Skyfire Hits Public BetaSkyfire Hits Public Beta

If you've yet to download the Skyfire browser for your Windows Mobile device, you'll be happy to know it has hit public beta today. I've spent some time with the new version today, and despite some minor faults, it rocks.As good as the iPhone's Safari browser is, it's still a shame that it can't use Flash. Skyfire had previously been in private beta, and the main draw is that it can fully display pages that use Flash, Ajax, and Java. This works because the start-up renders the pages on its servers, and then sends the content in a digestible manner to your mobile phone browser.

The first versions were neat, but more of a demonstration that the technology works than a useful browser. But with this 0.8 version, streaming video off your favorite Web site is fast and clean. Sure, many will point to YouTube as a selling point (and it worked well for me), but plenty of smartphones have dedicated apps that make watching cats on a treadmill very simple.

For me, the big draw is Hulu.com, and I was able to clearly watch most of The Colbert Report on a Palm Treo Pro. There were a few hiccups and brief audio syncing issues, but I watched about 10 minutes clearly over 3G. Any browser that can give me a good mobile Hulu experience will automatically become my default browser.

Some other added goodness includes the ability download images and PDFS, send pages via SMS, and more. I would have liked to have seen a stop button, as well as cut-and-paste functionality, but I'm willing to forgive it for the high-quality video streaming.

There's also a 0.6 version for Symbian devices, but executives said the 0.8 version will come soon. Check out the company's Web site for more info and download instructions.