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Fdavis99 17:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC) Disscuss renaming "Microbrowser" to "Mobile browser"
This article has been renamed from Microbrowser to mobile browser as the result of a move request. -- Stemonitis 07:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I was involved in writing browsers for phones in the very early days. Microbrowser is a historical term and was what we used to call browsers on phones back in the 90s and into the early 00s. They were designed when such platforms had extremely limited resources (8MHz CPU and <128KB RAM was not uncommon) and could not hope to run the same code which desktop browsers were using. Almost all of the old microbrowser platforms would have been built with proprietary engines.
IMO the 'Mobile Browser' we have now is a different thing. Today's mobile browser is different from a desktop browser only in the UI and the user agent strings. Otherwise, they almost all support the same set of W3C specs and features. Mobile hardware is now sufficiently advanced that we largely run the same code on them that we do on desktop systems. Certainly this is the case for Android, iOS, Palm, BB & Symbian. In that environment, mobile browsing as a separate topic to web browsing is becoming a pointless distinction (apart for historical information) and should probably eventually be combined with the general article about web browsing. Mobile browsers are anyway largely consolidating around the same engines that desktop browsers are using, excepting Opera Mini and arguably the use of compressing web proxies for browsers such as the new Amazon Fire browser. Perhaps compressing web proxies used for bandwidth and CPU reduction on the client end ought to be discussed along with other proxy technology.
Since a lot of the pioneering companies no longer exist and those that do no longer support or sell their old system, it's very hard to dig up information on them nowadays and we ought to retain some of the history captured here during the times when such companies did exist.
It would be nice to have a better structured article with 'history of browsing on mobile devices' clearly separate from what is effectively 'current state of browsing on mobile devices' which is not so different from 'current state of browsing'.
217.140.96.21 ( talk) 10:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
In the browser table, why does FOSS=yes mean green (connotation: good/safe) and FOSS=no mean red (connotation: bad, warning) ?
Personally I prefer FOSS... BUT, that is not objective - it is an opinion. In the interests of NPOV this colour-scheme should be removed.
For me you could scrap the whole column, which anyway overlaps with "Software license". 92.42.225.141 ( talk) 16:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I made the thing without colors so it wouldn't connote good thing or bad thing, just a relative choice.-- Rafaelluik ( talk) 20:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
What does "true" mean here? The article says that NetHopper was the first microbrowser, but in reality it was PocketWeb (then called NewtonWWW), also for the Newton platform. HorvatM 17:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM ( talk • contribs)
While browser applications might be closed source, many browser engines (what really matter) are not which makes the license column very confusing. BlackBerry's old engine is closed source, its new one is open source is a good example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.65.73.200 ( talk) 16:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I understand many Web pages, including articles in Wikipedia, have a "Mobile" version especially designed for the small screen and slow access of a mobile phone and presented by default after automatically identifying the browser as mobile. Where is the Wikipedia article about that? Jim.henderson ( talk) 12:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
You should consider including Puffin in the list of user installable browsers. It runs on IOS and Android and it is seriously FAST at rendering - even rendering big Flash files on older smart phones. You can find them here - http://www.puffinbrowser.com/ if you need more info. I think they're in rev 2.0 right now but until I find out something horrible about it, its the best mobile browser I've used. It even lets my kool-aid drinking Apple brethren commit the heresy of playing Flash.
129.119.81.135 ( talk) 23:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Lisa Simpson 129.119.81.135 ( talk) 23:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
No mention of the Atomic Web Browser for iOS? It's pretty popular. Should be listed. www.atomicwebbrowser.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.17.125.32 ( talk) 17:23, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I would like phone number for lightinthebox 2600:6C44:217F:ED33:9CBF:1188:B908:C4AB ( talk) 23:59, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Right now this article is in a bit of an interesting state—the prose content mostly covers pre-smartphone era mobile web browsers, while the Popular Mobile Browsers section is essentially a list of mobile browsers running on smartphone platforms ( List of mobile browsers redirects to it, as well). Meanwhile Web browser doesn't have any content about phone browsers at all. I propose splitting this article up as follows:
It's clear to me all of these topics are notable (and important!), and I think this composition will work better for organizing the information. Anyone have thoughts or concerns here? Dylnuge ( Talk • Edits) 21:46, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Notable are also all browsers that originate from countries that are not democracies, as privacy-conscious users have the right to be aware about these in order to avoid using and installing themstrikes me as running a bit afoul of WP:NOTGUIDE, not to mention being politically contentious (it's also certainly not WP:NSOFT, but I get that "notable" here is meant to mean "worthy of inclusion on a list" and not "meets standards for article notability"). If a product isn't otherwise noteworthy I don't think it merits mention on Wikipedia just because some users might be suspicious of its country of origin. This is an encyclopedia, not VirusTotal. (It also strikes me a little WP:BEANS if your goal is to mention them so people avoid them; is there actually anyone who is thinking "I'm going to install this, but first I'll check Wikipedia (and nowhere else)" as opposed to "I saw this on Wikipedia, maybe I'll install it"?)
