Surfing The Web

[habib15]

Hi all,

Its been a long time since I posted, I have been lurking waiting for the release. But I do have one question. How is surfing the web on the Pandora? I have seen some videos of the dev boards loading up Firefox but I thought now that there is a fully functioning device the devs could describe a little of how well it works.

I surf the web with my cell phone and it sucks, its slow the content never fits the screen and its hard to type, so I'm really looking forward to a device I can use while sitting on the couch without having to boot up a laptop.

So I thought maybe in their next movie the devs can show off the Pandora loading several different websites and describe how well it works. If this has been done with the fully assembled device don't yell at me I must have missed it.

Kevin

 

[mali]

I support this request

 

[Trip]

Ditto. Would be nice to see a decent bit of browsing

 

[alucart1984]

I agree. Would be nice to see pages loaded up. I would like to see something like IGN.com loaded. or Facebook.

 

[lulzfish]

It's full Firefox 3.0 or 3.5 or whatever, so Facebook and all its Javascript will work fine.

It's a 800 by 480 screen, so get a screen measuring device (Kruler is good in Linux) and resize your browser to 800 by 480.
It won't be luxorious like a 1920 by 1200 screen, but with small fonts and some scaling, it should work with any ordinary website.

Flash is still a bitch, and there's no guarantee it will work, or when.

Also, the slowness of web browsing is usually due to network slowness, though if you're using a very old cell phone you might be waiting for the rendering as well. For modern cell phones and Pandoras, all the lag will be network lag. Unless you're running a Chrome Experiment or something, the device itself won't browser any slower than the network can push data into it.

 

[zhasha]

You probably want to use something WebKit based simply for the reason that it renders way faster. Where Mozilla has devised Fennec to deal with mobile devices, WebKit runs on SmartPhones without any modification besides what's needed for porting (just to give you an impression)

 

[cobaltage]

I'm hoping to get reasonably smooth scrolling in particular and would like to see that in action. There's a lot of scrolling at 800x480. I'm also wondering how well mobile websites will function at that screen resolution.

 

[mali]

I remember ED saying that they might replace full Firefox with Midori or Arora IIRC. I have to check..

Edit:
Yep, that's what he said.
http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?p=105326#p105326

 

[Wolfsclaw]

I'm still hoping for Chromium 4.* (try the newest Google Chrome beta!). It's lightning fast AND has extensions support. Think Ab-Block etc.

Firefox is a cripple compared to that, and it's also way too memory heavy and does not really suit a small device like the Pandora is.

 

[dflemstr]

I remember ED saying that they might replace full Firefox with Midori or Arora IIRC. I have to check..

Edit:
Yep, that's what he said.
http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?p=105326#p105326

Yes! Awesome! Right decision, Midori whips ass...

Also, pity about Qt, guess I'll have to statically link some of my apps... (EDIT: nvm, it has been included, mentioned further down..)

I really need to visit the German forum more often...

EDIT: @Wolfsclaw, yes the latest chromium is blazingly fast, and even better: there isn't even a 3.* branch for Linux so 4.* is your only option I'd prefer chromium over Midori tbh.

 

[mali]

I'm not sure if the Qt info is still accurate. I remember someone saying that Qt is/will be included, but I don't know who said it. Don't quote me on that, though.

Edit:
:lol: you found it, I should have scrolled down a bit.

 

[Tensuke]

I really want to see the Grab And Drag extension for Firefox!

 

[Mithrildor]

I remember ED saying that they might replace full Firefox with Midori or Arora IIRC. I have to check..

Edit:
Yep, that's what he said.
http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?p=105326#p105326

I want Firefox! Just ship the machine with Firefox and that other broswer.

 

[mali]

If they don't include Firefox, it would be easy to download from the repo anyway
Edit:
I think it's just to have a lean image on the NAND, with the most important stuff.

 

[wermy]

I want Firefox! Just ship the machine with Firefox and that other broswer.

Agreed. They could have a question on the first-time-use wizard asking you what you want your default browser to be.

It looked like FireFox was running just fine in the brief videos I saw -- what made them think about switching?

 

[mali]

Midori is way faster, that's the reason

 

[wermy]

Midori is way faster, that's the reason

That's true -- I use Midori on a Smart Q7, and it's even zippy on that anemic hardware. But they've been touting the fact that the Pandora runs the full desktop version of FireFox from the outset, so it's curious that all of the sudden they are thinking of switching to something leaner.

 

[EvilDragon]

Midori is implemented at the moment, yes.

I'll try if I could do some web surfing video soon.

First off, I will do PicoDrive with some shooter game, as some wanted to see how well the DPad works

 

[mali]

Great! Thanks

 

[wermy]

Midori is implemented at the moment, yes.

I'll try if I could do some web surfing video soon.

First off, I will do PicoDrive with some shooter game, as some wanted to see how well the DPad works

Thanks, ED! Your efforts to appease the masses are appreciated.

Could you comment/speculate as to whether it will ship with FireFox, or Midori? Or is that still up in the air...?