NetFront is one of the best alternate Web browsers for the Pocket PC. It has many-many advantages over the built-in Internet Explorer and, in general, is only rivaled by Opera.
Access Co., developer of NetFront, is still working on the new version, 3.3, of the browser and keeps releasing (public) under-development versions of it, making it possible for users to test it. This is definitely a very good thing because the current 3.3 version(s) are far-far better (faster, WM5 compliant, flawlessly support VGA devices etc.) than the currently available, one-year-old commercial version, 3.2. Unfortunately, it also has some restrictions (painfully missing Macromedia Flash/Java plug-ins and the inability to support more than ten favorites and two tabs) compared to version 3.2, which, of course, will not be present in the final version.
The new, freely downloadable version is downloadable here (http://www.access.co.jp/nfppc/dl_v33e.html).
What has changed since the previous version?
(Also see my review of the previous version (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=alternative_web_browser_netfront_3_3_tec&more=1))
Nothing noticeable. The benchmarks (see the comparison chart at the bottom), all the menus are the same and there’s only very slight difference in the main executable file: it’s about 2 kbytes bigger than the previous version.
The bugs seem to be the same too: for example, the IHT (http://www.iht.com/) articles are still unreadable (this bug still hasn’t been fixed; of course, on IHT, you can always click the “Print Page” link to be able to see the contents of the page, as with switching NetFront to Text Browsing mode. Still, this bug may render your browsing with NetFront a pain because of hidden content that you will never know it existed with a lot of other Web pages too (pages that use similar HTML constructs) unless you explicitly use it in the “dumb” Text Browsing mode always.
Benchmarks
I have some good news: current NetFront versions are far faster than version 3.2 and definitely faster than Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile. They can’t beat the current, b2 version of Opera, though – the latter is definitely faster at loading pages.
The speed difference between NetFront and Internet Explorer is particularly emphasized on WM5, where NetFront is two times faster than Internet Explorer. It’s definitely worth comparing the benchmark results in the comparison chart – as can be seen, the 624 MHz, freshly hard reset x51v is faster at loading Web large pages over a USB ActiveSync connection than, as far as the CPU clock and the USB ActiveSync connection speed is concerned, the slightly slower Pocket Loox 720 using both Opera and NetFront, the WM5 version of Internet Explorer is definitely a letdown and a step back, speed-wise, compared to the WM2003SE implementation.
It’s also worth comparing the 1.05/1.06 TP 3.3 page loading times I’ve measured to those of version 3.2 published in my Bible of Web Browsers (see links at the bottom in this link collection (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=502&more=1)). As can clearly be seen, there has been great speed increase: now, NetFront is between the built-in, slowish Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile and the speed-demon Opera.
(Note that all values have been measured in the default Full Browsing mode; with Text Browsing, loading times are even better. USB ActiveSync connection was used to benchmark the applications.)
The comparison chart can be found here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/NF33106Bench.html) or here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=762&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1), in the article posted to my blog. (Sorry for linking in external resources - there's no HTML table support in the forum engine.)
Important Tips
After installing NetFront, the first thing you do should be going to (Menu/)Tools/Browser Setting/View/Advanced Setting/Change and ticking in “Use proportional font”. This is often overlooked by NetFront users, leading to generic disappointments. (Unfortunately, Access, developer of NetFront, doesn’t seem to be bothered about the problem.)
Please note that if you install it on a storage card, make sure you heavily optimize the card before this – otherwise, flushing the cache to the card will greatly slow down NetFront (as with any other app using cache). Please read this (essential) article (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17921) on this question.
Also, if your language is a non-Western one with its own alphabet, you may want to go to (Menu/)View/Encoding and set the encoding to Auto or that of your particular language.
Verdict
It’s definitely worth installing the new version – you won’t regret it, if you can live with the favorite/tab number restrictions. Highly recommended especially for WM2003/WM2003SE users because of the well-known bug (the inability to render HTML pages over 20-30 Kbytes) of Opera b2 on the latter operating systems.
