Bolt Browser Beta3 Released - Adds Copy and Paste; Brings WebKit4 Rendering and More to your Browsing Experience

on 29 Jun 2009 08:01 AM

It's been a while since we have heard from the folks behind Bolt Browser, but that doesn't mean they have not been hard at work improving on their already stellar (and popular - they passed the 1 million phone installs milestone) third party BlackBerry web browser. In fact, they have just released a hot new upgraded version of Bolt which signifies their jump into Beta3 (version 1.04) which introduces a whole slew of incremental improvements.

First of all, they have added the ability to upload too YouTube and Photobucket for your media files. Secondly, the ability to organize your favorites and copy text has been integrated. And finally, all of Bolt's servers (which do up the rendering job) have been upgraded too WebKit4 which enhances the fonts within the browser and allows for inline text entry on webpage forms and also adds the capability to display Cyrillic fonts. This is a solid upgrade to what was already a great browser to begin with. You can read the full press release after the jump and be sure to check out the newest offerings and leave some comments if you give it a go. Current Bolt users can upgrade within the app (visit a webpage and you'll be prompted to download the new version) while existing users can download from boltbrowser.com.

Press Release

Lightning Strikes a Third Time As Bitstream Releases Faster, Better
BOLT Mobile Browser

Expanded language support, copy and pasting text and other new features make the Beta3 version of BOLT the market's fastest, most fully-featured browser for mobile phones of all types

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - June 29, 2009 - Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) today announced the availability of its much anticipated update to BOLTTM, the company's web browser for mobile phones of all types. Complementing improvements to existing features in the even faster Beta3 release of BOLT are the ability to copy and paste text from web pages, enhanced font rendering, inline entry of text into online forms and support for languages using Cyrillic alphabets.

Based on beta user input after more than one million installs of the BOLT mobile browser, Bitstream added new features that make BOLT the most fully-featured browser for the widest range of mobile phones.

BOLT's new features let users:

Copy and paste text
Enter and edit text directly within online text boxes
Upload files such as videos to YouTube or pictures to Photobucket
Order favorites and arrange them into custom folders
Toggle between viewing websites with or without images displayed

As part of its commitment to the BOLT user community, Bitstream has also created a forum at http://boltbrowser.com/forums/ where BOLT users can post questions and support issues in a public conversation. Bitstream's team of technologists will monitor these conversations, help users solve device-specific issues, offer tips and tricks for using BOLT and more easily learn what new features will keep BOLT the most powerful Internet experience on mobile phones.BOLT Beta3 also includes many enhancements based on feedback from beta users, including:

Rendering bold, italics, superscript and other rich text styles
Enhanced rendering of complex web pages
Faster page rendering
Servers upgraded to WebKit 4

Recognizing that some mobile phones currently in use cannot support robust applications and some network providers limit the size of application downloads, Bitstream has created a new light version of the BOLT mobile browser, BOLT lite. BOLT lite contains all the essential features of the BOLT mobile browser, retaining BOLT's feature-rich functionality, best-of-breed download speeds and desktop PC-style page layout. BOLT lite's 140kb package has been optimized for entry-level devices by eliminating BOLT's non-critical features such as orientation settings (landscape or portrait), inline videos, transport protocol settings, font installation, copy-paste operations, favorites organization, inline editing, find in page feature, inline videos, and 3XL magnification Both BOLT and BOLT lite include the additional language support in this release.

The new font support faithfully renders web pages using Cyrillic alphabets for languages such as Russian and Ukrainian, making BOLT usable for the more than 200 million mobile phone subscribers in Eastern Europe. With its heritage in software development and font technologies, Bitstream has built the BOLT mobile browser to scale text and images in six display sizes: small, medium, large, xl, xxl and 3xl. No other mobile browser for feature phones or BlackBerry smartphones can display or scale Cyrillic text with the range in size or crisp clarity of BOLT.

