No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Hi.

My question is, are there really no alternatives to MicroB?

The answers seems to be:

- No, there's Fennec, but... no,
- Maybe, in theory, through emulating another OS,
and
- Yes, if you switch OS distro.

I crave that unconditional 'Yes' that obviously I'm not going to get. :P But still, I'm going to ask.

Are there really no other alternatives? No ports? No adjusted version of the old Opera browser? No payware?

I crash MicroB.



Sorry if you feel this is posted in the wrong subforum, but obviously there IS another alternative to MicroB if you're using an older version of the OS :B

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Tear, a lightweight web browser using WebKit. It might fullfill your needs. Its reported to be faster than MicroB.

If you really require speed something like Links2, Elinks, Dillo, W3m or Lynx might cut it.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Tear/webkit seems interesting. Though, judging by the version number, I suspect I may say 'I crash Tear' long before I have it installed. :B

Much like Fennec.

How could I search and yet miss Midori?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Reproducibly? Either way, would you please consider submitting or updating bugs?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Ooh, thanks for the link to Tear :)

Epiphany (both the Gecko version and the Webkit version) under Easy Debian works extremely well for me. In fact, I would say it works faster than MicroB even in the chroot, so it could be quite impressive if it replaced MicroB entirely. Not sure what they did with that thing, but it is extremely heavy for a web browser that claims to be lightweight :/

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

webkit bothers me, as it depends on a hefty lib...

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I just abuse the poor thing till it runs out of memory, I suspect. Will take me maybe 15 minutes with browsing something like deviantart galleries, 5+ tabs... I mean windows... and it will slow down then hang the N810.

A main reason for trying out another browser is to see if that's just how the N810 handles stress, or if another browser would act/degrade differently when trying to surf multithreaded on limited memory...

I'm an demanding Opera desktop user. I don't sit around and wait for the one browser window to load, I am used to 20+ tabs on my page bars. 5 windows is a bare minimum of what I need. And that's when I'm reading a book in parallell... :B

Where is that N900 already?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

What for? So it can be WONTFIXed or fixed in a release that won't be available for your device/will be available nobody can say when?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I have to agree, with all Maemo resources at Nokia invested into Freemantle, I find it hard to believe that anything but the most severe bugs will be addressed in Diablo apps.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Isn't Midori floating around somewhere?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

(Ignoring the obvious trollishness of this post)

If it's a crasher it's likely to be fixed (that said, I'm still dubious as to whether this is a real crasher or just the typical constrained-device instability). Even if it's only fixed for the next release, Nokia's increased openness means it'll be a lot easier for the community to get it running on current hardware than it was for the 770.

It really depends on the team. Some teams have moved on to only major/critical stuff (crashers, etc) some are still pushing more minor fixes (mvo just push a lot of minor stuff for h-a-m, for example). Generalizing isn't very helpful here, and in the case of the browser team, I believe they'll still be fixing lots of stuff (especially considering that the engine-level changes really aren't dependent on anything from Fremantle).

Also:

s/Freemantle/Fremantle/g

Please keep it in mind.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Run Opera on computer with NX, VNC, or RDP server running. Connect to this server using your NIT (all 3 protocols are supported with 3rd party applications; qtnx, pyrdesktop, ...). Then you got all your tabs and windows available at your command.

I tend to use SSH + Screen for all my applications. There are beautiful ncurses applications for just about everything. Many even support a specific colour scheme (Irssi default; terminal black bg + blue bg + white text). Runs very nice on a large screen such as the NIT.

I can attest MicroB crashes with too much open. You could try to increase your virtual memory, or not leave too many windows open. In Chrome every tab is a seperate process; this is something I'd like to see back in other browsers as well, but I'm not sure this will be backported into WebKit. WebKit is used in many browsers nowadays; its an adult rendering engine, lightweight, well comformant. Tear and Midori are 2 lightweight, open source browsers using WebKit I'm aware of. But there are more, and have been more; such as Konqueror/E(mbedded). Its just that Tear is the only browser in extras/ which uses WebKit...

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Just last week I was wondering what was happening with microb behind the scenes.

