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October 27, 2008

Following Up on Skyfire

filed under: Gadgets Trends
tags:

I have a few reflections on Skyfire after using it the last week or so...

  1. It is nice to have a full browser on the phone, but on the Q (with it's click pad and click wheel) navigating was a little challenging. I often found myself being either zoomed in a little too much or not quite enough and which further exacerbated the navigating problems I had within a page.
  2. The flash player never worked with sound.
  3. It seemed a little glitchy as some pages just never loaded many of which were mobile pages that worked just fine with the Explorer browser that was preloaded on the phone.

Currently, I have resorted back to using Explorer as my default browser on my phone as it does what the phone is meant todo. I am keeping Skyfire for those situations where I need more than the mobile web on my phone. Skyfire seems promising so I am planning on keeping an eye on its developments.

October 16, 2008

Sky is the Limit with Skyfire or Getting the Whole Web on Your Smartphone for Free.

filed under: Gadgets
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I spent an hour and a half last night installing and playing with Skyfire on my Motorola Q. While Skyfire opens up the whole web to smartphone users, it is not a perfect solution. I was looking for a browser that would allow me visit and easily read the sites that were giving me problems in Mobile Explorer (www.buffalobills.com and www.dailyshow.com).

I was very pleased when I went to wikipedia to see what is new on the topic and learned that there is a new micro browser called Skyfire available as a free download - if you want to take a risk on loading an open beta on your phone. According to the wikipedia propaganda - Skyfire is speedy and full featured (read more) browser so I quickly went to download it. It downloaded incredibly fast and allows for a more complete web browsing experience than what I was used to in Explorer Mobile. The only thing that doesn't work easily is the sound on flash videos or at least that is what I am concluding as I still can't watch clips from the Daily Show with John Stewart.

I will be using it the next couple of days as I am on the road at a NERCOMP workshop. I will let you know what I think in the coming week.