"Bitstream expects BOLT to become very popular in Eastern Europe where many countries have mobile penetration rates exceeding 100 percent," said Anna Chagnon, president and CEO of Bitstream. "We specifically engineered BOLT to make it easy for people to use their mobile phones for social networking, searching, communicating and watching videos. Our users have validated our design, making Google, Orkut, Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and YouTube the top sites viewed on BOLT. People in Russia who enjoy websites on their computers such as Yandex, V Kontakte, Mail.ru and YouTube.ru will love how they can use these websites on their mobile phones with BOLT."

BOLT features unrivaled speed - consistently at least 25 to 50 percent faster than competitors. The WebKit based BOLT browser offers ultra-fast viewing of streaming and flash video, high standards compliance, rich media, and graphics enabling people to view websites just as they do on a PC.

BOLT Usage:

People are enjoying the video streaming feature of the BOLT browser - the only mobile browser that lets people enjoy streaming videos on average mobile phones from such popular video services as YouTube, vids.myspace.com, video.yahoo.com, blip.tv, dailymotion.com, metacafe.com and more. Of the total bandwidth used by all BOLT users surfing the Internet, nearly one third was consumed by streaming video. To complement the new support for Cyrillic alphabets, BOLT now streams videos from the popular Russian video website, RuTube (http://rutube.ru/ ).

Built with proprietary compression, navigation and rendering technologies, BOLT enables users to find and read information quickly and easily. Once users have navigated to the specific section of the large web page they are viewing, they can then zoom in to display clear text and images that look crisp on even small mobile phone screens.

BOLT's feature set includes:

Fast, secure, desktop-style web browsing on both high-end and low-end handsets
Streaming video capabilities
Split screen and full screen modes for easy navigation and viewing
Easily add and select favorites and view browsing history
Intuitive keystroke shortcuts for easier navigation and content selection
Protection against spyware and malicious or faulty add-ons
23:1 compression uses less data than competing browsers

BOLT and BOLT lite are available for free to anyone as part of its public beta test. Visit http://boltbrowser.com to download BOLT today.

About BOLT:
The BOLT mobile browser, compatible with the majority of the world's 4 billion mobile phones, offers unrivaled speed and desktop-style web browsing including the ability to stream video. A patented split-screen viewing and intuitive keystroke shortcuts make navigating web pages simple. Download BOLT for free at http://boltbrowser.com - the mobile Internet has never looked this good on your phone.

About Bitstream:
Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) is a software development company focused on bringing unique software products to a wide variety of markets. The company's core software products include award-winning fonts and font rendering software, mobile browsing and variable data publishing and web-to-print software for personalized marketing. For more information about Bitstream please visit www.bitstream.com.

Filed Under: BlackBerry Apps;

70 Comments

Posted by gwtiff54 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Can't wait to get this on my Tour. Had it for the Storm. Liked it very much.

Posted by Jonezed7 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I was thinking the same thing.

Posted by Diam0ndBerry Wednesday, Jul 01, 2009 957 days ago

I dowloaded rebooted and I'm loving the new bolt although it was kinda cool being able to download vids to phone. Now its like having a real computer in my hands. NOW! To all u brats I swear ur so picky n I'm almost sure blind, if its soo small mag if its not acting right reboot and if ur not happy move on. I forget this is the forum for likes n dislikes but sometimes ppl just act so " silver spoon."

Posted by Venc Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Best news to wake up to :)

I like the new way to enter an URL

Posted by otterpop Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

It's a good upgrade, but I think the best news to wake up to would have been:
"Overnight, Verizon went ahead and rolled out their national LTE network. Since your current handset will not utilize the potential of the new network, and would only crawl along at evdo speeds, we are sending all customers a new Tour that works flawlessly and has wifi. They will be delivered to you by currier at work or home on your lunch break today... Also, we are lowering our rates 20%."

But still, browser update is good.

Posted by jfsalewicz Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Hopeful someday some one will figure out how to display Flash?

Posted by jasonlitka Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

You'll have to wait for SkyFire for Flash support.

Posted by CMEC Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

It doesn't work, I keep getting a Internet not availabe check network services error. Help!

Posted by pmich Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I get the same problem.. previous versions of Bolt were working fine..

Anything to do with being on a BES..anyone?

Posted by CMEC Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Uninstall the old version first and then install the new beta! Now it works!

