Friday 18 September 2009

UCWEB - the only non-webkit based browser for iphone



Just 2 days ago, Opera Mini 5 beta was released, and the general consensus is that it improves an already awesome product. Among other features, what makes OM special it´s the speed, something that is result of it using a proxy server to compress web pages before sending it to the phone. This is specially useful for people with limited data plans (i´m one of them), because it uses much less data than "full" browsers (like safari), and for slow 3G or evem slower GPRS/EDGE connections.

I tested OM 5 and was left thinking how good it would be to have such an alternative to safari on the iPhone. Well, i remembered there is something - UCWEB, a browser that rivals OM on the java space, and uses the same kind of proxy technology. Better, it has an iPhone version (jailbreak required, of course), that i used on the OS 2.x days. Even better, it now has an OS 3.x compatible version.



Of course, the main limitation is obvious - it´s in chinese! Nevertheless, i can tell you it´s even easyier now to use it without understanding a bit of the language, because there´s now alot of self-explanatory icons.

To test it, add http://wap.ucweb.com/iphone/cydia to your cydia sources, and start saving some data and gaining speed when not using Wifi or HSDPA connections.

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