Skyfire joins ‘real Web’ playground with proxy browser

Skyfire is the latest player looking to bring the “real Web” to mobile phones.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup came out of stealth mode this week with its flagship offering, a free, downloadable Web browser for Windows Mobile-enabled handsets.
Users can register for a beta version of the application here; the browser is expected to be available in coming weeks.
The browser is designed to handle advanced Web technologies such as Flash, Ajax and Java that often overwhelm mobile phones.
“For too long consumers have been promised the ‘real Web’ on their phones, only to be disappointed by slow rendering, error messages, no Flash support, watered-down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite sites,” said CEO Nitin Bhandari.
A proxy browser, Skyfire delivers Internet content that has been formatted for mobile through the company’s servers. Other proxy servers include Opera Mini and Novarra; Google and Skweezer use adaptation (or transcoding) proxies.