new netfront 3.3 (1.6)

blutrane · 04-28-06, 11:29 PM

Well 1.05 will expire in may so access released a new version.

interestingly enough this version is for 45 days.... and expiry is not based on a date.

Maybe access will be releasing the full version soon.

Netfront is by far my favorite mobile browser (better then opera even...) which offers an experience similar to a desktop at reasonable speeds.

**Rishad** · 04-28-06, 11:39 PM

Interesting. I wonder if 3.3 will be a free upgrade for 3.2 owners.

psionandy · 04-29-06, 02:30 AM

bet you a packet of chocolate hobnobs that they'll charge you for it

Menneisyys · 04-30-06, 12:40 PM

NetFront is one of the best alternate Web browsers for the Pocket PC. It has many-many advantages over the built-in Internet Explorer and, in general, is only rivaled by Opera.

Access Co., developer of NetFront, is still working on the new version, 3.3, of the browser and keeps releasing (public) under-development versions of it, making it possible for users to test it. This is definitely a very good thing because the current 3.3 version(s) are far-far better (faster, WM5 compliant, flawlessly support VGA devices etc.) than the currently available, one-year-old commercial version, 3.2. Unfortunately, it also has some restrictions (painfully missing Macromedia Flash/Java plug-ins and the inability to support more than ten favorites and two tabs) compared to version 3.2, which, of course, will not be present in the final version.

The new, freely downloadable version is downloadable here.

What has changed since the previous version?

(Also see my review of the previous version)

Nothing noticeable. The benchmarks (see the comparison chart at the bottom), all the menus are the same and there’s only very slight difference in the main executable file: it’s about 2 kbytes bigger than the previous version.

The bugs seem to be the same too: for example, the IHT articles are still unreadable (this bug still hasn’t been fixed; of course, on IHT, you can always click the “Print Page” link to be able to see the contents of the page, as with switching NetFront to Text Browsing mode. Still, this bug may render your browsing with NetFront a pain because of hidden content that you will never know it existed with a lot of other Web pages too (pages that use similar HTML constructs) unless you explicitly use it in the “dumb” Text Browsing mode always.

Benchmarks

I have some good news: current NetFront versions are far faster than version 3.2 and definitely faster than Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile. They can’t beat the current, b2 version of Opera, though – the latter is definitely faster at loading pages.

The speed difference between NetFront and Internet Explorer is particularly emphasized on WM5, where NetFront is two times faster than Internet Explorer. It’s definitely worth comparing the benchmark results in the comparison chart – as can be seen, the 624 MHz, freshly hard reset x51v is faster at loading Web large pages over a USB ActiveSync connection than, as far as the CPU clock and the USB ActiveSync connection speed is concerned, the slightly slower Pocket Loox 720 using both Opera and NetFront, the WM5 version of Internet Explorer is definitely a letdown and a step back, speed-wise, compared to the WM2003SE implementation.

It’s also worth comparing the 1.05/1.06 TP 3.3 page loading times I’ve measured to those of version 3.2 published in my Bible of Web Browsers (see links at the bottom in this link collection). As can clearly be seen, there has been great speed increase: now, NetFront is between the built-in, slowish Pocket Internet Explorer/ Internet Explorer Mobile and the speed-demon Opera.

(Note that all values have been measured in the default Full Browsing mode; with Text Browsing, loading times are even better. USB ActiveSync connection was used to benchmark the applications.)

The comparison chart can be found here or here, in the article posted to my blog. (Sorry for linking in external resources - there's no HTML table support in the forum engine.)

Important Tips

After installing NetFront, the first thing you do should be going to (Menu/)Tools/Browser Setting/View/Advanced Setting/Change and ticking in “Use proportional font”. This is often overlooked by NetFront users, leading to generic disappointments. (Unfortunately, Access, developer of NetFront, doesn’t seem to be bothered about the problem.)

Please note that if you install it on a storage card, make sure you heavily optimize the card before this – otherwise, flushing the cache to the card will greatly slow down NetFront (as with any other app using cache). Please read this (essential) article on this question.

Also, if your language is a non-Western one with its own alphabet, you may want to go to (Menu/)View/Encoding and set the encoding to Auto or that of your particular language.

Verdict

It’s definitely worth installing the new version – you won’t regret it, if you can live with the favorite/tab number restrictions. Highly recommended especially for WM2003/WM2003SE users because of the well-known bug (the inability to render HTML pages over 20-30 Kbytes) of Opera b2 on the latter operating systems.

Recommended links

Link collection to the latest Pocket PC Web Browser reviews

04-30-06, 05:57 PM

Great review Menneisyys. Thanks for the heads up blutrane.. :)

blutrane · 04-30-06, 06:51 PM

I am surprised you like Opera so much Menneisyys it really dosent render the pages as nicely as netfront

I find netfront to offer a better overall experience and more polished for both 2003se and wm5

Menneisyys · 05-01-06, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by blutrane

I am surprised you like Opera so much Menneisyys it really dosent render the pages as nicely as netfront

Up until version 1.04, I've preferred Opera because of its much better page loading speed, better cache usage and the lack of TP restrictions. (NF 3.2 is pretty useless, speed- and SE VGA-wise and it's not WM5-compliant.)

Now that the NetFront page loading speed is grealt enhanced (albeit still not as good as that of Opera and still has caching logic-related problems), I may be using NF a lot more than before.

phool79 · 05-03-06, 09:58 AM

could someone please post the CAB file for 1.06..

thanks

Menneisyys · 05-03-06, 10:01 AM

http://www.winmobiletech.com/sekalai...ARENR106D2.rar

This is the new 1.06 D2 version released the day before yesterday (see my blog).

phool79 · 05-04-06, 04:05 PM

thanks, your the best..

Frannyman · 05-26-06, 02:45 PM

Hello, Thanks for the great reviews, Menny, I've been reading them for more than a year already. About Netfront. I have a problem with this realease that wasn't there on the 2 first. The text seems a bit scrabbled on normal display and it invariably hides behind the scroll bar in Just-Fit and Smart-Fit Rendering. Could you or anybody by chance know what can I do?

blutrane · 05-26-06, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Frannyman

Hello, Thanks for the great reviews, Menny, I've been reading them for more than a year already. About Netfront. I have a problem with this realease that wasn't there on the 2 first. The text seems a bit scrabbled on normal display and it invariably hides behind the scroll bar in Just-Fit and Smart-Fit Rendering. Could you or anybody by chance know what can I do?

change the font from courrier new to tahoma and that will fix the issue.
this can be changed in browser settings -> view -> advanced

Frannyman · 05-29-06, 12:22 AM

Hey it worked! Thank you very much!

blutrane · 05-29-06, 01:38 PM

also:

i find pages load much faster if browsing mode is changed from FULL BROWSING to -> RAPID RENDER

also i hate horizontal scrolling so i change the setting viewing mode from NORMAL to -> SMART FIT RENDER.

It does this quite well

Frannyman · 05-30-06, 01:38 AM

You know what's the coolest thing about NF 3.3? Full usage of Yahoo! Mail! YAAAY! It works fine even in fast render... I can barely see the difference...