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MicroB

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MicroB
Developer(s)Nokia's maemo project
Stable release
Operating systemInternet Tablet OS
TypeMobile browser
LicenseProprietary EULA
Engine under MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license
Websitehttp://browser.garage.maemo.org/

MicroB is the unofficial name for Nokia's "Mozilla based browser for maemo", a mobile browser that is shipped with their N800 and N810 Internet Tablets, and available for the 770 through both the Internet Tablet OS 2007 and 2008 Hacker Editions. In place of Mozilla's XUL-based user interface, MicroB uses the maemo-native (GTK-based) Hildon API and widgets.

History

MicroB was initially released as a public beta for Internet Tablet OS 2007 on July 17 2007 to allow 3rd party developers and community members to developer and port plugins, and help shape the development of the browser.[1] It was updated several times before it replaced Opera as Internet Tablet OS's default browser with the release of Internet Tablet OS 2008 on November 18 2007 with the N810.[2]

Architecture

MicroB is Mozilla-based and uses the Gecko engine, but a number of features are omitted due to platform-specific limitations. In particular, SVG support is disabled due to unacceptable performance, and XUL is not included to reduce size and decrease memory consumption.[3] As XUL is not included, most Firefox plugins require porting and repackaging before they can be used with MicroB. In place of XUL, MicroB uses GTK and the Hildon UI toolkit to provide a native interface.[4]

Plugins

As mentioned above, MicroB cannot use extensions made for Firefox and Plugins require porting for the MicroB web browser and for the ARMEL architecture.

Notable plugins & extensions are:

Adobe Flash 9 (bundled with OS2008) Windows Media Player Stream and Real Player stream supports via the standard Media Player (bundled with OS2008) Google Gears Greasemonkey - All scripts that work on an desktop version of Firefox work fine in MicroB, extending the capabilities of the browser and even replacing the need for some extensions which are not available for MicroB Adblock Plus Mplayer plugin - Lets you watch Windows Media Player, DivX, Quicktime and Realplayer streams in the browser via mplayer. Flashblock

See also

Notes

References