Blazer was a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

available for

Palm Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

handhelds running

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) was a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provi ...

3.1 or higher. The original version of Blazer was developed by Bluelark Systems and was released in November 2000. Bluelark Systems was acquired by

Handspring Handspring may refer to: *Handspring (company), a company that made personal digital assistants *Handspring (gymnastics), a gymnastics move involving forward or backward rotation of the body *Rising handspring or nip-up A nip-up is an acrobatic ...

a month later, in December 2000. Version 1.0 supported

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

WAP WAP or Wap may refer to: Music * "WAP" (song), a 2020 song by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion Organizations * Weatherization Assistance Program, for US energy costs * Western Australia Party, a political party founded in 2016 * Western A ...

, and the markup language used in

i-Mode NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet- ...

. Following the end of popular use of Palm OS, Blazer is no longer developed.

Version history

Blazer 1

Blazer 1 was released in November 2000, and differentiated itself from other Palm OS web browsers at the time by its fast performance, progressive rendering, and support of WAP and i-Mode in addition to HTML. It utilized a proxy server which provided transcoding and image conversion optimized for small, underpowered handheld devices. Blazer 1 was available for free download.

Blazer 2

Blazer 2 was released in early 2002. Blazer 2 added the ability to use

proxy servers In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client (computing), client requesting a Web resource, resource and the server providing that resource. Instead of connecting directly to a ...

, SSL, 16 bit color, and an improved user interface. Blazer 2 was available both as product bundled with the Treo 180, and as a paid download. As of September 22, 2005, all copies of Blazer 1 and 2 were rendered inoperable as the proxy server for these browsers was taken offline by Palm.

Blazer 3

Blazer 3 was a significant upgrade in the series.

Palm, Inc. Palm, Inc. was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and various other electronics. They were the designer of the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, as well as the Treo 6 ...

dumped the original code for Blazer and started fresh with the NetFront Browser Engine (most notably used in the

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Clie) as the core of the Blazer browser. It is bundled with Treo 600.

Blazer 4

Next came Palm Blazer 4.0/4.1. It was bundled with the

Tungsten E2 The Tungsten series was Palm, Inc.'s line of business-class Palm OS-based PDAs. Details The Tungsten series was introduced in October 2002, created as a "prosumer" line priced at $199 to $300 to compete with the popular Sony Clie and Windows M ...

, the

Tungsten T5 The Tungsten series was Palm, Inc.'s line of business-class Palm OS-based PDAs. Details The Tungsten series was introduced in October 2002, created as a "prosumer" line priced at $199 to $300 to compete with the popular Sony Clie and Windows Mo ...

, and the Treo 650 and 680. New features included faster loading, an improved UI,

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

with an extra plugin, the saving of image and

files to a memory card or the device, homepages, bookmarks, and the ability to start on the last viewed page. Blazer 4 also featured support for web standards including

4.01,

XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior ...

1.0, WML 1.3, SSL 3.0,

cHTML NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

1.5,

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

1.0 and 2.0 (partial),

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...

(both still and animated, along with transparency),

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

, PNG, BMP and
cookie, Cookies
. The use of some advanced features may cause the browser to crash if it is not in Wide Page Mode. Soon after, Blazer 4.3 browser became available on the

Treo 650 The Palm Treo 650 is a Palm OS-based smartphone, the successor to Palm's Treo 600. It began shipping in November 2004, and was discontinued in 2008. Specifications Carriers The following GSM and CDMA2000 mobile phone operators currently or p ...

, TX and

LifeDrive The LifeDrive is a Palm OS-based handheld personal digital assistant device that was produced by PalmOne, a former incarnation of Palm, Inc. The device was PalmOne's first and only foray into the "Mobile Manager" device category. As its name sugge ...

. The most significant addition to 4.3 was the fast mode option, which removes images and/or disables

cascading style sheets Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

. Blazer 4.5 was released in May 2006, along with the Treo 700p as part of the device's application suite. It offers faster page rendering, and support for

streaming video Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

(using a built-in version of Kinoma Player). It was also provided with the

Treo 755p The Treo 755p is a smartphone developed by Palm, Inc. It was released on May 15, 2007 as the first CDMA Treo without an aerial antenna. This Treo has a form factor similar to that of the GSM Treo 680, and is equipped with the full Palm OS. It ...

along with a mobile optimized version of

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

Streaming video

Video is streamed via the Kinoma Video Player. It supports many formats, including Windows Media. At this time, Blazer does not support Adobe Flash Player - meaning you cannot view popular videos on sites such as ESPN or YouTube. This issue has never been addressed by Palm. A relatively small number of phones have the ability to use Flash. The new Centro has demonstrated the ability to play YouTube videos on its browser using a high speed internet connection. This is demonstrated on the mobile version of

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

which does not use Flash Technology. Previous Palm phones with the current version of Blazer can also play these videos. This is the same version of YouTube accessed by the application of the same name on the Apple iPhone. Kinoma released an upgrade to the Video Player, which can be purchased for many Palm phones, that has support for Flash Video, but is not part of the Blazer web browser itself. The videos must be searched for via the Kinoma media guide. This guide acts as a browser for many popular video sites, like

and

Google Video Google Video was a free video hosting service launched by the multinational technology company Google on January 25, 2005. Similar to YouTube, this platform allowed video clips to be hosted on Google servers and embedded on to other website ...

. Many Palm users could get a discount on this upgrade.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blazer (Web Browser) Palm OS software Mobile web browsers Discontinued web browsers