A Peek at AT&T's New Browser, Pogo

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica takes a look at Pogo, a browser from AT&T with new features like a 3-D history and bookmark view. The browser's currently in a private beta and Ars' comments aren't all necessarily glowing — particularly in the areas where performance is concerned. 'It requires Windows XP SP2 or later or Windows Vista, and its minimum hardware are surprisingly steep: a 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and a video card with at least 256MB of VRAM. Seem like a bit much for a web browser? It is, and as we found out, these requirements posed some major challenges for us during our testing.'"

Not surprising

[calebt3 (1098475)]

SBC's old browser was lousy too.

Doesn't sound very good

[Rik Sweeney (471717)]

in fact, it sounds like it's going to be a bit of a stinker.

Perhaps they should rename it to Pongo.

(Sorry)

Re:Doesn't sound very good

[bugnuts (94678)]

Are you saying ATT won't have Pogo Stick?

Invite-only Beta

[Aefix (968923)]

Anyone on the inside have any details on how this works? Sounds like a gmail-type thing to me. If so, someone hook me up!

Bloat

[MozeeToby (1163751)]

And people complain about firefox being bloated? You should not need a dedicated graphics card to check your email.

Re:

[calebt3 (1098475)]

Don't get them thinking about a Thunderbird-based email client!

Re:

[Zackbass (457384)]

Why not? How do you know what's possible if you don't try it and what happens?

Re:

[tgatliff (311583)]

AT&T cannot even provide decent cell or phone service, and they now are deciding to build browsers??? It will be a cold day in hell before I would install that trojan... I suspect its real purpose is to collect enough financial information to automatically swap your phone service to them...

Re:

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

All NSA jokes aside, my fear(as somebody who just signed a contract with ATT wireless internet/HSDPA) is that they'll try to force crap like this onto my computer. Using their mandatory, proprietary connection manager is bad enough(takes 10 minutes to install on reasonably fast, modern computer and the install sounded like a hard drive defrag!).

Re:

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

Been there, done that with Ubuntu...but the problem remains: The adapter is of USB form factor and its connection manager works only with Windows. There's no NDISwrappering your way around this one :(

Linux

[prakslash (681585)]

Since it doesn't run on Linux it will never achieve widespread mainstream acceptance on the desktop.

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

Since it doesn't run on Linux it will never achieve widespread mainstream acceptance on the SLASHDOT.

There, fixed that for ya! ;)

More seriously, I didn;t actually RTFA (yawn). The summary makes it sound like a real stinker (and I have some issues with ATT I'd be modded flamebait for if I listed them). What, exactly, does it bring to a browser that we can't get with IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, or any of the other browsers? why, exactly, should we get this browser?

Re:Linux

[Bodrius (191265)]

Usability (through better visualization)?

History and bookmark handling are not scaling well to modern use of the web.

They were designed for a much smaller Internet - back when Yahoo was a comprehensive catalogue of the web, and you could honestly bookmark a short list of all your favorite sites.

Anyone who had to go through the browser history after a long week, to find 'that link that had some information but I cannot find in google again', has experienced this first hand.
All the links look the same, all your searches get in the way, etc.

Anyone who has had a few dozen disposable bookmarks by trying to avoid the history search also has experienced this first hand.

Bookmarks lose their value as they accumulate, and reality is that you often cannot know the crucial link will be crucial until after the fact - after you got another piece of data. Specially for technical documentation.

Pogo seems to be addressing two major usability problems that exist today.
At this point, I mostly consider those to be non-existent browser features by now. Repeating an Internet search is typically more time-efficient.

Now, I don't really think painting it all in 3D really helps - but what they seem to be trying to fix are real problems.

Re:

[snl2587 (1177409)]

Mods - how in green hell is the parent post Insightful???

Now, now: have some sensitivity for the colorblind!

of course it needs Windows

[by Anonymous Coward]

unless shdwdoc.dll has been ported to Linux

all these "new" Windows browsers are usually just an IE activeX control embedded in a VB container
same IE engine with all the same vunerabilities, even the bigname AV's (mcafee/symantec) use the dll for dialogs

of course the fastest way to ruin an AV and Windows is simply delete the dll
no AV, no anti-spyware, no security, no web browser (no telnet as that is not installed on Vista by default)

poof all gone with a single dll

Re:of course it needs Windows

[Constantine XVI (880691)]

Except this is based on Gecko (Mozilla).

Then again, that might explain the bloat

Fine by me

[The Bender (801382)]

I don't mind any attempt at innovation, and I certainly welcome competition in the browser market. If someone thinks they have ideas about how to make things better, then let them have a go.
It's pretty clear that this is intended for the home user with a nice new 2008-9 computer, who doesn't really run much else. So from that point of view, the requirements are probably fine, and at least it lets them actually use the computing power that they have. Other people have other options, nothing lost.
Uh, and RTFA? You must be joking.

