Develop Bugs

Browsers

does anybody think that opera made opera mini & 10 final because they are starting to develop a browser for wp7? or is this all just a big coincidence that they did the day after MIX or maybe they have giving up on windows phones & are just gonna focus on android??
thoughts?

No native code equals no alternative browsers.

vangrieg said:
No native code equals no alternative browsers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im not so sure i believe that there wont be other browsers, why else would they say that they have no problems with other browsers on the platform just to not allow it or to force them to use the IE engine (wouldnt they need native code or special access to even do that?)
is it possible to get flash working without native code? cuz if not then that shows that they are willing to let it be used i think there will be opera on wp7 & im not talking about that mini crap

Why wouldn't they say they have no problems with alternative browsers? Sure they are nice unlike Apple, you can make any application you want... as long as it's done in SL/XNA.
And of course they do their own stuff in C++, they're not crazy.
As regards Flash, yes, that will be done in C++ as well, no doubt about it. But that adds value to their IE, while Opera is another matter. We'll see. So far they said specifically that SL/XNA is "the whole developer story".

Opera is going to be an option on WP7, but it can never be the default browser.

vangrieg said:
Why wouldn't they say they have no problems with alternative browsers? Sure they are nice unlike Apple, you can make any application you want... as long as it's done in SL/XNA.
And of course they do their own stuff in C++, they're not crazy.
As regards Flash, yes, that will be done in C++ as well, no doubt about it. But that adds value to their IE, while Opera is another matter. We'll see. So far they said specifically that SL/XNA is "the whole developer story".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
at the same time options with different browsers add value to wp7 & unless that new IE is better & faster then safari then they will need it

No because alternative browsers may easily have Google as default search engine.

vangrieg said:
No because alternative browsers may easily have Google as default search engine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IE on the pc can have google as the default search engine & even if the bowsers have it also you still wont be able to set google as the search button so people will still be using bing at the end of the day anyway

vangrieg said:
No native code equals no alternative browsers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Opera Mini doesn't run natively.

Yeah, but it's also not a browser really.

Microsoft never said that they wouldn't allow apps that competed with app that come with the platform. They said that It just can't be the default app. If you open a link in a outlook mail or you text message it will automatically go to the IE browser. But your allowed to use alternative browsers.

Shasarak said:
Opera Mini doesn't run natively.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhm.. so what are you saying it is? .NET?

vangrieg said:
No native code equals no alternative browsers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not that simple. Opera's income from the mobile market segment does not come directly from the end users (it's free, remember?). They deal with manufacturers and network operators to get their browsers integrated with their software. Microsoft have announced that OEM partners will be allowed to run native code so this COULD mean that Opera could be bundled with some phones if Microsoft sees it fitting. I doubt it though.

Nilzor said:
Uhm.. so what are you saying it is? .NET?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The opera mini I use seems to be a java app.

Nilzor said:
I doubt it though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that's the point anyway, isn't it?
asadk said:
The opera mini I use seems to be a java app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's latest WM version is native, there's nothing that prevents it from being made in C# or whatever - it's not a browser anyway, as it doesn't include a rendering engine, just a UI client for a cloud service.

vangrieg said:
It's latest WM version is native, there's nothing that prevents it from being made in C# or whatever - it's not a browser anyway, as it doesn't include a rendering engine, just a UI client for a cloud service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Opera Mobile is a native app; Opera Mini is Java.

Shasarak said:
Opera Mobile is a native app; Opera Mini is Java.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Previously, yes. However, there is now is a native Opera Mini for WM. Of course, it's still using pre-rendering on Opera's servers.

Since iphone has such a huge market share, wont the anti-trust laws apply to Apple for not allowing any other browser other than safari??????

There will be Opera for WP7S. Microsoft has already said they will allow 3rd party browsers.
Flash has to be native code, and Microsoft has already siginaled there will be exceptions to allow native code. It is just they prefer you to do it with Silverlight or XNA if you can, and probably won't allow you unless contact them first with a reason.

krjcook said:
Microsoft never said that they wouldn't allow apps that competed with app that come with the platform. They said that It just can't be the default app. If you open a link in a outlook mail or you text message it will automatically go to the IE browser. But your allowed to use alternative browsers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way, I don't see why this restriction of making alternative default applications is often dismissed as minor. How are you going to use Opera really if it can't be launched from other apps by clicking links, without copy/paste, no access to filesystem and without the ability to access IE bookmarks even? It'll pretty much be limited to entering URLs manually or using whatever built-in bookmarks/cloud storage they ship with. While technically and legally this is indeed "allowing third party browsers", realistically it's very close to "you can't use anything but IE on WP7".

Favorite browser?

Whats you favorite web browser? i have Dolphin,xscope,firefox and skyfire installed

That's overkill. lol I'm very happy with the Dolphin HD browser. I love the tabs, the tools, and the add-ons. I haven't even tried any other browser because I've been so happy with this one.