Recommended links
Link collection to the latest Pocket PC Web Browser reviews (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=link_collection_to_the_latest_pocket_pc&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)
Access Co., developer of NetFront, is still working on the new version, 3.3, of the browser and keeps releasing (public) under-development versions of it, making it possible for users to test it. This is definitely a very good thing because the current 3.3 version(s) are far-far better (faster, WM5 compliant, flawlessly support VGA devices etc.) than the currently available, one-year-old commercial version, 3.2. Unfortunately, it also has some restrictions (painfully missing Macromedia Flash/Java plug-ins and the inability to support more than ten favorites and two tabs) compared to version 3.2, which, of course, will not be present in the final version.
The new, freely downloadable version is downloadable here (http://www.access.co.jp/nfppc/dl_v33e.html).
What has changed since the previous version?
(Also see my review of the previous version (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=alternative_web_browser_netfront_3_3_tec&more=1))
Nothing noticeable. The benchmarks (see the comparison chart at the bottom), all the menus are the same and there’s only very slight difference in the main executable file: it’s about 2 kbytes bigger than the previous version.
The bugs seem to be the same too: for example, the IHT (http://www.iht.com/) articles are still unreadable (this bug still hasn’t been fixed; of course, on IHT, you can always click the “Print Page” link to be able to see the contents of the page, as with switching NetFront to Text Browsing mode. Still, this bug may render your browsing with NetFront a pain because of hidden content that you will never know it existed with a lot of other Web pages too (pages that use similar HTML constructs) unless you explicitly use it in the “dumb” Text Browsing mode always.
Benchmarks
I have some good news: current NetFront versions are far faster than version 3.2 and definitely faster than Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile. They can’t beat the current, b2 version of Opera, though – the latter is definitely faster at loading pages.
The speed difference between NetFront and Internet Explorer is particularly emphasized on WM5, where NetFront is two times faster than Internet Explorer. It’s definitely worth comparing the benchmark results in the comparison chart – as can be seen, the 624 MHz, freshly hard reset x51v is faster at loading Web large pages over a USB ActiveSync connection than, as far as the CPU clock and the USB ActiveSync connection speed is concerned, the slightly slower Pocket Loox 720 using both Opera and NetFront, the WM5 version of Internet Explorer is definitely a letdown and a step back, speed-wise, compared to the WM2003SE implementation.
It’s also worth comparing the 1.05/1.06 TP 3.3 page loading times I’ve measured to those of version 3.2 published in my Bible of Web Browsers (see links at the bottom in this link collection (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=502&more=1)). As can clearly be seen, there has been great speed increase: now, NetFront is between the built-in, slowish Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile and the speed-demon Opera.
(Note that all values have been measured in the default Full Browsing mode; with Text Browsing, loading times are even better. USB ActiveSync connection was used to benchmark the applications.)
The comparison chart can be found here (http://www.winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/NF33106Bench.html) or here (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=762&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1), in the article posted to my blog. (Sorry for linking in external resources - there's no HTML table support in the forum engine.)
Important Tips
After installing NetFront, the first thing you do should be going to (Menu/)Tools/Browser Setting/View/Advanced Setting/Change and ticking in “Use proportional font”. This is often overlooked by NetFront users, leading to generic disappointments. (Unfortunately, Access, developer of NetFront, doesn’t seem to be bothered about the problem.)
Please note that if you install it on a storage card, make sure you heavily optimize the card before this – otherwise, flushing the cache to the card will greatly slow down NetFront (as with any other app using cache). Please read this (essential) article (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17921) on this question.
Also, if your language is a non-Western one with its own alphabet, you may want to go to (Menu/)View/Encoding and set the encoding to Auto or that of your particular language.
Verdict
It’s definitely worth installing the new version – you won’t regret it, if you can live with the favorite/tab number restrictions. Highly recommended especially for WM2003/WM2003SE users because of the well-known bug (the inability to render HTML pages over 20-30 Kbytes) of Opera b2 on the latter operating systems.
Recommended links
Link collection to the latest Pocket PC Web Browser reviews (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=link_collection_to_the_latest_pocket_pc&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)