Skyfire Promises Full Web Browsing on Smartphones

Many have tried to deliver full, PC-style Web browsing on a phone—Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, and Helio, just to name a few—but the results have been mixed, especially when it comes to embedded Web video and animated Flash content. Now upstart Skyfire claims to have succeeded where the others have fallen short.

Announced today at the DEMO conference in Palm Springs, Skyfire is (or rather, will be—the service is about to launch a private beta) a free browser that promises to deliver the mobile Web as you'd see it on a PC, complete with Flash, Java, and Ajax support. That means you'd be able to watch YouTube videos (and not just the ones optimized for cell phones), listen to tunes on music sites like Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music, find yourself on the full version of Google Maps, and see Flash-enabled Web modules and ads. The Skyfire browser will be available for Windows Mobile phones first, followed by Symbian devices.

A full, PC-like browsing experience on a phone is, of course, a tall order—even the most souped-up smartphones would slow to a crawl trying to render Java apps or videos on the main YouTube site. (Indeed, watching standard YouTube videos on Nokia's powerful N810 Internet Tablet can be a slow, choppy experience.) That's why most mobile browsers—such as Safari on the iPhone, the mobile Internet Explorer, and the smartphone version of Nokia's browser—don't even try to deliver embedded Web video, Flash content, and the like.

So how's Skyfire going to work, then? Execs told CNET's Rafe Needleman that servers at Skyfire HQ will do all the heavy lifting when it comes to processing Web pages, and that the Skyfire "proxy" browser on your cell phone would simply receive the pre-rendered pages. It's an interesting concept, but as Needleman points out, Skyfire will only be as good as the Skyfire servers, which will be put to the test once a substantial number of users try to watch "Leave Britney Alone!!!" or Tom Cruise's Scientology video on their phones.

Want to try Skyfire for yourself? Visit the site to sign up for the private beta.

Related:
Skyfire brings desktop-quality browsing to your phone [CNET Webware]