If you have a mobile deice running Windows Mobile 5 or 6 then you might want to take a look at this new browser. Iris from Torch Mobile is currently in Beta (still ironing out the bugs) but provides a better web surfing experience than Windows Mobile Internet Explorer.

I installed Iris on my Windows Mobile PDA (HP iPaq Rx4240) direct from the Torch Mobile website. It comes as a CAB file so you wont need a PC to transfer the file across for installation.

The browsing experience was impressive. My PDA has a touch sensitive screen and I use a stylus to control actions. Once I got a website on the screen, I noticed a lack of scroll bars. To move around the page I held down the stylus and dragged it around. Double taps zooms in and out of the page however you can select zoom level from the 'page' menu. The zoom function is animated so instead of jumping to a bigger or smaller view, it grows or shrinks. A very nice touch indeed.

The loading time of web pages is fast and the animation and scrolling is smooth which I find amazing considering underlying processing power of my Hp iPaq.

Another benefit is that Javascript is built in. This means that at last I can now access my Google Adsense account in full. The supplied Internet Explorer mobile does not.

The history function from the 'navigate menu' displays stacked pages (similar to how Vista displays running programs) of websites you visited in the past. Again a nice touch.

The browser is in beta so there are bugs and strange happenings, though I have not encounted any so far.

If you have a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device (phone or PDA) with touch screen then you will proberly get the most out of it.