Comments on: Inside Microsoft's new mobile browser

CNET News' Ina Fried gets a peek at the version of Internet Explorer 6 that the company will bring to Windows Mobile later this year.

[BlackMicro]

Great now we can experience that crappy IE 6 experience on our mobiles.

[tacit]

What? IE 6? Are you kidding me? Explorer 7 has been out for how long now, Explorer 8 is in beta, and Microsoft is going back to the seven-year-old Explorer 6 codebase for its mobile browser? No wonder their mobile user experience is so dismal.

What is the problem over at Microsoft? Are the Windows Mobile programmers not allowed to see the source code for Explorer 7? Is Explorer 7 so bloated and clunky there's no way to squeeze it onto a mobile device? Is everyone on the development team for Mobile using drugs?

[Shoogle2]

The Mobile version is completely different from the desktop version, as I understand it. They don't share the same code base because they're technically different operating systems--one big, one small--hence the different version numbers. Seems to me the main problem is that MS is losing ground to competing mobile browsers like Opera (and Firefox, soon) because they don't update their stuff often enough...

[techman21]

I was shocked when I got my first Windows Mobile device (2003) and it used IE 3!! Even WM5 uses only IE4! They need to get with the times, man!

[Tinman52]

I think the question is whether it'll do flash. If a mobile browser still doesn't do adobe, then it's useless and you're better off reading mobile web pages rather than full pages.

[deadlyvapors]

Just out of spite, Apple should port Safari to Windows Mobile....

Now that I think about any of you Windows mobile developers with a hankering can go get webkit (www.webkit.org) and do it yourselves.

In the meantime, my iPhone and me will be surfing away...

[eBob1]

I am currently using an AT&T (htc) Tilt phone. The browser is awful to the point of being almost useless. Often, pages simply do not render properly or at all. If I can find a better browser for Windows Mobile, I will switch as soon as I can download it.

[ashwinkn]

You can probably download a version of Opera Mobile.

[Shoogle2]

I totally agree, IE on the Tilt bites! But check out Opera Mini for quick & easy browsing. Opera Mobile has more browsing options but it's way slower than Mini, or at least the current version is. Mini works fine for just about everything.

[rickhamilton620]

Also check out Opera Mini and Opera Mobile-Opera Mini's free while Moble you have to pay for. But both are excellent

[ALLurGroceries]

I had some problems too, still do, but they've gotten better since I downloaded KaiserTweak and changed TCP Connect Resends/TCP Data Resends to 10 times from the default of 3, and changed the max connections in Pocket IE from 4 to 8. It doesn't hang so much anymore now, it's worth a shot for you maybe. You can find KaiserTweak by googling for it or going to xda-developers dot com

[DrtyDogg]

as stated earlier opera is available on WinMo and my favorite is SkyFire

[eBob1]

I have downloaded Opera Mini and so far it is working well.

[JAZ3B]

it doesnt matter whether its IE6 (to all the people who are complaining) this has Flash-support. something only Skyfire has managed so far, and its not even out yet. it would be nice if Microsoft could release a beta of this though

[Prince2k3]

great!! it's still crap!

[mbenedict]

There's NO WAY Safari could run on Windows Mobile.

Windows Mobile is designed to run even on very constrained devices (not just phones but in-dash nav systems, portable media players, etc.) having as little as 32MB (!) of total RAM. So the memory budget for Mobile IE + Flash + Silverlight is probably 10MB. The fact that they can shove in a full IE rendering engine is a great accomplishment.

Safari on the iPhone can access 128MB or RAM yet still struggles. Just Google "iphone safari reset" to see how crappy Safari really is on a memory-constrained system.

Also remember WM 6.1 is just a minor upgrade to WM 6 (release last year) and must run on the same generation hardware. The next version of Windows Mobile (WM 7) will require more capable hardware and maybe we can see the IE7 engine running on it.

[driven01]

PicSel ... download it. Much better than the current Pocket IE. I can't comment on IE6 for Windows Mobile, but as others pointed out, what's wrong with IE 7 that they went back to IE6? Just sad really.

Safari would be awesome on a Windows Mobile device, as would a slimmed down Firefox.

