So long Microsoft and thanks for all the Deepfish
Long before the iPhone and it’s mobile Safari browser a little company in Microsoft had a full-featured mobile web browser called Deepfish. This project by Microsoft Labs promised an early preview of a browser that could bring the "real Internet" to a Windows Mobile phone near you. I first mentioned it a year and a half ago and I remember how excited I got when I first tried it out. The ability to look at full web pages in miniature and instantly zoom in to the portion that I wanted to see in detail reminds me of, well, that fruit phone. I knew that Deepfish was a very promising technology when I visited Dwight Silverman at the Houston Chronicle offices back then and showed him Deepfish. I still remember his first reaction- "Wow!". Even with all that promise Deepfish was soon forgotten as nothing further was heard from Microsoft Labs about it. No new versions, nothing.
According to My Today Screen today the silence ended but not how we wanted it to. Microsoft Labs has pulled the plug on Deepfish and is sending it twirling down the drain.
When Live Labs began working on Deepfish, we set out to proveour theory that there was an unmet demand for a better mobile browsingexperience than what was available at the time we started the projectin 2006. It wasn’t our intent to create a full browser for the preview,but rather simply demonstrate that a novel and simple new userexperience was the best way to achieve that. The positive reception andincredible demand for the Deepfish technical preview went a long waytowards proving that. And now, thanks in part to Deepfish, many betteralternatives are emerging.
Mobile browsing is now advancing to the point where mobiledevices rival the desktop—which is what we wanted to see. Userexperience advances such as usable touch and intuitive zoominginterfaces weren’t widely available at the time. Deepfish helped drivethat innovation. And now that the marketplace has caught up to where wethought it needed to go and continues to advance.
For our dedicated users still using the technical preview tothis day, we are sorry to announce we will be retiring the proxyservice on September 31, 2008. The Deepfish client will no longer function after that date as a result.
Take a look at this video from way back when and see what never bore fruit.:
http://www.youtube.com/v/_DnqSYMJisU&hl=en&fs=1
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What a lucky break for you! I guess this means that the proxy service will never be retired – since there will never be a September 31, 2008. Nor will there be a September 31, 2009 for that matter.
You can rest easy, in typical Microsoft fashion, you must have received the beta-release for the demise of Deepfish. The real release should be coming any day now – just not September 31!
Wow I waited a long time to at least try this browser and now it’s defunct. At least I’ve got safari mobile on my touch. In fact, I am posting this right now from it.
It’s so very nice.
This is yet another example of MS dropping the ball. Apple will eat them alive.
dropping the ball? I’m GLAD they killed the project, proxy browsing services (which is what DeepFish is) suck. Yes they offload all the processing power and rendering to thee server, thus allowing nearly any device to view a big long page but would a proxy service ever be able to handle a full load of telco subscribers using it?
I guess we’ll never know. Unless someone has stats of Opera Mini (not mobile) usage.
Then there’s the usual privacy issue of these proxy services.
These elements are most likely being shut down due to the coming of Pocket Internet Explorer 6.1
At the very least Microsoft labs can say they pioneered the technology and idea that opera, and skyfire use now.
Personally I have found Opera Mini to be best for general browsing, PIE for downloading files, and Skyfire for more intensive websites when I just have to get there and Opera will not let me.