Notices

Personally I hate with a burning fury any and all browsers that don't allow you to see the Maemo 5 status bar - all of the info in the status area I have is info that I would like to have access to at any time, without having to exit my current window (and, thanks to the dumb UI decision to make the status area invisible when on the task switcher and menu screens, it can take even more time than the time to exit and re-enter window).

That said, the way things are looking Fennec is probably the way to go - this isn't bad right now, but Fennec is most likely going to be progressing thanks to Mozilla for a while, it would just take extra community members to make the phone.

But I hate how Fennec's only options for cookies are allow/deny, unless you go digging in about:config, and how the web page name and webpage url are in the same bar, so the web page name takes over the url when page has loaded, and even how the loading indicator is the spinning icon, rather than MicroB's little bar that at least vaguelly indicates loading progress by moving across the url bar.

So I would rather see a browser with a UI at least basically like MicroB, but with better control over basic privacy/security stuff, just using an up-to-date engine - and I personally couldn't care less where it comes from - though I think I had some reason to have something against webkit, I just can't remember why off the top of my head, so I think I prefer Mozilla's engine (unless that's webkit based in which case I mean specifically the desktop one [unless that's webkit based too in which case my world will crumble as soon as I find out]). On the subject of things I hate, I hate that I can't say "accept 1st party session cookies, prompt for all else", and that microB will prompt you over and over and over again for a cookie you just rejected unless you say 'reject all from server' or whatever - but maybe I want to just reject all non-session cookies from server, or I want to reject all instances of /that/ cookie, but not reject or still be prompted for other cookies from the same server.

Oh, right, this is about Helium - I couldn't even figure out how to get to the settings during my brief test on it, and it froze when trying to load the desktop version of GMail. So unless someone fixes that, I won't be using it much myself. But I admire whoever got this into the repos because more browser options is a good thing, and the best and most maintainable browser will ultimately win out, or at least so I would hope.

Hi,

I have few questions regarding implementation of Bookmarks and History in this browser. Please let me know whom can i contact for those?

wow a great work we have but i think if some effort are needed here to put it into stable form because i have seen it hangs up when browsing some sites, plus full screen is very important i would like to see it may be in comming updates if any,

Helium is also the default browser of Nemo Mobile, haven't they been improving on it already?
The description in Extras actually says it's for Meego - is that a mistake, or is it being adapted for Meego to?

Well I don't have that much of a white-hot hatred for that, but I do find it annoying and it's a problem with all the apps created for Meego's Swipe UI, or for both Maemo and Meego, like e.g. Fmobi. They should all be adapted to have our button to show status area.
If nobody actually is working on Helium anymore, I agree that this thread shuouldn't have the Announce title, that's usually used for new stuff - it does raise attention though, whcih would be a prerequisite for getting Helium back up...?

Helium was originally developed by Orange Mobile Labs for N900 as research project, so the original developers have not been really maintaining it anymore.

Initially in Nemo Mobile we did few patches to first get it running well and we got those also to upstream last summer. Later we did a fork to change the architecture to use Qt Components and now Nemo's fork of the Helium is called Helium Reborn. Helium Reborn can be also run on N9.

I haven't tried, but if the Qt components are now available for Fremantle, then running also Helium Reborn on N900 might be possible.

BR,
Vesku

in that case can you please share links for HELIUM REBORN to download and test......on n900

I did not mean that it exists now for N900. I meant that it if somebody is interested in trying to port it to N900/Fremantle it would probably only require a little bit of work. Probably just recompile and packaging would be enough.

Sources are at:
github.com/nemomobile/heliumreborn

IMO this is the way forward for N900 browsing.

Is it complicated to package it?
I've tried compiling from source - not successfully, but I think I might have gotten the hang of it, if all the dependencies are fulfilled.
About the packaging, I'm completley clueless though.
Anyway I'm sure it would be worth it: the current version of Helium seems at least as fast as Opera, if not faster!

Has anyone gotten round to recompiling/packaging Helium Reborn for Maemo5 yet?