Bitstream ThunderHawkHISTORY
Bitstream announced the ThunderHawk technology first on June 6, 2001 in Cambridge. The official beta release went off on October 9, 2001 and included enhancements as improved readability, speed, and usability. Sonera, wireless carrier in Finland included the beta release of Bitstream’s web browser technology in Sonera Pilot Program to offer hands-on testing of new UI conventions for future mobile applications.
Later, in the same year, December 17, 2001 Bitstream announced the Wireless Web browsing solution with HP for its HP Jornada PDA customers. The first full-featured Wireless Web Browser for Pocket PCs was released on May 20, 2002.
DEVELOPER/CREATOR
Bitstream Inc.
DATE
Bitstream announced the ThunderHawk technology first on June 6, 2001 in Cambridge. The official beta release went off on October 9, 2001 and included enhancements as improved readability, speed, and usability.
PLATFORM
AJAX, DHTML Level 1, DOM Level 1, DOM Level 2, CSS Level 1, CSS Level 2, Frames, HTML 4.01, HTTP 1.0, HTTP 1.1, HTTPS 128-bit encryption, Feeds (RSS, ATOM, RDF), Image formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, PJPEG), XHTML Basic, XML 1.0, ECMA Script, WML, WAP 2.0.
FEATURES
- Supports viewing of AJAX pages that are written using ECMA-262/JavaScript 1.5 standard.
- Supports full HTML browsing on the Java ME, Symbian, or Windows Mobile phone.
- Includes HTTPS 128-bit encryption, providing a secure transmission of confidential data.
- Customizable options: A "split screen/full screen" feature that eliminates the need of excessive scrolling. The "History" and "favorites" lists provide fast access to your favorite sites.
- Offers a choice of viewing the mobile version or the desktop version of a Web page.
- Provides image quality control options (low, medium, or high) that reduce the data transferred. The better the quality, higher the color depth and information each image will contain, and more the amount of data transfer. As the quality decreases, the image rendered will have less color depth and information, and hence lesser the download bytes.
- Persistent cookie support, with cookies stored on the server, which decreases the data transfer time.
- Validates certificates for https sites; if there are certificate problems, informs the user and gives the choice to continue browsing the site.
- Incremental rendering that sends visible Web page region first, while the rest of the images and other data are automatically transferred in the background.
- Support to submit web forms and view drop down menus on a mobile device.
- Native character support, ability to view web sites in multiple languages (Western and Eastern European).
- Allows choosing the content size with 5 different levels of magnification.
- Support to bypass or view popup windows.
- Supports playing videos for player-enabled handsets.
- Based on platform capability, ability to use smoothened or monochrome fonts.
- Supports both landscape and portrait viewing
BOLT Browser
HISTORY
The BOLT Browser was a web browser for mobile phones including feature phones and smartphones that can run Java ME applications. The BOLT Browser is offered free of charge to consumers and by license to Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers. BOLT is produced by Bitstream Inc., the company which previously produced the ThunderHawk for Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers.
BOLT was originally introduced into private beta on January 15, 2009 and was made available to the public on February 16, 2009 when the public beta was announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Today, BOLT can be installed on Java-based handsets with Java MIDP 2 and CLDC 1.0 or higher support. BOLT also has a specially optimized version for BlackBerry smartphones and works with Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices that employ a MIDlet manager or Java emulator. BOLT was built using the WebKit rendering engine to display a full Web page layout as found on desktop web browsers.
Initial release February 16, 2009. Version 0.86 BOLT browser was made available for public beta on February 16, 2009. Version 0.94 BOLT browser was made available for public Beta 2 on April 1, 2009. Version 1.04 BOLT browser was made available for public Beta 3 on June 29, 2009. Commercial release: Version 1.5 BOLT browser was released on October 7, 2009. Version 1.6 BOLT browser was released on December 7, 2009. Version 1.7 BOLT browser was released on February 15, 2010. Version 2.0 BOLT browser was released on March 23, 2010. Version 2.1 BOLT browser was released on May 24, 2010. Version 2.3 BOLT browser was released on October 6, 2010.
DEVELOPER/CREATOR
| Bitstream Inc. |
DATE
- January 15, 2009: BOLT was introduced as a private beta.
- February 16, 2009: BOLT was made available via free public beta at Mobile World Congress.
- April 1, 2009 – BOLT Beta2 was released at CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas, NV. This release included improvements, fixes to minor bugs and new features.