I use Stock Browser on Sense. I stopped using it because of the reflow crap, but someone on this board released a flashable version of the browser with that disabled, so now im loving it!
And sometimes I use the MIUI browser too, just because it has full screen support. Stock browser does too, but whenever loading different pages, it pulls the notification bar down while the MIUI browser keeps all of that up until you press the menu button.

I always preferred stock, but im diggin Firefox.

I read a review of Skyfire 2.0 that said it was the best browser out as far speed and proper page rendering. I have not tried it yet myself. Also Opera mobile 10.1 for android is supposed to be released tomorrow(9th). Ask me again on Wednesday and I will let you know then which is my favorite. Right now I am leaning towards Skyfire 2.x as it is supposed to allow you to view embedded video that the other browsers won't play.

Just tried Firefox, and I can't stand it. I like using Chrome and Firefox for Windows, but they got some work to do on that. Loading websites, pinchzoom, and ease of use are horrible.
I love the stock browser, and the MIUI Charming browser is growing on me. I like it more than anything at this point.

Skyfire FTW. Best browser hands down in my opinion. zooming and moving around through pages is much more fluent than Dolphin or Stock for that manner.. Mozilla is just garbage. Also skyfires quick access to the feature letting you choose between "desktop, android, or iphone" viewing modes makes browsing quicker and easier

my thoughts
I have tried skyfire, fennec, dolphin and dolphin HD, and opera. wanted to try xscope but im not paying for it no way! out of all of them i found the stock browser to work the best and opera came in second it was faster than all the other 3 party browsers and had nice easy to use tabs but after installing myn's i never re-downloaded it. happy with stock browser.

I do like the opera browser but one thing that bothered me is I had problems downloading from sites that were setup like megaupload,fileserve,rapidshare. These sites would be very buggy and acted weird not letting me download the files I was trying to get (roms, and movies). Usually the counter you had to wait for would bug out or the link would never appear/work. So until that is fixed I've been sticking with Stock.

ICS Browser

Has anyone managed to get the stock ICS browser working on 2.3?
tried ICS for a while, and loved the system but had to give it up for the lack of app support so far. Really missing the integrated approach of the browser, and how it synced bookmarks etc.
I know about ChromeMarks but not really the same. Done a search and found some topics of people trying on different devices but wondering if anybody got it on S2?
Failing that, what browser do you recommend as best for syncing between mobile and desktop?

I use Opera on my desktop, and Opera Mobile on my phone, and I use the build on "Opera Link" to sync bookmarks it works well.
But I suppose you use Google Chrome on your desktop so Opera Mobile isn't an option for you.

fair comment as I do use chrome. however may start looking at other options seen as four years in and google still not bothered with this feature.

IE9 = Rubbish?

Maybe its just me, but using this takes me back to the early 00's with WAP connections, Take the mobile twitter site, its a text based affair with no graphics unlike iOS and android who display it like there mobile apps, same with various websites I load, the look like they did on my old Nokia 7210 I had back in 2002 where as Safari on iOS and the Android web browser look basically the same as they would on a computer. What the reason for this?

The short version is, web developers (at least, the ones for those companies) suck. They're testing for expecific browsers, rather than testing for browser capabilities. IE9 Mobile is actually better than the browser on most of the older Android phones (a lot of phones still ship with 2.3 brand new, and many older ones never even *got* 2.3). However, because the user-agent string it sends doesn't identify itself as a WebKit browser, or some such piss-poor shortcut test, the site send incredibly dumbed-down web code as its fall-back to "I don't even know what this is" mode.
Note that many other sites *do* correctly identify the WP7 browser... just not all of them. Also, some will give different experiences depending on the site; for example, m.facebook.com has a very different UI from touch.facebook.com.
As for sites looking like they do in the desktop, if you want that, put the browser in Desktop mode (it's under Settings, which apparently people never bother to check...) That will cause the browser to send a user-agent string that closely approximates the one used by desktop IE. Websites which use that to identify the browser will therefore send the desktop site code.

The problem is many sites are not recognising it as a smart phone and are displaying a barebone mobile website designed for feature phones rather than smart phones.

It's the fault of the web site developers and not the browser itself. The iOS and android browsers are actually rubbish because of the latest webkit exploit and the fact that within them you still can't easily change the user agent settings.

GoodDayToDie said:
The short version is, web developers (at least, the ones for those companies) suck. They're testing for expecific browsers, rather than testing for browser capabilities. IE9 Mobile is actually better than the browser on most of the older Android phones (a lot of phones still ship with 2.3 brand new, and many older ones never even *got* 2.3). However, because the user-agent string it sends doesn't identify itself as a WebKit browser, or some such piss-poor shortcut test, the site send incredibly dumbed-down web code as its fall-back to "I don't even know what this is" mode.
Note that many other sites *do* correctly identify the WP7 browser... just not all of them. Also, some will give different experiences depending on the site; for example, m.facebook.com has a very different UI from touch.facebook.com.
As for sites looking like they do in the desktop, if you want that, put the browser in Desktop mode (it's under Settings, which apparently people never bother to check...) That will cause the browser to send a user-agent string that closely approximates the one used by desktop IE. Websites which use that to identify the browser will therefore send the desktop site code.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally agree here too. I was speaking with Yelp about being able to view their mobile site through IE9 and WP and for their site to just recognize that it's IE9 and they said they have no plans to make changes to their website to accommodate WP.
This basically means, not until they see it worth their time/effort. Which is lame, cause, really, how hard is it to test for it and then display the mobile site if it's IE9? Why alienate customers, even if it's a small (yet growing) segment?