(In wrong forum though, Software -> Apps; clearly the likes of MS and Nokia know better than Mozilla and the US DOJ that the browser is part of the OS... :rolleyes: )

Anyway, based on the relatively informed hearsay in here it appears that Diablo along with its major integrated parts is on the slow lane to oblivion and Fremantle will not be supported by Nokia on the current hardware.

My personal lesson here is not to expect software support from a hardware vendor beyond the hardware's shelf-life.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I use the Firefox offspring Minefield on my N810 and I am very happy with it. After a longer start it works quite fast and offers all plugins. That's much better than Fennec and more versatile than Tear.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I'll say again: it really doesn't matter all that much whether Nokia supports current hardware with Fremantle, because a community provided backport will be much easier this time around. . . .

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Of course if there are some 3D drivers involved... :)

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

You call it trollishness, I call it personal experience (besides, I'm not alone thinking this way)

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

a) Non-solution: "RDP to a real machine"
b) Good Solution: "Get over Java-less anal retention, get Opera mobile".
c) Great Solution: "Finger friendly, Integrated webkit browser".


(a) sounds like a "buy a netbook" to me. I'd rather see a Hildonized finger-friendly (and, no, microb doesn't fit that) approach.

Sheesh, even a circa 2000 Palm will run Opera.... (in some incantation, in a full moon, with the wind at your back)

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Actually, I kid you not, it is a solution but it has a problem: you need 24/7 connectivity. The NIT doesn't provide that. Most netbooks don't provide this either. Besides, its indeed not touch or finger friendly. I had this on a Nokia Communicator in 2000. With Opera, PuTTy, RDP client, and even VNC client. Over GPRS no less. And except for VNC it worked pretty well, just RDP was set to low quality graphics to save bandwidth.

I experimented with Fennec + SSH tunneling over a good, stable WiFi connection running Fennec on a fast Linux/x86-64 machine; yet there was no performance increase. I'm not sure why.

The problem with Opera (search around; someone has tried to port it) is that there is no correct Java port for NIT. There is a full fledged Java port, but not J2ME which runs on Symbian and the like for which Opera Mini was build. IIRC it ran, but performance was laughable.

So you're, as of now, left to current options:
A) MicroB
B) Minefield
C) Fennec
D) Tear
E) Port Midori/Dillo/Links2/Elinks/W3m/Lynx
F) Deblet or one of its variants with Firefox or Konqueror
Z) Something above, home brewed, with some patches...

For the future (Fremantle and such) I put my money on option C or one of the WebKit-based browsers; its not as if a good WebKit-based browser is impossible on a mobile device; its just as possible as Gecko-based or Presto-based one; the engines are all competitive. For now, its a difficult situation.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

only if there's a build. is there a N810-friendly build of Opera Mobile?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I am glad I asked, this thread has summed up much new info for me. I knew about the java/opera mini problems, that fennec eventually will come, but there's a bunch of new names here for me... I will read up on each of them.

Yes, the main reason I have issues with MicroB is that I demand more of it than I should expect on a limited memory base. But there is such a thing as graceful handling of resource management, too often I've had to 'debatterize' a hanging nokia, and only when I use the browser. Thus I'd like to check out the alternatives.

However, anything that requires compiling or buiding smells too much like my work hours, so I'm more likely to start playing around with a HTC Touch HD while I waitg, than running debian from the memory card or redpilling. Not that I don't think it's cool that it's possible, I just think my spare hours are too precious and the hardware too limited to spend time getting into a less-documented setup.

On Maemo it's easy to install from the base program libraries... I prefer to stay within those boundaries. FBreader, Pidgin, KeePassX, AbiWord, VNC viewer and Midnight Commander were all quick and painless additions. I wish Opera would extend their mobile products to the current platform, I would pay to download, but not spend all sunday to configure.

I see that there are indeed a few alternatives and I'll see what I can do with those. Thanks.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

hang on, am I reading this right? is minefield and fennec two sides of the same, based on the same executables, just different configurations/themes? then why would minefield be stable when everything i've read says fennec is near unusable?

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

You're not reading it right.

