Dorothy – New Webkit Based Browser Released

Webkit is the engine that powers both the iPhone’s Safari browser and the Windows based Iris browser. It’s now also behind the newly released Dorothy web browser. I very briefly tested it out 9I wanted to let you guys know about it asap) and it generally renders pages the same way that Iris does but it’s still early so it’s not quite as polished yet. For example, zooming requires tapping the zoom icon in the lower right corner instead of a double tap. There were some rendering glitches or slow downs though (images from the previous page remained when a new page was loaded as shown below) and it does not render pages as quickly as Iris does (and has a few speed bumps along the way). Panning of the screen worked well – it was a 1:1 ratio so your exact movements were followed (so it doesn’t float if you swipe it fast). If you notice that the site is not full screen and leaves just a little on the right side that’s because it’s really intended for WVGA devices where it does not have that issue. I’ve tested this on a Fuze running 6.5 and a Touch HD running 6.1 and they had the same experiences. Ultimately, competition is good so it’s good to see another browser based off of what we know is a good engine. If you’re up for some beta testing head on over to their website and sign up for the beta.