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Microsoft Live Labs Deepfish

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Deepfish
Developer(s)Microsoft
Final release
Beta / September 30, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-09-30)
Preview release
Beta / March 29, 2007; 17 years ago (2007-03-29)
Operating systemWindows Mobile
TypeMobile browser

Deepfish was an experimental browsing software system for Windows Mobile devices that used a zooming user interface, being developed at Microsoft Live Labs. It aimed to provide a consistent browsing experience on desktops and mobile devices, to display content on the small mobile displays in the same layout as larger displays, and to avoid the need to recode the web-page for small displays.[1]

When a page was opened, it appeared zoomed-out and shrunk, and formatted as would be in a desktop browser. The user could zoom into the certain areas of the page by using a selection rectangle, and pan the zoomed-in page.

Deepfish consisted of a light-weight browser client powered by a server backend which does most of the processing. The server streams only the data that is visible at any moment, which improves load times and responsiveness. Despite the increased speed in Deepfish, it's quite bandwidth heavy and can render pages slowly if it were launched on a device with lower specifications. Whenever a user would zoom in, the zoomed-in high quality has to be downloaded from the server.[2]

The browser was available for preview until a limited number of reviewers had participated.

Deepfish was retired on 30 September 2008 while important features including JavaScript, AJAX, cookies, ActiveX controls and HTTP POST were not implemented.[3][4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Pearce, James Quintana (29 March 2007). "Microsoft Releases Deepfish Browser For Windows Mobile". Gigaom.
  2. ^ Chen, Jason (4 April 2007). "Hands-On Video With Microsoft's Deepfish Windows Mobile Browser". Gizmodo.
  3. ^ "Deepfish: Hello, I Must Be Going". Microsoft Live Labs blog. 18 August 2008. Archived from the original on 7 July 2009.
  4. ^ Miller, Matthew (26 September 2008). "Microsoft deep sixes Deepfish mobile browser. I just wrote about web browser alternatives for Windows Mobile devices and then I read over at Pocket PC Thoughts that the Microsoft Deepfish web browser preview project has been cancelled. You can read all about it on the Deepfish website. If you are using it on your device now be aware that the service will be discontinued on September 31, 2008. (Wait a second Microsoft, there are only 30 days in September so are you saying that Deepfish will never be discontinued now?)". ZDNet.
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