Posted by pmich Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I just restarted my bb..and it works fine..

Posted by google123 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I just noticed this when I started checking the forums on my Flip. I started the Bolt Browser and it asked me if I wanted to download the new 1.04 version. I still wish I could download files directly from this browser like I can with Opera Mini. If I could just do that, then I would no longer need Opera Mini. This browser does a much much much much much better job of rendering "desktop-like" pages on my BB Flip than Opera mini. Please, Bolt people, add download capability to this browser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by maxer64 Thursday, Jul 23, 2009 934 days ago

I downloaded an mp3 in bolt last night.

Posted by billydf Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I love it but hard to read what can i do?

Posted by tellsells Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Open Bolt, Click Menu, Click preferences, Choose Magnification that works for you.

Posted by Leo.brazuca Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

is anyone using it on the storm?

Posted by jfsalewicz Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

yep and works like a charm!!!!

When our BES is down....it still works!!!

Posted by cexshun Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I'm still concerned with the fact that all of my traffic is being routed through BitStream servers.

Even going to SSL sites isn't safe as BitStream is in prime position for a MITM attack.

I wouldn't trust this browser with any web site I have to login to, or any web site that I wouldn't want my mother to know I frequent.

Posted by JORGEv2.0 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I just loaded this onto my Bold, super fast. I just hid the icon for my BB browser. This thing displays the windows perfectly and w/WiFi it's incredibly fast. Thanks for the info Kevin!

Posted by robrowald Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I'm using it on a Storm and my review is short and sweet: Meh.
it's ok but nothing to rouse your mates and wake the neighbors about.

Posted by wcmarchese Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

This is amazing. There are too many changes to go through right now--working and all--but one of the largest IMO, is being able to input in-browser.

Also, being able to watch youtube in-browser.

This is definetally a step in the right direction.

Excellent stuff.

WCM

Posted by Rev0lver Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I frequent a few sites I need to login to view...my biggest gripe would be that Bolt doesn't cache [think i'm using that correctly] which sites I'm logged into, and it's a bit of a pain to have to log in ever single time I open Bolt. The BB browser, at least, is capable of this...

Posted by lowfire Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I would think that would be the browser not saving cookies

Posted by grape8pe Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I just loaded Bolt for the first time, WOW! I've been waiting for a browser like this. I have only been to about 6 different sites, but it seems to work great. I love being able to see webpages the way they appear on my desktop. Feels more like the Safari browser on the iPhone.

Brice

Posted by tfrankson Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Good stuff

Posted by brucegolfnut Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Have preior version working well on Bold9K and leaked 5.0.0.100. Anyone tried this version yet?

Posted by Nyce-Daytona Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

i DOWNLOADED THIS AND DELETED 5 MINS LATER...LOL. DEFINITELY NOT WORTH HAVING FOR ME. I ACTUAL PREFER THE DEFAULT BB BROWSER.

Posted by ksc6000 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

what phone do you have? Try Opera Mini...that is in my opinion still the best. BB browser is great compared to what it used to be, but Opera blows it away in every respect.

Posted by vacfuzzy Tuesday, Jun 30, 2009 957 days ago

I have a storm & when I downloaded Opera Mini,it wouldn't work properly,taking forever to open pages. Do i have to uninstall my current browser,which is BB default?

Posted by ksc6000 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I know this will make me sound like an old fart, but even at 3X magnification it's not large enough for me to read most websites without straining my eyes. I wish there was some way to make it bigger yet.
I like Opera's zoom feature which makes the font rather large.

And to Nyce-Daytona, what phone do you have? Try Opera Mini...that is in my opinion still the best. BB browser is great compared to what it used to be, but Opera blows it away in every respect.

Posted by ilabelu Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

i tried bolt again, for the 3rd time. lightning does not strike three times here. it is still not as fast as native BB browser (as bad as it can be) or Opera Mini. it has a long way to go to be competitive, IMO.

Posted by tallen269 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Everytime I have loaded this browser, I can not get the menu to work, I press the menu button on my curve and it will flicker and dissapear. Anyone else have this problem?

