Tag Archives: full-web browser

Updated: UCWEB 6.3 Official Signed English Version Released for S60

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Dennis Bournique

UCEEB 6.3 Splash Screen and default bookmarks

Updated 23-Nov-2009: with current download links. Regular Wap Review commenter and tipster, JBpseudo emailed me that UCWEB has released an official English version of the free UCWEB 6.3 full-web browser for S60 V3, V2 and V1 phones . These are signed. sisx/.sis files and can be installed on unmodified, unhacked phones unlike the unofficial (and unsigned) English translation of 6.3 released a few months ago.

The new release was officially announced on the UCWEB forum today. You can grab the files from the UCWEB download pages: PC page, mobile page.

So what's new in 6.3? The change log in the forum post announcing the release appears to have been machine translated and is pretty rough.

1. Brand-new interface, as well as the theme of model
2. To increase the use of prompts to guide
3. New page layout, the arrow keys to switch columns more efficiently Home
4. The new night-time mode, the darkness take better care of your eyes
5. WAP pre-read the page to "move forward and backward" will remain in force after the operation
6. Download operation optimization: including download prompts, menu optimization, re-download, open the file after the download is complete operation
7. The shortcut menu to switch to increase font size
8. On the part of NOKIA E Series full-keyboard phones to increase the default keyboard shortcuts in support of the whole (covering the installation will not change the existing shortcut keys, to use the default-wide keyboard shortcuts, please do the "restore default settings")
9. Increase in information to receive pop-up switch
10. Increase the Web to accelerate the setting items, visit the Web faster Station
11. Perfect website click direct telephone dial function
12. In the page properties to increase page size information
13. Increase the monthly traffic statistics to help better control the flow of the use of
14. Text, photographs, and other layout optimization, a different screen size displayed a more reasonable
15. Optimization of the time display position, the default display time in menu bar

Main Bugs fixed:
1. Home switch appears 1-2 seconds of a blank page
2. The replacement of a theme, other window automatically refresh failure
3. Enter the URL in the prompt window when asked to download will automatically exit
4. UCWEB resolve to change the download settings, the problem can not play video.

I'm not sure I completely understand all of the above. However I immediately noticed the new look thanks to an attractive black default skin. If you don't like black, you can switch to the "classic" blue UCWEB 6.0 look or choose a pink or reverse video "night" theme. Also new is an extensive set of default bookmarks (image top, right). I wonder if selling default bookmarks is part of UCWEB's revenue model, like it is with Opera Mini?

UCWEB 6.3 rendering Issues

In initial testing of the new release on my N95-3, it seems fast and stable. I'm somewhat disappointing that the rendering quality, UCWEB 6.0's weak point, doesn't seem to show much improvement. Don't get me wrong, all the sites I tried in the browser's fit-to-width "adaptive mode" where completely usable, if a bit unattractive due to uneven spacing between words and inconsistent font sizes (image above, left) . The "Zoom" or desktop mode still tends to overlap images and text with obvious consequences for readability (image above, right). I prefer fit to width view anyway as I absolutely hate horizontal scrolling so the zoom mode's faults are of little consequence to me.

Other than the rendering issues, which are cosmetic, UCWEB, has a lot going for it. Its best features are:

Tabbed browsing - up to 10 tabs can be open at once.
Copy and paste is fully supported including copying text from web pages.
UCWEB can load pages with hundreds of images and render them all - Opera Mini runs out of memory and stops displaying images on pages over about 200KB.
No limitation on the types of files that can be downloaded and saved - unlike Opera Mini which hands off.sis, .sisx, .jad and .jar files to the phone's built in browser rather than letting you save them.

Page loading is fast and the user interface is very responsive. There is a bit of a learning curve to the UI, but it actually seems fairly logical once you get the hang of it. Hint: avoid the menus by using the many one and two key shortcuts. A long press on the "#" key brings up a list of all the shortcuts (image bottom, right).

I definitely recommend UCWEB 6.3, it's a very robust and capable full web browser. It hasn't replaced Opera Mini as my primary browser but I use it a lot to open multiple sites in the background without losing my place in Mini and for downloading.

UCWEB 6.3 - Shortcuts and Windows Menu

A word of caution though, UCWEB, like Opera Mini, Bolt and Skyfire, is a server based browser. All server based browsers break end-to-end HTTPS security. I do not recommend using any of them for online banking or shopping. If you are not sure what this means see Martin Sauter's Breaking HTTPS Connections in Two Parts Considered Harmful for a clear, jargon-free explanation.

Posted in Browsers | Tagged full-web browser, s60, security, server based browser, UC Browser | 102 Comments

Serve Mobile or Full Content to Full-Web Mobile Browsers?

Posted on July 10, 2008 by Dennis Bournique

Wapreview.mobi in Opera Mini The distinction between the mobile web and the "full" web is getting fuzzy. We have millions of phones running full-web browsers such as Opera, Safari, S60Webkit and NetFront that can display almost any web site. Not only can these browsers handle JavaScript but the latest S60WebKit can play Flash .flv videos in the browser and it plus Opera Mobile 8.65 and 9.5 do a decent job with AJAX pages.

