One of the Best Alternative Web Browsers, NetFront 3.3 Technical Preview 1.03 Is Out!

http://www.access.co.jp/nfppc/dl_v33e.html

NetFront is a very nice and capable alternative browser. Its forthcoming version 3.3 is just being developed; the developer, Access Inc., thankfully, always makes the current Technical Preview (TP for short) available for Pocket PC users to try (that is, it's a free download - just click the link above and then, the Download button). Much as it has some restrictions, it's still really worth checking out. The new version isn't much different from TP 1.02 reviewed HERE. I really recommend the review of TP 1.02 because it elaborates on both the new features and the newly introduced problems in TP 1.02. In this quick review, I only list the differences between TP 1.02 and TP 1.03. - the first start involves (slow) creating of an environment file (it was a long ago that Access stopped using it – strange they have returned to this) and a need for a soft reset. - it no longer crashes at the Yahoo Mail login form, unlike 1.02 - what is much more important, the Yahoo Mail buttons (Reply/Forward/Spam) work, unlike in previous version(s) / PIE! (This also includes Delete, which already worked in previous versions – but not in PIE.) This is certainly very good news – please read THIS on the problems recently introduced into Yahoo Mail. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any other changes – as opposed to the (major) functionality/menu changes between 1.01 and 1.02. The menus, context menus, the flaws of the full screen mode etc. are exactly the same as in 1.02. EDIT (Dec-16-2005 7:10 AM GMT): I've continued playing with the new version to find out whether the above-mentioned enhanced JavaScript support means generic JavaScript enhancements or just Yahoo Mail-related ones. I was really happy to see that the JavaScript support has really been enhanced. With RedHotPawn.com, a strictly JavaScript-based Internet chess game (one of my favourite JavaScript compliance-tester sites), which doesn't at all work with PIE and earlier NetFront versions, works flawlessly with TP 1.03. (You may want to see my earlier tests of RedHotPawn.com.) Click here for screenshot This means in the last, TP 1.03 version of NetFront, the JavaScript support has become much better than in previous versions. Incidentally, Minimo 0.011 (see my review here) also fully supports RedHotPawn, as can be seen in the following screenshot: Click here for screenshot EDIT (18/Dec/2005): you can even upload mail attachments in both (the standard; that is, non-mobile-optimized) Yahoo Mail and (also the standard) Gmail using the new NetFront version. Click here for a screenshot of the former and here of the latter case. You can't do the same with PIE, not even run through Skweezer or similar tools to make the buttons clickable – see this screenshot. Pretty good, isn't it? EDIT on Dec-18-2005 12:49 CET: I've made some additional comparisons, comparing how current Pocket PC sites are rendered, between the latest NF and PIE and found out the following: With game-over.net's articles (for example, this one) NetFront fails at the default Full Browsing mode: no text body is displayed at all: click for screenshot You must explicitly switch to Text Browsing (in View/Browsing Mode/Text Browsing) to be able to read the article: click for screenshot PIE, on the other hand, renders this page OK: click for screenshot I had no time to check the exact reason for this behaviour on the HTML level. EDIT on Jan-13-2005: The same problem is present with the International Herald Tribune online articles. For example, this one is rendered as follows by NF3.3 1.03 in the standard mode (note there's no text body at all!): click for screenshot while it's rendered correctly in the Text Browsing mode: click for screenshot EDIT (Feb 2, 2006): TP 1.04 is out; please read this blog entry