They both use essentially the same engine, yes, but their interfaces are very different. Minefield is a desktop browser compiled for Maemo, while Fennec is Mozilla's new mobile browser.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

well, sometimes it's good to be wrong. ...most of the time, actually.

i had best find a current thread about minefield.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I tried to install Fennec a few weeks ago but aborted. The new Alpha 1 direct installation link sported in the recent article on this site worked just fine yesterday.

Liked Fennecs tab idea but the pages were sorta difficult to navigate. On one page I just couldn't get the page to stand still. :B So, looking forward to any 0.3 and 0.5 version here.

Didn't look up much info on Minefield yet... My main PC is giving me crap atm. so I'll be refocusing on that for a while.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

You look forward to a 0.3 or 0.5 version of Fennec? But the current version 1.0 alpha 1. Please also be aware the Maemo community has been able to test milestones and builds before the 1.0 alpha 1 version. These versions were even more unstable (crashing etc) than the current version, 1.0 alpha 1. So be sure the comments you read are about the current version! Note the performance issues are a blocker for 1.0 release.

The minefield .deb is an older one, but it does have the newer Gecko and JS implementation. Right now its available here.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Oh.

Then I should be looking forward to 3.0 or 5.0 instead. :B

Yeah, t'was Tear that was in 0.1. And 'was', not is.
The wait from alpha 1 to beta 1 probably isn't too long... :)

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Fennec is more like the big-fat-pig for mobile. Seriously, look at the size of that .... Yeesh .... On my 4GB RAM + 1TB desktop, I don't really care (I even run KDE!) - but on a RAM-challenged NIT?

When will we see Minefield in the application manager? I'm with Volt ("anything that requires compiling or buiding smells too much like my work hours"), and I'm avoiding the red-pill-flash-boot-deblet-hokey-pokey (I got done being impressed with me compiling my own kernels in 1988, 1992, and again in 1998). I'm glad people can do it -- but I'm "stick a fork in me and call me done" with spending my precious sleep hours recovering botched upgrades.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

Maybe you should look into some posts here or some information on Mozilla.com about the roadmap of Fennec. They first wanted it to be stable and feature complete. Now they're porting it to different platforms (this is good for catching bugs as well).

After the alpha 1 the blockers are the performance. The bloody thing probably has debugging enabled for pete's sake! Seriously, read their roadmap. The developers are well aware of the performance issues. And, you won't see Minefield in the Application Manager because its not meant for Maemo.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I think a big part of the problem with the stock MicroB are the plugins; The Flash9 plugin in particular has been causing me loads of problems recently (It just spins up to 100/100 CPU/RAM use then crashes).

I had the same problem on my Eee until I put Opera and hacked a beta of Flash10 to work on it (Final version of Flash10 doesn't work on the Eee900 because it's linked to a newer glibc).

I find disabling plugins and javascript improves speed and stability by miles, but MicroB's small-screen rendering is bloody awful compared to Opera's and without the CSS tweaks (Apparently disabling javascript disables CSS and user CSS tweaks as well...?) it's almost painful to use on many sites...

Oh how I miss the heady days of HTML3!!

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I agree -- Mozilla's Fennec needs to CUT THE PORK. It is way too much of a memory hog and it has no menu or way to change options other than the about:config (which is difficult to work with, especially on Mobile platforms.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I am looking forward to HTML5, if they only had thought of that earlier, instead of XHTML1.0. :B

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

xml was seen as a cure-all...

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I am revisiting this thread because I find it a useful thread and I would like to keep it somewhat current. It's been half a year and I have the most recent version of Tear installed. I also have some other browsers installed now, but Tear and MicroB are the only ones I bother to start up.

For browsing with more than a couple of windows, Tear seems indeed much more able to handle it. It has other unstabilities, but as it is, I have to say Tear is a viable alternative to MicroB.

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

to bad that nokia never made allowances for a third party browser to take over the myriad jobs of the built in one (dbus calls and all that)...

Re: No alternatives to MicroB?
 

I use Tear when possible, too, but it is a pain when another app opens a link in the default browser, because then I have two browsers open...