New TeaShark Mobile Browser Aims For Opera's Success

TeaShark is a mobile browser that works on any handset with Java MIDP 2.0, and it was first released in the fall of 2007. Now the browser comes with several enhancements and, according to its producers, it has more features than any other mobile browser out there.

Besides having extra features, TeaShark is also free (unlike Opera Mobile), which is obviously a good thing. Plus, the advantages that TeaShark presumably offers include the fact that it's very small (120 kB) and fast at the same time. Moreover, all the Web activities made via TeaShark go through a server based on WebKit3, the engine that Apple also uses for its Safari 3 desktop browser included in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard - another reason to look at the new mobile browser with plenty of consideration.

TeaShark also features tabbed browsing and page thumbnails for a friendlier Web experience, two levels of in-page zoom, bookmarks, page history, page editing and so on.

The browsing speed achieved with TeaShark will finally depend upon your phone's capabilities as well as on the network it runs on, but you can still make an idea about its performances if you try it. The browser can be downloaded from its official website, found at this address. One more thing that you should know before getting it: TeaShark is only in the beta version, therefore it was not fully tested and the final edition will most probably bring even more features.

As for the weird name of the browser, we don't have any clue why the producers picked it. While "shark" probably wants to stand for agility, speed and all the related stuff, "tea" can only make us think about a lazy afternoon. Anyway, it's still a good thing the browser was not named, for example, SharkTea, as any tea made of shark(s) can only bring undesirable emotions.

Back to being serious, only time will tell if the new TeaShark can indeed compete with Opera's mobile products. What's cool in the end is that we now have more choices for surfing the Web while on the go.