Web developers should be asking "Which version of my pages should I serve to these advanced browsers, the stripped down mobile version, a special 'iPhone' page or the full page as delivered to Firefox and IE?"

Conventional wisdom has it that delivering a page designed for mobile to any handheld device is best. Mobile screen size is small, scrolling is harder than on a PC and only a subset of most site's content is relevant on a phone. I generally agree with the conventional wisdom but with one caveat.

Give users the option to load either the full or the mobile version of your site regardless of what browser they are using. It's great to redirect mobile browsers to a fast loading, easy to navigate mobile version but there should also be a way to get to the same page that you serve to PC browsers. The best way to do this is with a link labeled "Full Version" or something similar on every mobile page. I like to put he "Full Site" link at the bottom of the page on the theory that anyone with a browser capable of viewing the full page should have no problem navigating all the way to the end of a mobile page and if by the time they get there they haven't found what they are looking for it's time to offer them the option of seeing the full content of my site.

I also believe that there should be a link to the mobile edition on every page of the full site so that users who land there with their phones have the option to try the mobile edition. It's a good promotional tactic too, reminding PC users that they can use your site on their phones. The "Mobile Edition" link should be at the very top of the page to make it easy to find even with a limited mobile browser that can't load the whole page.

As for "iPhone" sites, there's a place for something that's between a traditional mobile site and a full blown PC version. Most of the iPhone sites I've seen have a single column design, 100-200 KB page weight, a little JavaScript (mostly for rollovers) and no Flash. What I don't like is that iPhone sites tend to use browser detection to limit their use to only the iPhone, in spite of the fact that these pages would render very well on other full-web mobile browsers. We need a campaign to "Free the iWeb" - allowing non-iPhones to browse it.

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of serving the appropriate pages to mobile visitors to this blog while still giving them options. If you went to WapReview.com/blog or any of the pages under it with most mobile browsers including Opera Mobile, NetFront, S60Webkit and Opera Mini you were redirected to the mobile version of whatever page you requested. There's a "Full Site" link at the bottom of each page that sets a session cookie to override browser detection and render the full version on all subsequent requests until you close the browser or navigate away from WapReview.com Wapreview PC version in Opera Mini

Last week I got an email from an unhappy Opera Mini user who said it wasn't working and he was it being forced to the mobile site, although he preferred the full version. The "Full Site" link did what it says but only for one page. Clicking any link on the full page took him back to the mobile version. I tested and the user was correct, my code worked correctly with Webkit and Opera 8.65 but not only sporadically with Opera Mini. Either there is something wrong with the way I'm setting or reading the cookie or there's a bug in Opera Mini's handling of session cookies.

I'm a heavy user of Opera Mini and I use it with mix of full and mobile sites - whichever works best for a particular site. For gMail and HowardForums I use the full sites. but I prefer the mobile editions of Bloglines and Velonews' Live Tour de France reports. When I check out WapReview from my phone I almost always use the mobile version (top image) because it looks nicer (Opera doesn't render the tabbed top menu of the full site very well - see second image) and navigation is a little easier. But the mobile site is a subset of the full site. It's missing the contact form, downloads page, mobile web directory and archives by category - all of which could be of interest to a mobile user.

When I visit the Opera Mini Forum at MyOpera.com I see dozens of posts complaining of sites forcing users to their mobile versions. I couldn't find anyone complaining about sites that block Opera Mini users from their mobile versions even though there are plenty that do just that. Contrary to conventional wisdom, many Opera Mini users seem very comfortable with browsing the full web and get annoyed when forced to a mobile subset. I think that there are two reasons for that, namely speed and usability. S60WebKit and Opera Mobile 8.65 on my N95 both take nearly 30 seconds to load this blog's 300 KB front page on a 3G UMTS connection. Opera Mini loads it 10 seconds, almost as fast as the 9 seconds it takes the other browsers to load the 20 KB mobile version! Opera Mini on 3G gives PC like performance, at 10 seconds it compares favorably with the 7 seconds Firefox 3 on a 1.5 mbs DSL connection requires to load the same page. I couldn't believe how fast Opera Mini was, and yes I did clear the browser's cache between tests. Browsing full pages with Opera Mini is remarkably easy too thanks to Fit to Width, in page search and a dedicated page down key.

I've modified WapReview's browser detection code to treat Opera Mini like a PC browser and send it the full version. The only other mobile browser that gets this treatment is the iPhone's Safari. The mobile edition is still available to Opera Mini (and iPhone) users via the "Mobile Edition" link which points to a different domain (wapreview.mobi) and doesn't depend on cookies for persistence.

I was considering doing the same for Opera Mobile, S60Webkit, and Netfront. I decided against it because, in some cases, those browsers can't even completely load the full front page of this blog. Many S60 phones have very limited RAM causing WebKit to crash when loading large pages. NetFront is found on many feature phones which in my experience can't handle pages over 100 KB. What do you think? Are there any other mobile browsers that do a good enough job with big full-web pages for that to be the default mode?