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() | This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
Fdavis99 17:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC) Disscuss renaming "Microbrowser" to "Mobile browser"
This article has been renamed from Microbrowser to mobile browser as the result of a move request. -- Stemonitis 07:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I was involved in writing browsers for phones in the very early days. Microbrowser is a historical term and was what we used to call browsers on phones back in the 90s and into the early 00s. They were designed when such platforms had extremely limited resources (8MHz CPU and <128KB RAM was not uncommon) and could not hope to run the same code which desktop browsers were using. Almost all of the old microbrowser platforms would have been built with proprietary engines.
IMO the 'Mobile Browser' we have now is a different thing. Today's mobile browser is different from a desktop browser only in the UI and the user agent strings. Otherwise, they almost all support the same set of W3C specs and features. Mobile hardware is now sufficiently advanced that we largely run the same code on them that we do on desktop systems. Certainly this is the case for Android, iOS, Palm, BB & Symbian. In that environment, mobile browsing as a separate topic to web browsing is becoming a pointless distinction (apart for historical information) and should probably eventually be combined with the general article about web browsing. Mobile browsers are anyway largely consolidating around the same engines that desktop browsers are using, excepting Opera Mini and arguably the use of compressing web proxies for browsers such as the new Amazon Fire browser. Perhaps compressing web proxies used for bandwidth and CPU reduction on the client end ought to be discussed along with other proxy technology.
Since a lot of the pioneering companies no longer exist and those that do no longer support or sell their old system, it's very hard to dig up information on them nowadays and we ought to retain some of the history captured here during the times when such companies did exist.
It would be nice to have a better structured article with 'history of browsing on mobile devices' clearly separate from what is effectively 'current state of browsing on mobile devices' which is not so different from 'current state of browsing'.
217.140.96.21 ( talk) 10:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
In the browser table, why does FOSS=yes mean green (connotation: good/safe) and FOSS=no mean red (connotation: bad, warning) ?
Personally I prefer FOSS... BUT, that is not objective - it is an opinion. In the interests of NPOV this colour-scheme should be removed.
For me you could scrap the whole column, which anyway overlaps with "Software license". 92.42.225.141 ( talk) 16:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I made the thing without colors so it wouldn't connote good thing or bad thing, just a relative choice.-- Rafaelluik ( talk) 20:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
What does "true" mean here? The article says that NetHopper was the first microbrowser, but in reality it was PocketWeb (then called NewtonWWW), also for the Newton platform. HorvatM 17:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM ( talk • contribs)
While browser applications might be closed source, many browser engines (what really matter) are not which makes the license column very confusing. BlackBerry's old engine is closed source, its new one is open source is a good example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.65.73.200 ( talk) 16:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I understand many Web pages, including articles in Wikipedia, have a "Mobile" version especially designed for the small screen and slow access of a mobile phone and presented by default after automatically identifying the browser as mobile. Where is the Wikipedia article about that? Jim.henderson ( talk) 12:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
You should consider including Puffin in the list of user installable browsers. It runs on IOS and Android and it is seriously FAST at rendering - even rendering big Flash files on older smart phones. You can find them here - http://www.puffinbrowser.com/ if you need more info. I think they're in rev 2.0 right now but until I find out something horrible about it, its the best mobile browser I've used. It even lets my kool-aid drinking Apple brethren commit the heresy of playing Flash.
129.119.81.135 ( talk) 23:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Lisa Simpson 129.119.81.135 ( talk) 23:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
No mention of the Atomic Web Browser for iOS? It's pretty popular. Should be listed. www.atomicwebbrowser.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.17.125.32 ( talk) 17:23, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I would like phone number for lightinthebox 2600:6C44:217F:ED33:9CBF:1188:B908:C4AB ( talk) 23:59, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Right now this article is in a bit of an interesting state—the prose content mostly covers pre-smartphone era mobile web browsers, while the Popular Mobile Browsers section is essentially a list of mobile browsers running on smartphone platforms ( List of mobile browsers redirects to it, as well). Meanwhile Web browser doesn't have any content about phone browsers at all. I propose splitting this article up as follows:
It's clear to me all of these topics are notable (and important!), and I think this composition will work better for organizing the information. Anyone have thoughts or concerns here? Dylnuge ( Talk • Edits) 21:46, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Notable are also all browsers that originate from countries that are not democracies, as privacy-conscious users have the right to be aware about these in order to avoid using and installing themstrikes me as running a bit afoul of WP:NOTGUIDE, not to mention being politically contentious (it's also certainly not WP:NSOFT, but I get that "notable" here is meant to mean "worthy of inclusion on a list" and not "meets standards for article notability"). If a product isn't otherwise noteworthy I don't think it merits mention on Wikipedia just because some users might be suspicious of its country of origin. This is an encyclopedia, not VirusTotal. (It also strikes me a little WP:BEANS if your goal is to mention them so people avoid them; is there actually anyone who is thinking "I'm going to install this, but first I'll check Wikipedia (and nowhere else)" as opposed to "I saw this on Wikipedia, maybe I'll install it"?)