[darkcyber]

Ok, I have had my Storm 9530 for about 3 weeks now and one thing I have noticed is the javascript on the BB Storm is very, very weak at best, mostly a joke. It may run a few things, but very few. I have been unable to bring up any javascript based webcams, basically I can't bring up any webcams period. On my old Motorola Q I had no problems bringing these up.

Why is the Blackberry browser so crappy? The emulation modes for Firefox and IE are worthless as well...they do not accomplish anything. I have tried Opera mini (which is a failure as well...keyboard numbers do not work at all and it still seems buggy...etc.), Bolt browser does not pull up any of these sites I need either.

Is there not a good third party browser option out there? The BB browser is ok for basic things and that is all.

I really like my Storm, I just do not like the browser options on it. This is my first Blackberry product ever and I keep finding myself trying to make it do things WM would do with ease.

[km2783]

Yeah I was pretty disappointed when I found out it was the weak bbb instead of the rumored webkit browser that was talked about back when the Storm was first leaked.

I use Opera Mini only for wikipedia myself.

[mdude85]

Sorry, the Blackberry is not meant to function as a full browser you might find on your personal computer. A few of the mobile platforms such as Windows Mobile and Symbian have media-rich browsers able to display advanced javascript/ruby/ajax as well as embedded media (e.g. webcams) and flash. Right now those companies that make these browsers (Skyfire, Opera Mobile) do not have immediate plans to make these browsers available for dumber OSes (iPhone, Blackberry). Firefox's mobile browser (it has some other code name right now, I forget) might be the closest, but who knows?

The emulation modes are not full emulation, they are merely for browser identification purposes.

There is NOT a good browser alternative out there. As you noted, Bolt and Opera Mini are not sufficient (especially Opera Mini, which is not compatible with Storm).

The BB browser is not that bad -- it's quite good for a mobile platform, in fact... probably as good as Safari or iPhone or maybe even better. It's just that people need to recognize that these mobile browsers are not designed to render the media rich websites that full browsers on regular computer can.

[JRSCCivic98]

One reason might simply be that the OS and it's Java capabilities are running on Java engine version 4.x. Currently, in the PC world, we're up to version 6.x. That accounts for some of the reasons why some scripts run like dogs or not at all... CPU speed is slightly another reason, but it's mostly the version of Java being used.

[mdude85]

One reason might simply be that the OS and it's Java capabilities are running on Java engine version 4.x. Currently, in the PC world, we're up to version 6.x. That accounts for some of the reasons why some scripts run like dogs or not at all... CPU speed is slightly another reason, but it's mostly the version of Java being used.

I think that J2ME runs on an "older" version of the JRE simply for the purpose of conserving resources on the mobile processors.

There is also the issue of 3rd party vendors updating their JRE versions to support new classes that Sun releases. So that may also contribute to the significant delay in progress of running feature-rich Java on mobile platform

[bigman2]

Well, then start coding your own browser and JavaScript interpreter to go with it. Maybe that will ultimately answer your question as to why it's so bad.

[Swift20]

the closet browser in dev. right now that may port over to bb, is fennec(mozilla) details are scare, but they are talking about attempting this for BB

[bigman2]

the closet browser in dev. right now that may port over to bb, is fennec(mozilla) details are scare, but they are talking about attempting this for BB

I highly highly doubt that info is credible. Porting an app of that magnitude from a mix of C\C++, JavaScript, and XML to Java... And not just Java, but J2ME... This would be a HUGE undertaking, and almost certainly require a team of full-time people to maintain it. Otherwise, it would be forever lagging 6-12 months behind the main development tree. Probably even skipping some of the major releases just to leap forward in an effort to maintain parity for a short time.

[mdude85]

I highly highly doubt that info is credible. Porting an app of that magnitude from a mix of C\C++, JavaScript, and XML to Java... And not just Java, but J2ME... This would be a HUGE undertaking, and almost certainly require a team of full-time people to maintain it. Otherwise, it would be forever lagging 6-12 months behind the main development tree. Probably even skipping some of the major releases just to leap forward in an effort to maintain parity for a short time.

it's pretty credible, just do a google for Fennec. of course there is a full team of people to maintain it, hello, it's Firefox !!!

[km2783]

Browsing the web on my G1 is a treat. It's not the same as a desktop, obviously, but it absolutely destroys anything my Storm can do. How anyone can think the bbb is as good as, or maybe better than, a webkit-based browser like Safari for the iPhone, is just beyond me. To each their own, I guess, but the bbb is not even in the same league as a webkit-based mobile browser let alone the same ballpark.

[n0t0ryus1]

The bbb browser is a great wap browser. That's about it though.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[bgunckel]

Sounds like some people here are confusing Java with Javascript. Javascript is for client-side scripting only, and it seems to work fine for me. As one other poster stated, you probably shouldn't confuse any phone browser with those on your PC.

Keep in mind also that Flash is not even supported at all on these mini browsers, and Flash is now used all over the place. Most of those "web cams" are flash-based.

[bigman2]

it's pretty credible, just do a google for Fennec. of course there is a full team of people to maintain it, hello, it's Firefox !!!

That doesn't mean anything. On the first point, gaming search engine results is not that difficult, and on the second point, Firefox has very few full time developers. It also doesn't have huge amounts of resources like people seem to think. They also have to plan for potentially losing about 60% of their income if Google decides it doesn't want to renew a contract with Firefox to make Google the default search engine in Firefox.