[skrubol]

I for one am happy that they're trying to port IE6 and not IE7. IE7 is too bloated for a PC, never mind a handheld. The only thing that would be nice from IE7 would be tabbed browsing, but executed more like on Firefox (don't show the tabs when you're only using 1!)
I too would love to see a good FF port to WM though.

[Gabey8]

I already have tabbed browsing in Mobile IE with a WM6 Verizon XV6800 (by HTC). I installed SPB Pocket Plus. I had the same program on my XV6600, and it allowed tabbed browsing on my older device, as well.

I am looking forward to seeing what the IE upgrade will look like, if it's going to enable Flash support. That's the one thing I really miss when I browse on my cell phone, which I do on a regular basis.

[bugsykoosh]

@deadlyvapors and mbenedict there already is a porting of webkit to WinMo - it's in the Iris browser http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/iris_web_browser_brings_webkit.html

[buggermenot]

Nokia N series mobile devices manage to have a full Flash 9 plugin.

[mkeys14]

Why is everyone talking about IE7 and IE8?

Internet Explorer Mobile is a completely separate build from the desktop IE versions, not a port. The only thing they share is the name.

What IEM really needs is good zoom support ala iPhone's Safari or even Opera Mini. Something, anything that allows quicker and easier navigation. The current version is just too clunky - I only utilize it for pages that Opera Mini has trouble loading. I would really love to be able to just use one full-feature browser, instead of parts of two.

[jandler]

Ah someone with a brain.

Unfortunately, as you can see with everyone else on the forum, many people do not understand. To make things simpler or dumber, I strongly suggest that Microsoft should keep the version consistent between mobile and desktop. Done properly with a modularized approach, they could simply take the desktop version, trim out the module they don't need and have it on the mobile.

[yacahuma]

JAJAJAJA. The only reason they are working on a new version is called IPHONE.

For the comment
"Windows Mobile is designed to run even on very constrained devices"

Then maybe they should use windows mobile instead of Vista.

When I look at the web I want to see the original version, not the crappy version. Safari could be a memory hog, But I prefer the full version to a half baked one.

[yacahuma]

I think at Microsoft as soon as they feel they won a market, they simply shut down that division. The same thing happen to explorer. Once they won, they did not start to work again until Firefox. This is the same reason why their OS sucks so much. No competion. Yes their is Linux and Mac, but until linux dont get the drivers ( and less than 100 different versions) and Apple dont decide to let OS X install on any PC, MS will have no real threat.

[canberra_photographer]

Given how few pages rendered properly in IE6, making the use of a full IE6 render engine a selling point isn't a good move. I hope Firefox will hurry and give us a mobile version.

[joepa]

Skyfire for Windows Mobile rocks! It supports flash and is very fast at rendering pages, even faster than safari. It has made me like browsing the internet on my tilt!

[JonTitor]

SKYFIRE people, its way better than SAFARI for iPHONE, Runs on my sister's 200Mhz smartphone beautifully without Touchscreen, and yes FLASH VIDEOS work!

[timber2005]

The source is WRONG. It's not emulating Desktop IE6! Pocket IE4 could render alpha transparent PNG's before IE7 even came out, which Desktop IE6 couldn't do. Pocket IE5 in 6.1 (on my second PDA) renders more closely to IE7 than IE6 when I change the window to be the same (240x320).

Come on Ina... I know you can do better.

[marcjen]

Can anyone of you read?

It says they are using the IE6 "engine". This doesn't mean it won't have certain IE7 or 8 features. The web has been constructed to support IE6. More pages will look right in IE6 than in IE7, trust me.

This isn't a bad move at all. Hopefully it's a free release/upgrade and/or WinMo 6.2 option.

[timber2005]

Update for 6.1 only.

At least, that was their intent earlier was to bring it to the 6.1 series. Maybe 6.0.

[donovan1983]

I sincerely hope they updated the absolutely dismal standards support in IE6 before porting it. I refused to design sites to work in it since doing so meant using convoluted and non-standard code that didn't always render properly in standards compliant browsers. I do understand why they used IE6 instead of IE7 as the base since IE6 was released in an era when machines with 64MB of RAM were very common still and 128MB had just become the new standard. I am betting that you will need a device with at least 128MB of RAM to be able to run this, though, so even many current Windows Mobile 6 or 6.1 devices won't be able to use this.