A few days ago we wrote about the pending release of the Nintendo Opera Wii Browser, and now I am happy to say it has hit the download store. We downloaded the free trial to see what it was like, here is the all important information that you need to know about the Browser.
It has Flash 7, however the new version of flash is flash 8, so some games and websites will not work, granted it is a very very small percent of flash files that will not work but this is still a problem. It is currently unknown if Nintendo are expected to upgrade the flash version as time goes on, however you can expect them not to for issues related to hacking the Wii. Sites such as IGN will not work fully due to being made in Flash 8.
We tested Youtube.com, to give Opera a go and we can report that it worked very well. It is very handy to be able to zoom in onto the video only, granted you will have to deal with poor quality. Other flash video sites also worked well, including Dailymotion.com which is a popular site for Simpson’s clips.
Google Maps worked great, and it is rather fun using the Wiimote to move around within the map, infact it makes us feel like we are some spy, all we need know is a 70inch plasma screen TV!
It is not all good news however, javascript did not work (however we expected that) and some Ajax sites crashed the browser. It still needs to be more stable before anyone uses it as a full web surfing device, however expect to see more and more sites popping up made just for the Wii using the Wiimote!
Actually, the latest version of Flash is 9. Adobe is just so ¤%#¤% slow when porting it, so other (non-Windows) platforms have to settle with 7 for now.
“javascript did not work”
Huh?! JS works fine. What on earth are you talking about?
Try using javascript on a site that needs user permissions as as such sites the use javascript to store information won’t work. And thanks for the correction on flash version.
in response to the javascript, i think a lot of it works fine, but there’s some things they have disabled for security reasons. so you’re both right =P
I have no idea what you are referring to. Why would they disable something in the browser for security reasons? The browser does not run site JS with elevated privileges in the first place.
What do you mean by “sites that use javascript to store information” anyway? Cookies? In that case it isn’t JS, but cookie handling.
Why would they not run javascript? Javascript is one of the major things that virus code writters use, and as such it can create alot of problems for the Wii software.
Storing information can also be done by passing javascript varibles.
“Javascript is one of the major things that virus code writters use, and as such it can create alot of problems for the Wii software.”
I’m sorry, but this is nonsense. The Wii browser clearly supports JavaScript. And if there is a BUG in the JS implementation which opens of for local access, then it’s a security hole which needs to be fixed. The right way to do that would be to fix the problem, not to disable JS.
“Disabling parts of JS” is nonsense which is coming from soneone who doesn’t understand this at all.
And, indeed, there are no known JS security holes in Opera.
I still haven’t been able to get my Wii online. The Nintendo rep said that if I go to a friend’s house and download the latest firmware my modem/router might now be compatible.