BlackBerry Browser Improves with OS 5.0 Both in Speed and in the Acid3 Test

Research in Motion (RIM) has recently updated their smartphone operating system to version 5.0 for all their new BlackBerries, and will be rolling out upgrades to most of their older BlackBerries still in production. This new operating system is already present on the recently released Storm2 and has also been made available to those running the original Storm BlackBerry.

The new operating system adds improved visuals, better speed and memory management, more useful text prediction, as well as expanded API's for application developers. Improvements were also made to the built in BlackBerry Browser which is now visibly faster, and supporting a greater number of standards and formats.

This is in part reflected by the much improved score that the BlackBerry Browser earns on the Acid3 test. The Acid3 test is a standards compatibility test that is aimed at making sure that web browsers support the W3C's recommended standards for web compatibility. As mobile browsers continue to improve, it is important that they can also support the full range of web standards.

BlackBerry's Browser is continuing to do that. When the Storm originally launched back in 2008, the Browser scored only 54 out of 100. While this is still better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer does, it was not up to the same level of support of Browsers like Firefox and Google's Chrome. Now however it scores a full 91 points on the test, just 2 points shy of what Firefox scores on the test, and a full 22 points ahead of Opera Mini.

With an agreement with Adobe to work on flash integration, and the recent acquisition of mobile browser company Torch Mobile, the BlackBerry Browser should continue to improve.

The author of this article is a developer of BlackBerry software. Most of which is avalible through BlackBerry AppWorld.