100% Java Web browser

Jim Whitehead (ejw@ICS.uci.edu)
Tue, 23 Mar 1999 14:27:48 -0800


At Hypertext'99, Robert Cailau demoed a 100% Java Web browser with an
extremely small memory footprint. Thinking this was neat, I tracked it
down:

http://www.icesoft.no/products.html

The browser is called e-Lite, put out by the company ICEsoft, and uses the
Swing toolkit.

As their Web page says:

ICE e-Lite is an ultra-lightweight WEB browser that will run on any
platform. It is certified 100% pure Java. It has all the basic features you
would expect in a WEB browser such as bookmarks, navigation controls and
user preference settings. A key feature of e-Lite is that the user can
configure every aspect, creating a completely personal browser for their
company, girlfriend or even their mother-in-law.

Other features they claim:

HTML 3.2 compliant, including
Tables
Applets
Forms
Frames
HTTP support
Redirects
Authentication
Cookies
NLS Internationalization.
Forgiving HTML Parser.
Printer support.
Java archive (JAR) format support.
JAR archives for use in <APPLET> tag.
JAR files as content resources, access a JAR file URL and retrieve all
resources as if from a web site.
Persistence - serializes current state..
Multithreaded for asynchronous loading and parsing of content.
Superb scrolling performance.
Small footprint

The company also sells some Java beans for HTML rendering, which they are
using in their e-Lite browser.

- Jim