The Skyfire mobile web browser is designed to let you view Adobe Flash and other web content on mobile devices — even devices that don’t support Flash Player like the iPhone. It does this by processing videos and other web content using remote servers and sending along compressed data to your mobile device in a format it can handle.
Skyfire is already available for Windows Mobile and Google Android, and nearly two months ago the developers submitted a version of the app to the iTunes App Store for approval. It’s still waiting for approval, but the folks at MobileCrunch and CNET got a chance to check out a prerelease version of the browser.
Like Skyfire for other platforms, it appears the iPhone version can certainly handle some Flash content, but not all. Hulu has outright blocked the browser, and many sites with preroll ads and other funky elements in their Flash videos can cause problems. MobileCrunch also reports that the video playback is a bit iffy, with some videos simply not playing properly, but at least the video quality was pretty decent.
Unfortunately Skyfire doesn’t offer a full Flash experience — there’s only support for video, not Flash-based games and web sites.
While Flash support is the defining feature of Skyfire, the browser also has a few other attractive elements, including an attractive tab-switching utility that lets you see a list of open web pages without minimizing the one you’re currently looking at.
You can find more details at CNET and MobileCrunch.
Stay well clear of this spyware crap.