Skyfire 1.0 browser is released

[Guest Lisbian08]

Skyfire has officially released their browser. The omnia is fully supported. The browser has full flash support. The only issue I have found so far is that they still don't support typing inside of flash content. Other than that the speed is much better than the last build (9333).

[Guest TheDrizzle]

I've been following Skyfire since it was in a closed Beta, its great to see them releasing a milestone product. I'm upgrading the version on my Omnia now. I'm hoping they improved the gesture scrolling, but I won't hold me breath....

EDIT: Cool, the scrolling is improved, but still a little clunky. The zooming is better now, it is more of an animated zoom rather then a blurry clunky zoom. Neato.

Edited May 28, 2009 by TheDrizzle

[Guest Lisbian08]

Skyfire 1.0 – Release Notes (Windows Mobile and Symbian)

Released: May 27, 2009

We are excited to release Skyfire 1.0. In this release, we focused on enhancing user interactions, stability, and scalability to create a solid foundation on which to build the future of the product.

What’s new in 1.0?

• Thumbnail interaction. Now you can click on links immediately after the page loads without having to zoom in. This enhancement is especially helpful for high resolution phones, and for familiar sites where you know right away where you want to click. It makes getting to the content you want on the page simpler, quicker and more efficient.
  
• Improved zoom. Double-tap or double-click to zoom over any element, including links, images or videos. The zoom interaction is smoother and more responsive as well. Best of all: when you zoom in you will get readable text instantly.
  
• Enhanced navigation. When you navigate back or forward, you return to the last viewport (e.g. zoom level and portion of the page). This eliminates the need to pan and zoom into the section you were viewing on the previous page. Skyfire remembers the viewport even when you select a page from your history. We have also added shortcut keys, (9) for forward and (7) for backward navigation.
  
• Improved page handling. Enhancements have been made especially for AJAX-intensive sites such as Facebook and Gmail. When larger parts of the page get updated, the client will more quickly and accurately reflect this. In addition, now, we support full-width iFrames in Skyfire.
  
• Fast start. We changed both the sequence and behavior of the Skyfire launch so you get started as quickly as possible. You can type a search or URL in the Superbar while Skyfire is connecting in the background. You can put Skyfire to work before the start page is even loaded. Plus, we’ve improved connection performance.
  
• Reconnect to last state. When you leave Skyfire in the background Skyfire disconnects to preserve battery life. When you come back to Skyfire (after minutes, hours, days), it will reload the same page to the same zoom level and focus. You can continue right where you left off. When you exit and start again, Skyfire you will always land on the start page.
  
• Connection helper. There is a new mechanism to detect when connections cannot be established to Skyfire servers. If this is due to a network configuration (common in GSM land), then we provide suggestions to help out. This is especially useful if you are with a carrier/data plan that places restrictions on certain APN configurations, which interferes with Skyfire.
  
• Enhanced search results. Google results now include video, news articles, local results all blended on a single results page and ordered by relevance. Vertical search categories are still available.
  
• Improved RSS feed search. Find your favorite custom RSS feeds through the improved Add-Feed feature, found under the Customize menu on the start page. Search by site domain, feed URL, or even topical keywords.
  
• Easier sharing of RSS items from start page. We’ve exposed a simple “Share this article” link below each RSS story displayed on your start page to make it easier to share interesting items to your Twitter and Facebook.
  
• Remember last connection (Symbian only). Skyfire can now remember the last connection for you, so you will not have to choose a connection every single time. In addition, if you want to change the connection type while you are in Skyfire you can do so.
  
  • Reconnect behavior. Skyfire disconnects when left idle or put into the background to preserve battery life. On reconnect it loads the last known page from history. In some circumstances, it may load a different page from history then the last page.
    
  • Audio/video (Symbian only): On slow connections, A/V might be out of sync.
    

  Not supported in Skyfire

  [*]Text entry into Flash or Silverlight plug-ins is not supported.

  [*]Skyfire does not support ‘local storage’ mode for plug-ins. Thus the following will be affected: Netflix media player, Pandora media player, Rhapsody media player.

  [*]Download of password protected files are not supported.

  [*]Uploading files is not supported.

  [*]HTTP Authentication (e.g. the native browser dialog that asks for username and password when going to certain sites) is not supported.

  [*]DivX and XviD Video formats are not supported.

  [*]QuickTime movies which require playback external of browser are not supported. (QuickTime clips

  [*]embedded in a page are supported).

  [*]FTP browsing and access is not supported. (e.g. URL’s with ftp:// )

  [*]Anchors (In-page links) are not supported.

  Installation

  You can upgrade to 1.0 by pointing your browser to http://get.skyfire.com.

  If you are currently running Skyfire Beta 0.85 or earlier, you must first uninstall Skyfire from your device and then install 1.0. You will be able to log into your existing Skyfire account using the ‘log-in’ option on the start page.

[Guest kav]

i have been using skyfire ver 1 for the past 2 days now and i can say that it fills the gap for opera in the sense that it plays the online videos but still the resolution that it zooms in or out is very very bad. it almost blurry and the text is not sharp at all, next to unreadable. my eyes started hurting after only 10 min using the skyfire browser.

i think that there is still room for improvement in the zooming function, it should be more smooth and in smaller increments.

as far as the resolution is concerned, they still have a huge job to do in that section in order to match the resolution like in opera or even mobile IE. if they dont fix that soon, then they will lose users for their app.

