A mobile browser (also called a microbrowser or minibrowser) is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. Mobile browsers are optimized so as to display Web content most effectively for small screens on portable devices. Mobile browser software must be small and efficient to accommodate the low memory capacity and low-bandwidth of wireless handheld devices. Typically they were stripped-down web browsers, but as of 2006 some mobile browsers can handle latest technologies like CSS 2.1, JavaScript and Ajax.
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Underlying technology
The mobile browser usually connects via a cellular network, or increasingly via Wireless LAN, using standard HTTP over TCP/IP and displays web pages written in HTML, XHTML Mobile Profile (WAP 2.0), or WML (WAP 1.3 which was based on HDML). WML and HDML are stripped-down formats suitable for transmission across limited bandwidth, and wireless data connection called WAP. In Japan, DoCoMo defined the i-mode service based on i-mode HTML, which is an extension of Compact HTML (C-HTML), a simple subset of HTML. WAP 2.0 specifies XHTML Mobile Profile plus WAP CSS, subsets of the W3C's standard XHTML and CSS with minor mobile extensions. Newer microbrowsers are full-featured Web browsers capable of HTML, CSS, ECMAScript, and plug-ins such as Adobe Flash Lite, as well as mobile technologies such as WML, i-mode HTML, or cHTML,.
Pioneers
The so-called microbrowser technologies such as WAP, NTTDocomo's i-mode platform and Openwave's HDML platform have fuelled the first wave of interest in wireless data services. A British company, STNC Ltd., developed a microbrowser (HitchHiker) intended to present the entire device UI in 1997. The demonstration platform for this microbrowser (Webwalker) had 1 MIPS total processing power. This was a single core platform, running the GSM stack on the same processor as the application stack. In 1999 STNC was acquired by Microsoft and HitchHiker became Microsoft Mobile Explorer 2.0, not related to the primitive Microsoft Mobile Explorer 1.0. HitchHiker is believed to be the first microbrowser with a unified rendering model, handling HTML and WAP along with EcmaScript, WMLScript, POP3 and IMAP mail in a single client. Although it was not used, it was possible to combine HTML and WAP in the same pages although this would render the pages invalid for any other device. In addition, Amstrad's ill-fated e-m@iler and e-m@iler+ products used HitchHiker as their operating systems. Mobile Explorer 2.0 was available on the Benefon Q, Sony CMD-Z5, CMD-J5, CMD-MZ5, CMD-Z7, CMD-J7 and CMD-J70. A freeware (although later shareware) browser for the PalmOS was Palmscape, written in 1998 by Kazuho Oku in Japan, who went on to found Ilinx. Still in limited use as late as 2003. Released in 2001, Mobile Explorer 3.0 added iMode compatibility (cHTML) plus numerous proprietary schemes. By imaginatively combining these proprietary schemes with WAP protocols, MME3.0 implemented OTA database synchronisation, push email, push information clients (not unlike a 'Today Screen') and PIM functionality. The cancelled Sony Ericsson CMD-Z700 was to feature heavy integration with MME3.0. Mobile Explorer development had ceased by mid-2002. Opera Software pioneered with its Small Screen Rendering (SSR) and Medium Screen Rendering (MSR) technology. Opera Browser is able to relayout regular web pages for optimal fit on small screens and medium-sized (PDA) screens. It was also the first widely available mobile browser to support Ajax and the first mobile browser to pass ACID2 test.[1]
Popular mobile browsers
Distinct from a mobile browser is a web-based emulator, which uses a "Virtual Handset" to display WAP pages on a computer screen, implemented either in Java or as an HTML trancoder. These browsers include Wapjag, TT, Waptiger and Superwap. The following are some of the more popular mobile browsers. Some mobile browsers are really miniaturized Web browsers, so some mobile browser companies also provide browsers for desktop and laptop computers.
Default browsers used by major mobile phone and PDA vendors
- Android (mobile phone platform) by Google (based on WebKit)
- Blazer by Palm, installed on all newer Palm Treos and PDAs (based on NetFront).
- Danger browser by Danger (proprietary), installed on all Danger-designed devices including the T-Mobile Sidekick.
- Embider by Infraware[2] (proprietary).
- Internet Explorer Mobile by Microsoft Inc. (browser engine history unknown).
- MOTOMAGX by Motorola (based on WebKit).
- NetFront by ACCESS Co., Ltd. (proprietary).
- Nokia Series 40 Browser by Nokia (proprietary).
- Novarra nWeb (proprietary).
- Obigo Browser by Obigo AB (Sweden), 100% owned by Teleca AB (proprietary).
- Openwave (Redwood, CA) (formerly Phone.com, formerly Unwired Planet) (proprietary).
- Opera Mobile by Opera Software ASA (Norway). - Capable of reading HTML and reformat for small screens (proprietary).
- Picsel Browser by Picsel Techologies (Scotland) (proprietary).
- PlayStation Portable web browser by Sony (proprietary).
- Safari by Apple Inc on iPhone and iPod Touch (based on WebKit).
- Wapaka Browser Java micro-browser by Digital Airways.
- Web Browser for S60 by Nokia (based on WebKit).
User-installable microbrowsers
- Opera Mobile by Opera Software - supports all modern web standards supported by desktop browsers, including XHTML, CSS2 and Ajax. Has advanced Small Screen Rendering that adapts regular pages to small screen (proprietary).
- Opera Mini by Opera Software - supports most features of stand-alone Opera, but can run on less capable phones by offloading memory-intensive rendering to proxy server (based on Opera Mobile running on a server).
- Minimo by Mozilla Foundation (based on Gecko).
- WinWAP by Winwap Technologies Official product page
- Bluelark Bluelark bought by Handspring Inc.
- Deepfish Beta from Microsoft.
- Doris by Anygraaf Oy (Vantaa, Finland)
- JOCA by InteracT!V, another proxy-rendering free software.
- Pixo by Sun Microsystems (Pixo acquired by Sun July 2003)
- RocketBrowser Rocket Mobile, Inc. (Silicon Valley, CA).
- PocketWeb by tlogic.de (Heidelberg, Germany) Official product page
- SAS
- TeaShark - a free Java-based browser with a desktop-like layout [3]
- ThunderHawk by Bitstream Inc. (Cambridge, MA)
- Webby Mobile by AnOriginalIdea
Mobile HTML Transcoders
Mobile transcoders reformat and compress web content for mobile devices and must be used in conjunction with built-in or user-installed microbrowsers. The following are several leading mobile transcoding services.
- Skweezer
- Bomjpacket - an open-source mobile browser
See also
External links
- Compact HTML for Small Information Appliances — W3C NOTE 09-Feb-1998
- Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web — Guidelines for Mobile Development.
- W3C Mobile Web Initiative — “The Mobile Web Initiative's goal is to make browsing the Web from mobile devices a reality”, explains Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web.
- dev.mobi — Tools and domain for mobile web site development.
