You can see in this thread that it crashed on him twice. But I'm sure he just shrugs it off as nothing to worry about.
PS3 firmware 2.80 avaiiable
- Thread starter patsu
- Start date
Well I was talking about the speed, not the crashes actually. 
You're right in that the experience still isn't flawless (mind you, my PC browsers crash too sometimes). However, some other experiences are outright better. The sixaxis zooming and scrolling for instance makes it a better experience than I've ever had with a PC hooked up to my (1366x768) LCD tv, and despite having a DiNovo Edge lying around for the typing, I never end up using it for the actual browsing. The from-boot-to-read beyond3d.com time is also way faster than even just opening my laptop and waiting for it to return from suspend mode (granted, this Dell D620 is starting to age).
That's not to say it's perfect - yes there are still the occasional embedded movies that won't load (our national tv channel website supports embedded windows media or realplayer only most of the time), and that's annoying. Also its portal for reading the TV guide is some complex Flash application combined with other stuff that has so far never worked and sometimes crashed the PS3 altogether (not lately though - I keep trying it as some kind of weird testing benchmark). When typing, I hate that the key combination for deleting everything you typed is shift-backspace, something which because I'm a fast typer I press far too often, which wouldn't be so bad but it doesn't appear to have an undo either. In 720p you can only type in the pop-up textbox whereas in 1080i/p you type in the regular textbox in the webpage like on PC, which is just weird, and finally when I type a longish post (like this one is becoming) I often hit the limit for the amount of characters I'm allowed to type in that box.
But I'm still very happy that it's there, and I like it a lot more than I thought I would when I first heard about it.
You're right in that the experience still isn't flawless (mind you, my PC browsers crash too sometimes). However, some other experiences are outright better. The sixaxis zooming and scrolling for instance makes it a better experience than I've ever had with a PC hooked up to my (1366x768) LCD tv, and despite having a DiNovo Edge lying around for the typing, I never end up using it for the actual browsing. The from-boot-to-read beyond3d.com time is also way faster than even just opening my laptop and waiting for it to return from suspend mode (granted, this Dell D620 is starting to age).
That's not to say it's perfect - yes there are still the occasional embedded movies that won't load (our national tv channel website supports embedded windows media or realplayer only most of the time), and that's annoying. Also its portal for reading the TV guide is some complex Flash application combined with other stuff that has so far never worked and sometimes crashed the PS3 altogether (not lately though - I keep trying it as some kind of weird testing benchmark). When typing, I hate that the key combination for deleting everything you typed is shift-backspace, something which because I'm a fast typer I press far too often, which wouldn't be so bad but it doesn't appear to have an undo either. In 720p you can only type in the pop-up textbox whereas in 1080i/p you type in the regular textbox in the webpage like on PC, which is just weird, and finally when I type a longish post (like this one is becoming) I often hit the limit for the amount of characters I'm allowed to type in that box.
But I'm still very happy that it's there, and I like it a lot more than I thought I would when I first heard about it.
It isn't surely flawless or close to internet explorer but crappy now
I mean I use that often because I have a terrible and older pc and after all I found it acceptable. The most important sites works without problems to me.
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I'm thinking the same thing. Went to WWDC and saw a demo of Safari 4. It's amazing what it could do (Speed, conformance to latest standards, 3D effects and interactivity). A friend told me it's resource hungry so probably not suitable for in-game use. However as a standalone app, I'd be willing to devote RAM space and development resources to optimize it for PS3.
I can see hulu.com optimize their site layout for small devices and TVs like YouTube in the near future. I like the YouTube TV interface. Big, simple and functional. In fact, Hulu and everyone else can just copy and extend the same UI and we'd have a consistent Internet TV experience.
EDIT:
Someone said turning off JavaScript will make the browser much more stable. He claimed that he hasn't encountered any crash yet.
And yes, the PS3 browser is very handy. I have used it even for work because my laptops were out of action. It's a little painful sometimes because of the limits you highlighted above, but it's functional and works well for the sites I tried.
That said, Sony should really invest enough resource to make the PS3 browser robust and conform to standards.
I can see hulu.com optimize their site layout for small devices and TVs like YouTube in the near future. I like the YouTube TV interface. Big, simple and functional. In fact, Hulu and everyone else can just copy and extend the same UI
and we'd have a consistent Internet TV experience.EDIT:
Well I was talking about the speed, not the crashes actually.
Someone said turning off JavaScript will make the browser much more stable. He claimed that he hasn't encountered any crash yet.
And yes, the PS3 browser is very handy. I have used it even for work because my laptops were out of action. It's a little painful sometimes because of the limits you highlighted above, but it's functional and works well for the sites I tried.
That said, Sony should really invest enough resource to make the PS3 browser robust and conform to standards.
Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
Maybe you're on to something. I upgraded my HDD as well (about a year ago).
EDIT: The Hulu ads stutter a bit on my laptop (Firefox) as well as my PS3. Anytime I pause Hulu on my dual core laptop, it stutters for the rest of that segment. I'm sure I can expect a similar result on my PS3.
