Inspirated

 
 

October 11, 2007

Watching the froots

Filed under: Blog — krkhan @ 6:55 pm

“The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots, the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.” — William Blake

(As far as history tells us, Blake was a n00b in the field of computers and internet. Which adequately explains why he knew as much about browser wars as anyone’s grandma. Certain fiery foxes do watch the (open-source) roots, but I never heard anything about a Radiating Rat, Mercurial Mouse or Rigorous Rabbit.)

Anyone not living under a rock for the past decade knows this pretty well: Firefox is the best web-browser on the face of earth, period — as far as embedded browsing isn’t concerned. For me, and everyone else who actually browses full-blown websites on cell phones, Opera still holds that honor on mobile platforms. Here’s a list of few good reasons why:

  • Page refitting “modes”. You can view the page in its original design or opt for having Opera “fit” it on the mobile screen for you.
  • Inline frames. You can’t log-in in some of the Google services without them (e.g. orkut).
  • Better Javascript support.
  • One reason to rule them all: absence of Firefox on the platform.

And the one reason looks like it’s finally going to be rectified by Mozilla. Gentlemen, everyone’s favorite fox is aiming for mobile platforms.

The bad news? You’re gonna have to wait for about another year before you could actually get your hands on it (the project is as mature right now as Steve Ballmer; and that’s virtually indicative of infancy). Other than that, the details are aplenty and if you do use internet on a hand-held, you should definitely give the announcement link a visit.

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1 Comment

  1. opera is good but safari (on iPhone/iPod touch) isn’t bad either. Yes there is no support for java and flash yet, but it still gives a good browsing experience. With news of possible flash support on the way, safari is becoming a good competitor to opera in the mobile arena.

    Comment by Ali Zeeshan — October 14, 2007 @ 2:31 pm

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