Microsoft causing Deepfish extinction

[SYNACK]

After a short run of brilliance Microsoft's technology preview of the future of Windows Mobile browsers is being switched off at the end of this month.

Deepfish: Hello, I Must Be Going : Microsoft Live Labs

For those who have not tried it Deepfish is a browser for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices that lets you see the entirety of a web page scaled to the screen and zoom in on the portions of interest to read them. It used server side proxying and rendering in order to allow older devices with small amounts of memory and slow processors to browse the web comfortably.

Deepfish : Microsoft Live Labs

As at the 31st of September the server side software will be switched off causing the extinction of this software. Thereby throwing many older devices back into the darkness of the slow loading memory hogging barely readable device rendered web.

[torledo]

Are they basically saying go out and get opera mini for your Windows mobile device ?

[Ric_]

I believe Opera does a browser with similar server-side gubbins so you won't be left without... http://www.operamini.com/

[localzuk]

Opera Mini does exactly that - I use it on my HTC Touch Diamond. Very useful being able to zoom in and out.

[SYNACK]

Thanks for the information about Opera Mini, I had checked out Opera Mobile and saw that i needed a liscence for it so wrote off Opera. It does work well, better in fact than deepfish did on my S730.

The primary thing that irritated me was the fact that Microsoft had gone in the right direction and made something good but decided to kill it. I think Microsoft needs new management as they seem to be doing everything possible to sabotage themselves lately. Office 2007's horrific 'deployment' methods (the death of MSI), Killing off ntbackup in Server 2008 etc.

As horrible as it sounds maybe there should be a "Bring Back Bill" movement as at least some form of business direction was present when he was still running it.

[LeMarchand]

Why did Live Labs discontinue the technology preview of Deepfish?

Mobile browsing is now advancing to the point where mobile devices rival the desktop—which is what we wanted to see. User experience advances such as usable touch and intuitive zooming interfaces weren't widely available at the time. Deepfish helped drive that innovation. And now that the marketplace has caught up to where we thought it needed to go and continues to advance.

Apart from the fact that the last sentence makes no sense, what they seem to be saying is that since there are other browsers that do what they wanted to do, you should use them rather than IE for Mobiles (or whatever it is called) as they can't be bothered to develop something better.

I'll try Opera Mini, though I have a feeling that I've already tried and rejected it (is there a time limitation?).

I'm currently experimenting with Picsel and IRIS, both have good points but aren't quite "the web in your hand".

[SYNACK]

what they seem to be saying is that since there are other browsers that do what they wanted to do, you should use them rather than IE for Mobiles (or whatever it is called) as they can't be bothered to develop something better.

I'll try Opera Mini, though I have a feeling that I've already tried and rejected it (is there a time limitation?).

I know that there are others in the market which can now do it better than them but that is no excuse for them to suspend development on their integrated browser. If everyone stopped trying when they were exceeded we would still be using sharpened stones to cut things.

There is no time limit that I have encountered for Opera Mini. It appears to be free where as the more feature full Opera Mobile does have a 30 day time limit without a liscence.

[LeMarchand]

I know that there are others in the market which can now do it better than them but that is no excuse for them to suspend development on their integrated browser. If everyone stopped trying when they were exceeded we would still be using sharpened stones to cut things.

There is no time limit that I have encountered for Opera Mini. It appears to be free where as the more feature full Opera Mobile does have a 30 day time limit without a liscence.

That was the point I was making, unless you were just agreeing!

I remember the problem with "Mini" - by HTC Touch doesn't trust the midlet it uses anyone know how to mark it as "safe"?

[SYNACK]

That was the point I was making, unless you were just agreeing!

I remember the problem with "Mini" - by HTC Touch doesn't trust the midlet it uses anyone know how to mark it as "safe"?

I must have missed it in your original post but if this is your stance also then I am agreeing

Not sure about the midlet signing as it just installed strait off on my phone. You may need to application unlock your phone if your provider is a bit scummy and has locked you out from installing apps not from them.

You should be able to unlock this by running 'Cert_SPCS.cab' which should allow app installs, you may need to run 'EnableRapi.cab' also. The rest of the instructions are to unlock your phone from a provider SIM lockout.

[UPG][12.04.07]Free HTC Touch Unlocking. Simple. As promised[ONLINE] - xda-developers

[LeMarchand]

I must have missed it in your original post but if this is your stance also then I am agreeing

Glad we got that sorted!

Not sure about the midlet signing as it just installed strait off on my phone. You may need to application unlock your phone if your provider is a bit scummy and has locked you out from installing apps not from them.

Not sure that is the problem, as I've installed a lot of software with no problems (including other browsers). It installs, but I keep having to "OK" the midlet. (I guess T Mobile may have decided that they didn't want Opera on their phones, though). Thanks for the link - I actually joined there a while back but hadn't bookmarked it and couldn't remember the name .

I'll try to have a play later, better do some work .

[LeMarchand]

a) I managed to get Opera working - thanks, it's now my main browser.

b) MS not only harpooned Deepfish, they decided that something that sounds very similar would be better off...

...on the iPhone!

MS Seadragon