Tech Primer

Microbrowsers

What is a microbrowser?

Microbrowsers are also known as mini browsers or mobile browsers. These are designed for handheld devices like mobile phones and PDAs to display Internet content effectively on the small screen of a portable device. A microbrowser works well on VGA devices. Some options in these browsers that improve display quality are image scaling (allows more of total page to fit in the viewing window), customisable dithering (turns on or off to produce the best results) and interface customisation (turns off any element of the browser window such as scroll bars to increase viewing area.)

What’s the technology used in a microbrowser?

Microbrowsers let you view Wireless Markup Language (WML) content. Content formatted in XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language), WAP 2 and WML (WAP 1.3) can be viewed. Through a microbrowser users gain access to e-mail, a calendar, and information about travel, entertainment, sports, horoscopes and the weather. Full-featured microbrowsers are available; these are Web browsers that are capable of HTML, WML, i-mode, HTML, CHTML (Compact HTML) and plug-ins such as Macromedia Flash. The browsers are based on PEG i.e. Portable Embedded GUI. PEG provides display management, graphics and font compression, dynamic image conversion and various other functions.

Where are microbrowsers used?

Microbrowsers are used in mobile phones, home phones, as well as in many other devices. Home phone users get e-mail and Internet information at home without the need for a computer system. The home phone has a large screen in this case.

Which are the popular microbrowsers?

Access Compact Net Front Microbrowsers are popular in Japan. These follow CHTML standards. Nokia 40 and 60 series browsers, Opera by Opera Software, Pocket Internet Explorer by Microsoft, and the Openwave System (commonly known as Phone.com) are also popular. Users can also install browsers like Andromeda, Pixo by Sun Microsystems, etc.

How do microbrowsers differ from desktop browsers?

A desktop browser cannot be displayed effectively on the small screen of a mobile phone, PDA or smartphone. Desktop browsers render HTML tags, whereas microbrowsers support WML.

What are the limitations of microbrowsers?

They do not support a range of font styles, sizes or colours, and are restricted to the device display size, data input feature, download time and navigation. These browsers are small in file size, they do not support all content types, have limited bandwidth, and at times cell phones and PDAs may not be connected. Microbrowsers have managed to support JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, cookies and Unicode.

Which mobiles feature microbrowsers?

Various mobile phones have microbrowsers in them. These include the Sony Ericsson P10i, Motorola A388, V60i, Samsung A650, P735 and many models in the Nokia 40 and 60 series.

—Garima Grover

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