[Guest Compuse]

I'm soh gonna try it! I didn't like it a while ago but seeing these improvements; i'll be testing it out!

ThnX

[Guest FerdiBorbon]

Man this browser is blazin fast...loads pages really quick and youtube flash movies on sites load so quick....image quality and text is not the greteast abviously as its pickin up info from a turbo server...compressing the sites for mobile loading...

[Guest jenben]

Man this browser is blazin fast...loads pages really quick and youtube flash movies on sites load so quick....image quality and text is not the greteast abviously as its pickin up info from a turbo server...compressing the sites for mobile loading...

So mate does this version of skyfire work in Australia?

Regards Brendan

[Guest Lisbian08]

i have been using skyfire ver 1 for the past 2 days now and i can say that it fills the gap for opera in the sense that it plays the online videos but still the resolution that it zooms in or out is very very bad. it almost blurry and the text is not sharp at all, next to unreadable. my eyes started hurting after only 10 min using the skyfire browser.

i think that there is still room for improvement in the zooming function, it should be more smooth and in smaller increments.

as far as the resolution is concerned, they still have a huge job to do in that section in order to match the resolution like in opera or even mobile IE. if they dont fix that soon, then they will lose users for their app.

I agree completely. I still use opera for my main browser, but Skyfire is a nice complement. The speed is much improved, and as far as the zoom goes, 1.0 is much better than the last beta (9333). I still think there is room for improvement, but they are heading in the right direction.

[Guest Mr. B!]

I loved skyfire but had a serious problem with the zoom. I may need to revisit.

[Guest Uribam]

Seems ok but still doesn't play music in thesixtyone.com for me =( If any of you really like indie music could you try to load that up and see if it works for you? If you enjoy the site you can register and use me as the referance but moreso just want to see if it works for someone else. I have i910 running wozzer's 6.5 v4 rom. Help would be appreciated =)

Bammer

[Guest dserhal]

I just downloaded the 1.0 browser.

I hardly used the other Skyfire I had because it sucked battery life like a mofo!

Hope this one is better.

[Guest maf107ezk0]

It`s nice but there is still a lot to be done <_<

[Guest kav]

I just downloaded the 1.0 browser.

I hardly used the other Skyfire I had because it sucked battery life like a mofo!

Hope this one is better.

been using it a bit now and it doesnt have any issue with the batteries.

[Guest eufouria]

I couldn't get Hulu to work on a roadtrip today, hulu gave me an error telling me to check my internet connection.

[Guest x.v_]

I dislike Skyfire. Someone logging all my internet activity isn't my first choice (aside from Verizon... lol).

[Guest shadowsjc]

honestly, unless youre browsing terrorist sites, then i dont really see what the problem is if there's a record of what you visited. oh i went on hulu on my phone and watched an episode of gilmore girls.. can't let anyone know about that!

[Guest willyg44]

Wow, this browser is FAST. Even though I like the UI of Opera better, for larger sized websites, this browser is awesome.

[Guest TheDrizzle]

honestly, unless youre browsing terrorist sites, then i dont really see what the problem is if there's a record of what you visited. oh i went on hulu on my phone and watched an episode of gilmore girls.. can't let anyone know about that!

I'm sure it more private information - like if you logged into sites that require authentication, Skyfire technically could capture your credentials. Plus if you browse banking, medical records, etc on Skyfire all of that data feasibly could be viewed by Skyfire's staff. However, I'm sure that Skyfire is more interested in being a succesfully browser and offering a good experiance rather then illegally mining for users private data. Really, I am not too concerned, but maybe for very personal information I would use Opera or PIE to be satisfy my paranoia.

[Guest eufouria]

oh i went on hulu on my phone and watched an episode of gilmore girls.. can't let anyone know about that!

You got hulu to work? I just tried it on a wi-fi connection and still no luck, getting an error telling me to check my internet connection, any other 910 users having this problem?

[Guest Lisbian08]

You got hulu to work? I just tried it on a wi-fi connection and still no luck, getting an error telling me to check my internet connection, any other 910 users having this problem?

I am watching Dave Matthews Band on Hulu right this moment on my i910.

[Guest spv_dman]

I was able to watch some live streams from justin.tv, a few clips from nba.com, and listen to espn radio. A bit laggy but acceptable. This is the best winmo streaming and multimedia browser client I used so far. Also, I can now view full content of various websites. I've been using skyfire a lot for 2 weeks now. This one's for keeps <_<

[Guest thescope]

Sktfire is ok to play around with but for REAL browsing im still with PIE and Opera

where is Opera 9.7 come to papa! <_<

[Guest Lisbian08]

Sktfire is ok to play around with but for REAL browsing im still with PIE and Opera

where is Opera 9.7 come to papa! <_<

I have 4 browsers on my phone right now. I use Opera Mobile 9.5 by far the most. I use Iris (Torch Mobile) for certain websites because I like the look, and skyfire for flash intensive websites. I also have IE on the phone but never use it. I have tried the Fennec Alpha trial and Opera Mini but took them off because I didn't like them.