For me, its not working.
yesterday i had to visit Utorrent's remote control (remote.utorrent.com) to do some changes to my torrents, But unforunately i couldn't pass the "Touch to fill the proggress bar" antispam feature. "Move mouse" for PC.
I tried it with both desktop view and mobile view. no good.
I think developers need to pay some love for WP7 and make a good browser for it
I'd like to see firefox but they didn't make it. Yet ..
The problem is many sites are not recognising it as a smart phone and are displaying a barebone mobile website designed for feature phones rather than smart phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Happened to me alot, Sometimes i get "Your browser is too old/unsupported" error and guess what? They refuse to show the website for me

Why don't we have an opera browser? I would definitely use that.

I find IE9 to be good. Yes, its not the best and its not comparable to others but it does a decent job.
The problem is with developers. Dev's try a lot to customize their apps for specific browsers and in turn make it difficult for non-popular browsers.
That is one reason HTML5 is being so looked upon. Everybody needs a common non-plugin solution to have a consistent web experience, which is already supported by IE9 of WP7

Have you guys checked out the HTML 5 Browser Speed Tests:
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/
There are some really good HTML 5 tests there that shows the speed of the IE9 browser running those HTML 5 pages. Sure, they are pages created by Microsoft but it still makes me wonder why the android browser and iPhone browser are really poor at loading up these pages.

slugger09 said:
Take the mobile twitter site, its a text based affair with no graphics unlike iOS and android who display it like there mobile apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Twitter have fixed it.

Tone_ said:
Twitter have fixed it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it was temporary.
Took them long enough, some tech writers jumped right into the IE9/WP7 bashing, even though it was on Twitter end
That also pretty much sums up and ends this thread.

I need qupzilla and uc browser appx

Hi! I install windows 10 rt in my surface rt 1. I thinks thats a solution for Internet Browser problems, but not
I have the same problems for navigate with a lot of page like youtube google classroom and a lot of
I need one browser can let me navigate within any problem. I read that qupzilla and uc browser are very good
but i cant find them. Anyone knows where can i download or give me a link of them. Thanks!

UC Browser is an ancient Windows RT version, will be much worse than Edge.
QupZilla is an ancient browser that no longer even exists and was turned into Falkon, the Windows RT port can't do https either so you're stuck being unable to access like 90% of the internet.
The trick is to use Windows 10 and play around with the hidden Edge settings like enabling web pages to use as much RAM as they want. Also it's recommended to use store apps wherever you can instead, for example use MyTube for YouTube, LikeBook for Facebook, etc.
And if there's no app already made for the site you want to access you can use PAWA or AllPWA to create a sort of PWA of it, it'll still run as a web page but performance is much better than in Edge with the added bonus of being able to set an user agent and access sites that block old Edge versions.
And for better performance remember to restrict running in background for apps that you don't explicitly need to do that (so apps you don't need to get notifications from) AND use game mode for an extra boost as well, also disable any unnecessary service like Windows Defender, search indexing, etc.

Ranomez said:
UC Browser is an ancient Windows RT version, will be much worse than Edge.
QupZilla is an ancient browser that no longer even exists and was turned into Falkon, the Windows RT port can't do https either so you're stuck being unable to access like 90% of the internet.
The trick is to use Windows 10 and play around with the hidden Edge settings like enabling web pages to use as much RAM as they want. Also it's recommended to use store apps wherever you can instead, for example use MyTube for YouTube, LikeBook for Facebook, etc.
And if there's no app already made for the site you want to access you can use PAWA or AllPWA to create a sort of PWA of it, it'll still run as a web page but performance is much better than in Edge with the added bonus of being able to set an user agent and access sites that block old Edge versions.
And for better performance remember to restrict running in background for apps that you don't explicitly need to do that (so apps you don't need to get notifications from) AND use game mode for an extra boost as well, also disable any unnecessary service like Windows Defender, search indexing, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi
thank you for your advice.
i install allpwa and pawa , but none of them add tile to my surface 2 10 arm start menu
and i still searching for a way to use web.whatsapp.

hamed7ir said:
hi
thank you for your advice.
i install allpwa and pawa , but none of them add tile to my surface 2 10 arm start menu
and i still searching for a way to use web.whatsapp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you grant it permission to add tiles on first add?
I personally tried on 3 tablets and there's a lot of users using them also without issues so you may be doing something wrong. Also remember the tiles side of the start menu scrolls separate from the apps side.
WhatsApp web worked perfectly with a Firefox UA in AllPWA last time I tried.