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I can't imagine Webkit using more memory than the PS3 browser when it's tuned for that. Webkit is THE browser for embedded systems now...it's all over cell phones and even embedded into some TVs now.
It's a perfect fit for Sony. It's free, open source, actively maintained, and has many features tailored for embedded use (low resources, high performance) in addition to features centered around content scaling (which is inadequate for my use in the PS3 browser currently).
That's an impossibly tall order, especially for a company that's cash-strapped. Sony's still behind on many important features to implement, the developers should be focusing on that (cross-game voice, for instance). They don't have the time and money to be developing browsers, which are actually ridiculously complicated. There's engines out there to fit their needs perfectly.
Again, the management at Sony is dropping the ball here. Their solution not only is pretty shitty (I can't stand the PS3 browser for many reasons), it's far more expensive than the alternatives. They need to man up and use open source code where it makes sense.
I dont know if anyone has observed the same thing but I noticed that when I use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse for the web browser, it loads faster than when I use the controller.
For example with the controller I often feel that the web browser gets stuck for some seconds when I choose a link or try to scroll.
For example with the controller I often feel that the web browser gets stuck for some seconds when I choose a link or try to scroll.
Ah, the guy is on the iPhone dev team.
I guess it's relative. They must be aching for memory too.
If Sony can squeeze WebKit into PS3, then I'm all for it !
Yeah, I meant: Either way (WebKit or no WebKit), Sony needs to invest significant resources here. Porting WebKit may not be as cheap as we think. The WebKit source is rather clean but Sony needs to optimize it for Cell and PS3 memory hierarchy -- if they want to use it for in-game. Improve the web browser incrementally may be more palatable to their management (e.g., "Learning" parts from WebKit. Oh, I don't know
). The web browser will be important if they believe in their 10 year cycle.
It just does not compute to make your own web browser. Mozilla and Webkit all have huge teams working on it over many years.
Webkit was ported to the Palm Pre in a trivial amount of time. Given the CPU/memory differential between a cell phone and the PS3, I think it'd be a rather trivial task. Certainly far less effort than constantly updating and writing their own half-assed renderer.
Webkit was ported to the Palm Pre in a trivial amount of time. Given the CPU/memory differential between a cell phone and the PS3, I think it'd be a rather trivial task. Certainly far less effort than constantly updating and writing their own half-assed renderer.
deathindustrial
Regular
From a user point of view I totally agree but considering Sony's corporate culture / history presumably this is probably more about their control issues and piracy paranoia.
If the browser is based on (open or otherwise) source used across various architectures then they have to be more concerned about generic vulnerabilities instead of just those PS3 specific. Right now if you want to run a fuzzer against the PS3 browser you will have to go buy a PS3 which reduces the amount of folks actively attacking it quite a bit presumably.
I could also see folks trying to find ways via the browser codebase to get closer to the file system and such which would be one reason Sony might want to avoid something open source. Not a knock again FOSS, more that Sony's OS probably is not as robust on the security side of things as one might hope since it is currently very closed (IMHO).
Cheers
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Good point ! I sure hope they don't throw up their hands right away. Extracting specific parts from WebKit could be a good compromise.
Regarding Firmware 2.80, Sony has increased the XMB Chatroom message length to 64 (from 32). I can type all 64 characters on a 1080p HDTV. I couldn't figure out how to do it on my office monitor yet.
Regarding Firmware 2.80, Sony has increased the XMB Chatroom message length to 64 (from 32). I can type all 64 characters on a 1080p HDTV. I couldn't figure out how to do it on my office monitor yet.
Android, it runs on a 500 mhz cpu with 288MB and it´s very nice and it will support Flash this October. And i uses webkit
The PS3 browser is still a very nice tool, it´s just not build for any kind of usage like were used to. I used it at great lenght during Lemans to watch streams from the race. It did that job with great succes.
Also there are commercial partners for webkit if they want to, I heard these guys are good http://www.ekioh.com/ for the embedded space, ie STB etc. They got a webkit core for their browser I belive.
But I thought they already had a commercial partner for this one? It's the NetFront browser by Access Co, right? And it also has its origins in the embedded space, so you can all stop trying to pretend to be really smart now and think Sony is completely stupid.
And it also has its origins in the embedded space, so you can all stop trying to pretend to be really smart now and think Sony is completely stupid.
Hang on while i compare the browser in my PHONE to a 3.2 Ghz CELL powered PS3........
Phone wins, maybe sony isn´t stupid but whatever they chose, it´s getting beaten over the head by a stupid stick.
NetFront is, by far, the worst embedded browser.But I thought they already had a commercial partner for this one? It's the NetFront browser by Access Co, right? And it also has its origins in the embedded space, so you can all stop trying to pretend to be really smart now and think Sony is completely stupid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetFront
Same technology as on the Dreamcast and the god-awful Amazon Kindle browser.
Why it's ever chosen is beyond me.
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