Skyfire hops into the UK, onto VGA phones

Skyfire's latest update to its mobile browser, version .85, brings forward a flurry of minor features and functionality, including support for new phones and the official release of its beta to the UK.

The prior restriction to North American phone numbers may not have stopped industrious users overseas, however. When Skyfire announced the proxy browser's availability on Symbian and Windows Mobile phones in Canada, a CNET reader going by 'Oatcake 1' admitted to using it on a UK network since late October.

To sweeten the deal for British residents, and, well, everyone else, Skyfire has also done away with mandatory registration, a secondary sign that Skyfire is scaling its server-delivered browser business (expansion to the UK is the first). You'll still want to create a Skyfire account to save your bookmarks and history, an important feature for gadget-lovers who often exchange phone models.

Skyfire no doubt timed the announcement of its UK beta program with a more powerful app that brings the full feature set to phones most popular in the British Isles. These include the ability to SMS Web content to a friend, and the 'Super Bar,' which, similar to Firefox's 'Awesome Bar' and Opera's URL field, combines the address bar and history into one. Note that for now they're targeted for Nokia N and E series phones running on Symbian's S60 (3rd edition) platform.

The last tidbit in Skyfire's announcement is new support for additional phones, including those with VGA resolutions and the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. Palm 800W, HTC Touch Diamond, Nokia N96 and Nokia N79 are four Skyfire-verified handsets.

To download the free mobile browser, point your mobile browser to http://get.skyfire.com.

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