Skyfire: Mobile Browsing Exactly Like PC Browsing

A new player in the mobile web browsing playground is rapidly changing the mobile web content game. By launching their downloadable mobile web browser Skyfire has the potential to compete with Safari, Opera and other mobile browsers that are out there. The browser is fast, simple, supports rich media and, what a shocker, is absolutely free.

One of the coolest features about Skyfire is the user experience and its ability to turn mobile web browsing into a true PC-like browsing experience. For one, it’s fast. Unlike its rivals, Skyfire gives users an all-encompassing web experience by supporting all the modern web technologies like video, streaming audio, social networking; along with sliding web pages around, zooming and panning like with Safari’s mobile web browser.

In other words, you don’t need to download an additional YouTube app -- as with iPhone’s Safari that still doesn’t support Flash -- if you want to watch YouTube on your phone with the same quality as you would on your desktop or laptop, and sans those annoying error messages about a browser not being able to display the page. We think this is pretty cool.

In more technical terms, Skyfire currently supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, Ajax, QuickTime, Java, Windows Media and more. The company alludes to expanding the pool of video apps with every new release. Our tests revealed the same share of delightful user experience, as demonstrated in Skyfire’s demo video.

The initial private beta supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6 phones and Nokia Series 60, 3rd edition (N-Series and E-series) phones. The downside is that the support currently exists only in the U.S.

In addition, Skyfire is not yet supported on Blackberry, Apple iPhone, Palm OS phones like Treo and PDAs. In the coming months, Skyfire plans to introduce a version for Symbian phones. Beta 1 is now closed, but Beta 2 registrations are accepted here.

With other phone platforms and localities on Skyfire’s roadmap, this promises to be a very interesting journey. We think that in comparison to Opera Mini and iPhone’s Safari, Skyfire has a great potential to change the way we see the world through our mobile windows.

Have you tried it yet? Let us know your thoughts!

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