- June 29, 2009 – BOLT Beta3 released, BOLT lite announced. Beta3 included major improvements, fixes to minor bugs and new features.
- October 7, 2009 - BOLT 1.5 released. First commercial release marks end of beta testing.
- March 23, 2010 - BOLT 2.0 Beta Version announced by the developer Bitstream Inc.The biggest change is the inclusion of tabbed browsing
- May 24, 2010 - BOLT 2.1 Released, introducing support for HTML5 video
PLATFORM
| Java ME |
FEATURES
The distinguishing features of BOLT browser are:
Tabbed browsing
Tabbed browsing experience enables the user to browse more than one site simultaneously.Data compression
The cloud-based servers compress the data reaching the device by as much as 24 times, resulting in speeding up page load times by two to three times compared to other browsers.Desktop-style layout
BOLT provides a special mode for easing the view of web pages. Split-screen mode features a rectangular magnifier floating over a zoomed out mini-map of the entire Web page on the top 2/3 of the screen and a magnified view of the content under the magnifier on the bottom 1/3 of the screen. The magnifier floating over the mini-map enables the user to quickly find information and navigate Web sites with ease.Backup of favorites
BOLT enables the user to back up favorites to the device's memory and restore them back through BOLT directly. Backup the favorites to the user account at BOLT Space and restore them back regardless of device, its platform, BOLT type (BOLT or BOLT Lite) and location.Audio/video streaming
BOLT supports HTML5 based audio and video streaming. It supports many popular video sharing sites, including www.youtube.com, cnn.com, espn.com, bbc.co.uk, mtv.com, video.google.com, video.yahoo.com, vids.myspace.com, blip.tv, rutube.ru, nick.com, hungama.com, bollywoodhungama.com, svtplay.se and mocospace.com. Depending on your phone, BOLT may play the video directly in the browser window, or it may play it through your device's default media player. BOLT offers superior video quality for devices with MPEG4 support.It also supports expanded streaming flash video support.
Widget support
Users can enjoy Twitter and Facebook widgets with BOLT's web app platform. The widget gallery features weather, Wikipedia, and dictionary widgets.Advanced social media integration
BOLT offers Facebook integration - post messages, links or URLs from any page displayed in BOLT directly to the Facebook account without navigating away from the currently viewed page. BOLT offers support for Facebook chat and other web-based chat apps. It also offers support for YouTube web apps - search and view videos directly in BOLT.
HOT Java (discontinued)HISTORY
HotJava (later called HotJava Browser to distinguish it from HotJava Views) was a modular, extensible web browser from Sun Microsystems implemented in Java. It was the first browser to support Java applets, and was Sun's demonstration platform for the then new technology. It has since been discontinued and is now no longer supported. Furthermore, the Sun Download Center was taken down on July 31, 2011, and the download link on the official site points to a placeholder page saying so.
In 1994, a team of Java developers started writing WebRunner, which was a clone of the internet browser Mosaic. It was based on the Java programming language. The name WebRunner was a tribute to the Blade Runner movie.
WebRunner's first public demonstration was given by John Gage and James Gosling at the Technology Entertainment Design Conference in Monterey, California in 1995. Renamed HotJava, it was officially announced in May the same year at the SunWorld conference.
DEVELOPER/CREATOR
| Sun Microsystems |
DATE
Initial release 1.0, 1997
PLATFORM
| Java |
FEATURES
The majority of the features implemented in HotJava stem from the fact that HotJava is designed around supporting Java. Before getting into more specifics regarding HotJava, it is important to clarify the relationship between Java and HotJava.
To recap prior chapters, Java is an object-oriented programming language derived in many ways from C++. Java enables you to write programs and applets that can be embedded in Web pages and executed interactively. HotJava is a Web browser written in Java that implements object and protocol handlers as external libraries.
