Another New WM Browser Released: Torch Mobile (Webkit Based)

[Yibrushn]

I have been a fan of iris browser for a while too and the fact that they continue to put out updates is really encouraging!

[TalynOne]

It's based on the WebKit rendering engine (same engine used by Safari and iPhone browsers). It's a later version of WebKit since it gets further in the ACID 3 test (97/100) than the release versions of those browsers, and much further than any other Windows Mobile browser. So it's a good choice for those heavy CSS/Javascript web pages.

For the full feature list visit this page: http://www.torchmobile.com/products/iris.html

Here's a video of it in action on Windows Mobile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpX5JZWtu-g

Here are my observations:

Pros:

• Free
• Fairly fast
• Very standards compliant (97/100) on Acid 3 tests
• Native support for Touch Pro/Diamond accelerometers (goes to landscape when you twist your phone sideways)
• Direct, doesn't go through a proxy like Opera Mini or Skyfire (which is good if you're paranoid about security/proxy availiblity)
• Tabs
• Can simulate a mouse cursor in "Mouse Cursor" mode
• Downloading support, though did silently crash once when trying to download Google Maps cab

Cons:

• No flash support (though flash mostly sucks in Opera MObile/IE anyways, if you need Flash use Skyfire)
• No text reflow/reformat on zoom-in like Opera Mini and certain versions of Opera Mobile 9.5
• Extremely basic UI, every function has to be accesed through menus which gets kind of clunky
• Zooming is clunky, zooming in more than one level/accessing the URL bar requires you to go through the menu system

Tip: Tap and hold link to go to visit links and give focus to certain form fields (checkboxes/textboxes).

[ou2mame]

my only complaint is that i can't figure out how to highlight text to copy.

[TalynOne]

Originally Posted by freeza

Can you install this browser to a Storage Card?

Yes, I did.

[w7excursion]

The cons will keep me using mini and mobile. Ill try it again later. Edit: the history cards are different.

[cornelious2]

ahh I think I had flashlight 3.1 pre-installed to my cooked rom thats why flash worked out of the box.

[Darkjedi]

I'll give iris a shot, but there are too many browsers out now. I'm hoping firefox is able to bring the best of 2 or 3 of those browsers so we could do without em.

[CozBoogie]

Moved to the Software Forum.

late,
Coz

[pdx77]

I just downloaded the new version and I like what they are doing so far, there's too many con's right now to keep me from using it as my default browser, but this browser has grown up quite a bit from the first release where it was just too clunky to use.

[CozBoogie]

Iris has been updated. Please go here.

late,
Coz