Smooth and Fast Symbian^3 Qt 4.7.3 Web Browser at Ovi Store – MiniBrowser Mobile 2.0

Nokia_Fan has tipped us of a really cool app that Siraj from lovemynokia has been checking out. MiniBrowser Mobile 2.0

It’s a …wait for it…Qt based browser for Symbian^3. Now, I’m an open hater of the ridiculous Symbian Browser. It is OK but not for 2011, NO, it doesn’t cut the mustard. That’s why a lot of the Nokia geek fans use Opera.

http://store.ovi.com/content/111579 << You might be asked to download a 13mb file first.

MiniBrowser Mobile 2.0 is a fast and easy to use web browser. Strong built-in advertisement blocker will save internet traffic and time for loading pages. You can search and translate with Google, search in Wikipedia directly from url address bar. Browser supports tabs, bookmarks, full screen and auto-fill forms. New version 2.0 is based on Qt 4.7.3 with faster and more stable QtWebKit engine. More info on http://dmkho.tripod.com/mbm/index.html

Now what we have here looks very promising. I haven’t tried it out for my self as I can’t. I’m getting the same installation failed error I have been recently for Qt Apps. Not sure why, but it’s like likely cause that has prevented TreeMaker/Puppy Talk from installing on my N8.

Anyway, for 1, the interface is neat. Simple toolbar at the bottom, tabbed browsing at the top.(Open links in new tab with long press)

• Ooh, a button to switch from full screen to toolbar mode. I really don’t understand why after all those rants with S60 5th it still persisted to S^3 that the toolbar goes away on its own accord, and not when you want it.
• Zoom buttons – hmm does that mean no direct pinch zoom or even double tap?

Now, let’s start with something new and look at that ad block in action:

The developer recommends blocking ads to speed up browsing, save battery (with reduced CPU processing). You can manually unblock information if it accidentally blocks something that isn’t an ad (or something you want to check out)

As expected, the url address bar acts as a search bar.

What was unexpected is that you can translate directly into the toolbar with commands. t is translate, es (for Spanish) and subsequent text.

Likewise, you can do wikipedia searches too!

Despite all this, Siraj finds that it’s not as good as Opera Mobile. He says it also lacks kinetic scrolling (possibly pinch and zoom too?)

He does like that its super smooth through the pages and that it’s really fast. I’d like to know how it handles flash.

It kinda gives me some renewed hope (if a little) in the upcoming Symbian Browser. The one for Anna still looks, er, terrible. The “tabbed” interface with scrolling tabs is so offensively slow. Symbian Browser, like Nokia, was once supreme. But it just never updated itself to be on par with competitors. It’s a shame really that in their pocket, Nokia had unequivocally the BEST mobile browser in Maemo 5’s MicroB. MicroB (and FireFox Mobile on N900) was desktop browsing on your smartphone. It let me interact with the web on the N900 as if I was using a PC whilst still being fast with mobile data.

http://dmkho.tripod.com/mbm/index.html via

lovemynokia

Category: Applications, Nokia