Meh. Wake me up when it supports granular content-filtering akin to using Adblock and Noscript, or even minimally like copying urlfilter.ini over to your phone using Opera Mobile. The internet is basically unusable without such things as it is, and I can't imagine how then proceeding to try to view it at QVGA resolution would prove rewarding.

So- they've broadened it beyond the US- but us poor cousins in Ireland etc are still out of reach?

The main problem with Skyfire now is the zoom feature. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's not available. Often it will not zoom far enough for my tiny WM screen. This seems like a really odd problem as there's no obvious technical reason for it. It appears to depend on the original web page. If it's in a reasonable font it may be readable. If not quite readable there's a good chance you can zoom it and be fine. But if it's one of these near sighted, allergic to scrolling, long winded types (you know who you are) who believe 6pt font is fine b/c everyone has 24" monitors anyway.... In these situations skyfire fails rather miserably. While Opera 9.5 will zoom it in until it's readable.

I like the idea of Skyfire. I doubt mobile processing power will ever catch up with the ever bloatier (it's an industry term) web 2.0 world; although Opera has come a VERY long way.

Skyfire really needs to fix up their browsing. It isn't useful to render it if I need a magnifying glass to prove that. I actually quit using it for this reason. I got tired of having to cut URLs and bring them up in Opera so I could read them.

Just tried it on an Athena. OK, so the screen is too big, so the browser looks decidedly low-res, but I can live with that. However, it's not an impressive experience by any means. The version of Opera I've got on the Athena renders pages itself. This - from the looks of it - has the page compressed into an image and sent to you, so pages appear faster, but you then can't use them. Why? The compression level is hideous, and I can't read text without zooming in.

I tried watching a YouTube video through it. The Flash appeared on the page, but the framerate was appalling, and there was no sound. All I heard was the speakers clicking.

And the amount of data transfer that this method must use is beyond belief. Sorry, but it's too clunky, too ugly and too data hungry. If I want to watch a YouTube video, I'll just use the 10 other methods available.

Works perfectly on my N95. Pages load fast, plays youtube with no problem.

I'm actually pretty impressed.

BBC iPlayer works although the parental guidance pop up on some stuff renders behind things meaning you can't OK it and the video lags noticably.

What so special about this browser that the default ones don't cover?

I've had no problems so far with browsing the net on my N95 (other than one site that moans when it could not detect me as IE or FireFox and stopped me going further).

Hmm, looks like S60 support also has resolution limits, going by the lack of N80 support (one of the rare devices with higher resolution than normal, though a tiny screen).

As for certs. Might be the relevant root cert is missing (typical if it's a GoDaddy cert). If the root cert is not part of the default pack with the phone, they can be a nightmare to get installed. Just trying to download the relevant cert is often not enough unless the hosting server has set the mime type for the cert correctly (has to be application/x-x509-ca-cert). In the case of GoDaddy the root cert also needs to be converted to the right format (DER). Even just copying the cert via PC Suite doesn't aid getting them installed I found.

Could be newer phones may have the relevant certs though.

Finally, this is concerning...

"Skyfire will run on Wi-Fi, however a data plan is recommended."

Hmm, why would I want to pay for a data plan and use 2G/3G speeds when I can use faster Wi-Fi on a free access point?

...but untll I can find a way of flipping the screen to landscape I'll not be abandoning Opera

....however!

"Skyfire will not run on WVGA Windows Mobile phones" doh!! wont work on my HTC touch HD yet :(