Go Get It: Skyfire Mobile Browser Available for All

We’ve been following Skyfire forever, and this morning Skyfire is finally announcing that its browser, Version .8, is open for all Windows Mobile and Windows Mobile Professional users, not just Beta subscribers (as has been the case in the past). The Skyfire browser rocks, which we proved during our browser speed tests in July. Version .8 has some new features, so here are the highlights of the changes and our thoughts:

Rendering
We love the speed of Skyfire and the ability to load full pages. When you first load a page, though, the text is nearly impossible to read, because it’s a rendering of the exact full Web site on a smaller display. It’s great for getting the full experience out of a Web page though: Flash content will actually load, and the page generally plays back as it would on your PC. If you zoom in, that area of the page is loaded, and you can interact with links and text.

Hit the jump for images and more new features.

Hulu
In the past, we’ve tried running Hulu with Skyfire, but it was more like watching a slideshow than a video. This time around, Skyfire has improved video and audio playback on Web pages. With a full EV-DO signal on Sprint, we were able to watch an SNL clip on Hulu.com. While the video was just a bit laggy and remains far from perfect, it was still clear enough to watch casually.

Contextual zoom: When you click a Web site to zoom in, a box appears first, so you can be sure of exactly where you’re zooming. To zoom in, click the selection box a second time. This helpful feature makes zooming into specific areas, such as videos on Hulu.com, easier and more accurate.

Faster application launch, Default browser setting: On our Sprint HTC Mogul, Skyfire loaded in 4 seconds, and we were immediately asked if we’d like to set it as our default browser. Internet Explorer Mobile launches nearly immediately, too, but its feature set is much more limited.

Inline text entry: This feature allows you to enter text directly into forms on a page, instead of having to open up a separate window just to enter your username or password. Also, hitting OK will move you directly to the next input field, sort of like the Tab key does on a computer.

SuperBar and Homepage: SkyFire’s SuperBar is available from its home menu, and it performs a Web search through both Google and Yahoo. The home menu acts as a Web portal with links to World News, Business News, Sports, and more. You can also view the weather, your bookmarks, and past browsing history from this page.

Homescreen Integration: This feature lets you search the Web (Google and Yahoo) directly from your Windows Mobile homescreen.

Save Images: You can save images from any Web site by clicking on an image and selecting Save Image As. An option to get the image URL is also available.

Share: If you stumble across a Web site you love, you can share it with friends by clicking Menu > Share > Share Page via SMS. It automatically creates a shortened link so your text messages aren’t jumbled with long URLs.

Bookmarks: You can sort bookmarks by category like News, Sports, Social, Video, and Unsorted. Popular Bookmarks, including Facebook, NYTimes.com, and Wikipedia, are already bookmarked for you.

The Browser is free, so check it out for yourself. We’ve already set it to default.