Porting even a stripped down version of Firefox from C\C++ to Java would be a massive undertaking. Not as massive as porting full on Firefox maybe... But it doesn't have to be Everest to be a challenging mountain to climb.

[JRSCCivic98]

Sounds like some people here are confusing Java with Javascript. Javascript is for client-side scripting only, and it seems to work fine for me.

The JDE is in close relation to the end scripting version on the client side. It all stems from the same core design. BB is a few release back... as in a few years.

[darkcyber]

Sorry, the Blackberry is not meant to function as a full browser you might find on your personal computer. A few of the mobile platforms such as Windows Mobile and Symbian have media-rich browsers able to display advanced javascript/ruby/ajax as well as embedded media (e.g. webcams) and flash. Right now those companies that make these browsers (Skyfire, Opera Mobile) do not have immediate plans to make these browsers available for dumber OSes (iPhone, Blackberry). Firefox's mobile browser (it has some other code name right now, I forget) might be the closest, but who knows?

The emulation modes are not full emulation, they are merely for browser identification purposes.

There is NOT a good browser alternative out there. As you noted, Bolt and Opera Mini are not sufficient (especially Opera Mini, which is not compatible with Storm).

The BB browser is not that bad -- it's quite good for a mobile platform, in fact... probably as good as Safari or iPhone or maybe even better. It's just that people need to recognize that these mobile browsers are not designed to render the media rich websites that full browsers on regular computer can.

Thanks for the post, but I disagree with your last part. On my Motorola Q, using Opera Mobile and SkyFire, I could pretty much view about anything on the net I wanted to, webcams, media rich sites, youtube within the browser...etc. So, it is not a lacking of the mobile platform NOT being able to do it, it is the fact that Blackberry is to lazy to add these functions to their browser or their OS and/or they want to keep a lock on everything. It can be done and it is being done in the Windows Mobile platform, I know I used my Q for the last 3 years doing it.

My webcams at home and my office are using WebcamXP, which is javascript based. I just emailed the coder and asked him if there was anything that would prevent my Storm not displaying the cams and he said it was simply the phone not supporting javascript or supporting it properly.

I did a Google search for webcams around the world and have tried accessing a bunch and the Storm simply will not work on ANY of them. My personal view is the BB products are geared toward the business community...email and document stuff and the the Windows Mobile platform is geared toward the REAL world.

[mdude85]

That doesn't mean anything. On the first point, gaming search engine results is not that difficult, and on the second point, Firefox has very few full time developers. It also doesn't have huge amounts of resources like people seem to think. They also have to plan for potentially losing about 60% of their income if Google decides it doesn't want to renew a contract with Firefox to make Google the default search engine in Firefox.

Porting even a stripped down version of Firefox from C\C++ to Java would be a massive undertaking. Not as massive as porting full on Firefox maybe... But it doesn't have to be Everest to be a challenging mountain to climb.

Firefox actually has quite a large team of developers (I never said full-time developers, I said a team of developers), and if you desire more information about the Firefox Mobile development group you may peruse Christian Sejersen's blog at your leisure mobile � Christian Sejersen

[bigman2]

Thanks for the post, but I disagree with your last part. On my Motorola Q, using Opera Mobile and SkyFire, I could pretty much view about anything on the net I wanted to, webcams, media rich sites, youtube within the browser...etc. So, it is not a lacking of the mobile platform NOT being able to do it, it is the fact that Blackberry is to lazy to add these functions to their browser or their OS and/or they want to keep a lock on everything. It can be done and it is being done in the Windows Mobile platform, I know I used my Q for the last 3 years doing it.

Opera Mobile and Skyfire are third party programs, so claiming that your Moto Q could do this is a misnomer at best.

But by all means... Go ahead and implement a browser with better JavaScript support and Flash. Put it up on App World when it comes out, and you'll be raking the money in.

Until then, I don't really think you're qualified to talk about how lazy RIM is or isn't. Because I could say you're too lazy to learn how to program so you could do this yourself. Holds about as much water as your argument... Which is to say none.

[darkcyber]

Opera Mobile and Skyfire are third party programs, so claiming that your Moto Q could do this is a misnomer at best.

But by all means... Go ahead and implement a browser with better JavaScript support and Flash. Put it up on App World when it comes out, and you'll be raking the money in.

Until then, I don't really think you're qualified to talk about how lazy RIM is or isn't. Because I could say you're too lazy to learn how to program so you could do this yourself. Holds about as much water as your argument... Which is to say none.

Misnomer? LOL! Not at all. They may have been third party apps, but they actually WORKED on the Q and on WM, that is more than can be said for the BB OS. How many third party browsers work on the BB or Storm? Actually, 100% work? Maybe 1, if it does, and that would be Bolt. It is pretty flakely sometimes, very difficult to get the mouse pointer to move around. Opera Mini has big problems working with the Storm keyboard. In all my testing none of the number keys work at all, you just get all letters when you type numbers.

Also, your smart remarks about writing a program, no I am not a programmer, but it seems that if I were going to release a smartphone for use with the internet, I would make sure it would do basic net functions and I believe java and javascript would be basic functions today.

It seems that BB is not as mainstream as WM, thus the reason for the lack of third party browsers. If it were, then everyone would flock to it and write programs to sell. Why are we stuck with 1 working browser, the BB browser?

Do your own search and find all the complaints and problems listed about the javascript on the Storm. My point is don't advertise that you offer something when you really don't or when it only works about 50% of time, if that much.

Sorry, if I ruffled your feathers there...but the truth hurts sometimes. And if you work for BB, as it seems you might, tell them to get javascript to actually work and we will thank them for it