HotJava is akin to Netscape Navigator or NCSA Mosaic, with the primary difference being that it is written in the Java language and is far more extensible.
uZard WebHISTORY
DEVELOPER/CREATOR
Logicplant Co., Ltd
DATE
Initial release was February 14, 2007
PLATFORM
| Cross-platform WIPI/ BREW /Java(VM) / Manufacturer's native platform |
FEATURES
In uZard Web, a webpage is fully rendered by a server separate from the mobile device, similar to the operation of a thin client. This approach is also used by Opera Mini and the original Skyfire (1.x) browser; it is usually faster and supports better rendering techniques, but does not offer the end-to-end security of a full browser (such as Opera Mobile or Internet Explorer Mobile).
uZard Web is a mobile Web Browser and uZard Web is a kind of uZard Web. It allows users to experience the same web surfing they do with PC. Now, it supports BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000 and some more models will be supported. Try uZard Web P today, it's absolutely free. ### What is uZard Web P? ### ## uZard Web P .. shows same screen as you see in your PC’s. .. is a fast loading mobile web browser. .. supports cross platform. .. works independently of chipset and technologies. .. doesn’t require high processing power. .. takes small data traffic. .. is a small size application. .. is easy to customize and converge. ## Latest uZard Web P Functions ## uZard Web P provides even more joyful web surfing functions as it provides the important mobile functions in additional to the basic features of PC browser. - Complete Support of Video and Audio - Real-time Multimedia File Uploading to the Web - Daily Lives of You and Your Friends in Your Hand - Same UX (User Experience) as Your PC
UCWEBHISTORY
UCWEB is one of the most popular mobile browsers in the world with 40 million active users, most of them in China where the company is based.
The new release, which is also available in Russian and Chinese, is offered for Java, Windows Mobile 2003 through 6.5 (touchscreen and non-touchscreen) and Symbian S60 1st through 5th edition. Versions for BlackBerry, jailbroken iPhones and Android are said to be coming soon. I was eagerly awaiting this release as UCWEB has always had a great feature set including tabbed browsing, the ability to open a link or bookmark in a new tab in the background, copy/paste and an excellent download manager with multiple download support, pause/resume and background downloading. UCWEB's weak spot has always been in the way it renders pages. Problems have included overlapping text and images, thin, crude looking fonts and missing styling elements such as background colors and borders. The Java version did not even wrap text properly splitting lines in the middle of words. I downloaded the Java and Symbian native versions of UCWEB 7 to my Nokia 5130XM and have been putting both through their paces for a few hours. I like a lot of what I see but there are still a number of rending issues plus I'm having trouble opening some very popular sites. In June 2011, UC mobile launched U3 mobile engine, a layout engine innovated by the UC browser R&D group. UC browser v8.0 for Android platform (Chinese version) has loaded this engine. Based on C/S architecture, U3 can be helped by server to achieve some interested function like UC browser 7.X. For example, U3 can compress and restructure pages into simple and friendly forms. And U3 has a stronger client than UC 7.X for better render, it improved the suite of open web standards, HTML5, CSS , JS . U3 can be used on multiple mobile platforms. U3 is based on the Webkit layout engine.
| Version | Support platform | Release date | Significant changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.3 | Java, WM, S60 | November 5, 2009 | First release; sidebar, quicksearch, tabbed browsing. |
| 7.0 | Java, WM, S60 | December 28, 2009 | Sidebar, extension management. |
| 7.1 | iOS | June 1, 2010 | First release on iOS platform. |
| 7.2 | Java, WM, S60, Android | July 14, 2010 | First release on Android platform. |
| 7.4 | Java, WM, S60 | October 29, 2010 | Cursor mode as default, new design, Speed Dial customization. |
| 7.5 | Java | December 7, 2010 | Access via Server as default, alternative proxy. |
| 7.6 | Java, WM, S60 | March 16, 2011 | Quick Share to Facebook/Twitter. |
| 7.7 | Java, WM, S60, bada | May 12, 2011 | In-line editing support. |
UC Mobile
DATE
|
|---|
PLATFORM
| Cross-platform (S60, Java, Android, iOS, Windows CE, bada, MTK, BREW |
1. The Java version is no longer an inferior subset of the native ones. Its features and appearance are virtually identical to thoese of the Symbian version.
2. Font quality is much improved in both versions, no more jagged fonts.
3. The Symbian version now supports both bold and italic. (The Java version does bold but not italic).
4. The Java version now displays text in different sizes and colors as specified by page markup.
5. Text wraps in the Java version Java version has a "Zoom" (a.k.a. Desktop) mode in addition to fit-to- width "Adaptive" Mode. Both modes have always been available in the native versions.
Things I didn't like:
1. Overlapping text and images still occurs in Zoom mode.
2. Font sizes and line spacing are much too large on some pages in Zoom mode.
3. Text is bold that should not be on some pages.
4. Bullets missing on unordered lists like this one.
5. The Symbian version sometimes tiles images that should not be tiled.
6. The ability to change the browser's User Agent is missing from the Symbian version (the Java one still has it).