TIA

Posted by crysis63 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

good stuff but i neeed skyfire

Posted by FobBerry Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Any idea how I can download the latest version of Bolt, had it before it didn't work? I have an 8900? Thanks!

Posted by crysis63 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

what kind of phone are you using? its the fastest browser i have ever used.

Posted by GulfcoastGuy Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I downloaded Bolt and almost immediately deleted it. Either its my phone or the edition but it is way too small, can barely even read it. I am using a 8330 Curve. Am I doing something wrong to have show so small?

Posted by r3g Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Have you tried magnifying the font? That can be done through the menu options.

Posted by taxableman Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Just loaded on my Storm running .148. When I attempt to play a youtube video in the browser, I receive a message saying that Bolt is transcoding the video, and that I should choose "launch" from the menu to launch the video in the media player. When I select "launch" from the menu, nothing happens. So, no in-browser youtube video playback (which was the whole reason I installed Bolt), and no fallback via media player. Too bad.

Posted by 1jaxstate1 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Same thing happened to me. The Skyfire team need to hurry up and open the beta testing.

Posted by Rello Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

They advertise this feature and yet it doesn't work. which is one of the reasons why i downloaded it. I'll keep it because i do like the way it renders pages but once skyfire goes into beta...this is coming right off my 8900 lol

Posted by crackavelli Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I had the same problem with the flickering menu bar. You need to change your theme. Try your original theme. I'm running the bounce javelin theme and it wouldn't work. I changed back to my Sprint theme and it worked just fine. I think your theme might have transparent attributes. Try it and see if it works. If not go to the bolt website and search their forum. btw I have an 8330

Posted by egeorgia Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

The keyboard will not pop up when you need to enter text on the Storm. Any ideas?

Posted by crackavelli Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I like this app and I'm am proud that the creators are right here at home in Taxachusetts. I want more info on this Skyfire I keep hearing about.

Posted by claudia181 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

what is that for and how to use it anybody know?
Also how does the copy and paste thing work I tried but cant seem to get it right.

Posted by mibmobile Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

1st. I love the page rendering quality. Best I've seen.
But I do have 3 things that still makes me go to OperaMini.
1. To slow.
2. No column view
3. Tried to re-arrange favorites and did not work for me.

Posted by RaniRiley Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Greetings to you all,

I just downloaded this and tried it on my Storm. OMG, it really made me mad.
Suretype did not work, and thus took me back to a time where by I had to press a key twice to get the letter I wanted, what a pain.
The screen could not zoom with a double tap, yes it was too small and thus what a mission it was to get the cursor in the right place. I tested it by trying to log into facebook (yes I do have the facebook app, but I wanted to compare speeds on something I know). See trying to put the x into the remember me box, Holly smoke, if it was a game it would have been a good challenge, but with a simple sign in, it was a nightmare.

Granted, the guys that developed this software are a lot smarter than me, and NO I could not do better myself, but hey, if you gonna give me an alternative, at least make it better than what I already have. Oh and yes it could be that I am missing something, but I checked through all the options and preferences, and I could not find a way to change the settings. Correct me if I am wrong, I promise I will not take offence.

My conclusion, go ahead and try it, if you last beyond 10 minuets, then you are better at this than me, and I have a lot to learn.

Kind regards sent

Posted by 1jaxstate1 Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

Yeah, it doesn't work. ok yes it do

Posted by egeorgia Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

I read in the forums that there is a problem with the keyboard not coming up on the Storm. You just go in an d change a setting to type in the old way. This will work for now.
On another note: Skyfire is on Windows Mobile Phones. I had it on my Treo and could watch all kinds of video, from Fancast, Hulu, whatever streamed video. Plus it was fast!

Posted by kneeman Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

but half the people that have Blackberries are too stupid to figure out how to use them.

Posted by RaniRiley Monday, Jun 29, 2009 958 days ago

You may have a point, but I would like to think that it could be that they are too clever to waste time on apps that do not perform better than those that come pre-installed. I will leave the choice of name calling up to you,

Bolt Browser Beta3 Released - Adds Copy and Paste; Brings WebKit4 Rendering and More to your Browsing Experience

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