I am beyond amazed right now.

This morning a received a text that said I am now allowed to download SkyFire as part of a private BETA release.




SkyFire is a web browser for Windows Mobile.


So what's so special?

This.

I opened SkyFire and typed in www.youtube.com and guess what? The FULL version of YouTube, all elements perfect and intact, loaded in under 1 second, on DIAL UP speeds!! This just blew me away. Then I typed in "mac pro" and hit "Search." I opened a video about the Mac Pro and the video started playing just like it would on your desktop. This is absolutely amazing.

Until this point, I used a seperate program for YouTube (kind of like how the iPhone and iPod touch do YouTube), but now I will just use Youtube.com!

So instant page loads/renderings, and full web multimedia support... Now, how is that possible? How can SkyFire load a full website WITH video content in under 1 second without the phone choking, let alone just locking up? It's because unlike most WM browsers (like Opera Mobile and Pocket Internet Explorer) SkyFire renders the sites on a remote server. This means the phone's weak little processor doesn't have to struggle with putting all that complex data together and showing it to you. This is a big problem with most other browsers.




But SkyFire isn't without its problems. This is understandable since it's in its BETA 1 release. Notable issues include no copy/paste support, no support for multiple windows or tabs, no ability to save pictures, no easy ability to switch between running programs since SkyFire runs full screen and so the Start bar goes away.




The verdict: Until they patch up these issues, I will continue to use Opera Mobile 9.5 as my everyday browser. But when I need to do some heavy duty stuff, or just feel like playing, I will gladly use SkyFire.




www.skyfire.com