Re:

[Sciros (986030)]

You'd be right if not for the fact that most computers don't come with the video card that this requires. RAM, CPU, sure. But the video card that's still in most computers these days can run WoW at best. If this browser needs something with 256Mb of RAM in the video card, then this is intended for, well, nobody.

Eye candy and Apple's success

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

I work with a guy who believes that the reason Apple succeeds is that they accelerate the graphics with hardware. This gives them the ability to do transitions like Expose on the desktop and the smooth sliding on devices like the iPhone.

Pogo seems to be along the same lines. But where Apple's eye candy is functional, the Pogo eye candy looks like flashy for the sake of flashy. The 3D UI looks nice, but it's about as functional as Vista's Windows-Tab app selector.

I don't particularly like Apple, but they do seem to have strong design concepts. The design follows the function in their products, as far as I understand. But Pogo looks like they implemented it because the technology was cool, not because they had some difficult problem to solve.

Re:

[dreamchaser (49529)]

Agreed. It almost looks like they threw everything they could think of into it, only without much thought.

Re:

[bondsbw (888959)]

I do all the time; it's on a (nicely equipped) Dell laptop running Ubuntu that I use at work. I'm actually quite impressed with what you can do, and I'm even more impressed by the ability to customize it.

I also use an Apple Macbook all the time (at home).

So, which one has the more impressive graphics? I've got to say, Apple. It's hard to pinpoint what makes OS X "feel" so nice, but it is definitely something with the graphics.

Aqua's feel is more "solid". I don't know how to explain it, except that movin

2 GIGS OF RAM???!!!!one

[snarfies (115214)]

Seriously, WHY?

ONE gig of RAM is sufficient to play most current computer games, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say those are way more complex than a browser.

Spoiled developers

[calebt3 (1098475)]

Who gave the developers machines good enough that they thought these requirements were fine? They should have to use their own browser while using budget PCs that are prime candidates for next year's thin clients.

Problems aside...

[noidentity (188756)]

On the plus side, it reports all your browsing activity to AT&T.

AT&T
Your world delivered
(to us)

3D history?

[by Anonymous Coward]

So, I'll need special glasses to see my history?

Pogo? 2 Gb?? To run a browser???

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

Walt Kelly was right: "we have met the enemy, and he is us".

Biased review...

[klubar (591384)]

Complaining about a private beta not being fast or working in less than the minimum requirements isn't really fair. The reviewer spends the first half of the review complaining that it doesn't run on hardware less than the requirements, doesn't run on the mac.. and by the way they could of added that it doesn't run on the iPhone, their GPS nor the 1980-era walkman that they own.

It's a beta, designed to show some concepts and trials. The released software can be sped up or modified. Why not review the features that are included. Presumably, importing bookmarks isn't a core feature for a beta.

Although, I'm unlikely to switch browsers (seeing no reason to switch from a fully patched IE 7 running as non-administrator on Vista), it's great that there is still competition in the browser market.

Re:

[cowscows (103644)]

While the definition of "beta" isn't set in stone, it's usually meant as a version of a soon to be released product that's mostly through the design phase, and more into the polish, tuning, and bug squashing phase. You don't want to be adding features while moving from Beta to release, because then you'll add in more bugs that won't get tested for.

But you're right that it's not completely fair to definitively judge beta software in terms of speed and performance. But I don't think it's horribly unfair to ma

Re:Biased review...

[Lord Grey (463613)]

... a fully patched IE 7 running as non-administrator on Vista ...

Semantically equivalent to, "I drive a Pinto, but only in reverse."

Re:Biased review...

[pherthyl (445706)]

>> seeing no reason to switch from a fully patched IE 7 running as non-administrator on Vista

Not to start a flame war, but security is really the least of my reasons for choosing Firefox over IE.
Firefox is faster, more standards compliant, has way better functionality and flexibility due to extensions.

I can't help but wonder...

[Steauengeglase (512315)]

..since I'm an AT&T customer, it feels like there are two unasked questions.

1.) What is AT&t going to do to make sure that this is the only browser that I use? Certainly something more than a silly EULA. How about automated litigation if I step a foot off Ma Bell's Farm?

2.) What can Bell do to offer me more choice with their browser? In other words how can they help me by blocking anything other than a heavily proxied port 80. Mail, it should sit on AT&T's webmail, where they own it and copyright whatever I say. FTP, thats for terrorists. We need more choices, you know, like cable TV.

Will it run VR5 on a Gibson in an InGen jeep?

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

Judging by the screenshots, it looks like some AT&T execs happened to catch a marathon of those 1990s cyber-thrillers which featured portrayals of that mysterious new "Internet" thing that was starting to get noticed, and decided the real Internet should start looking like those Hollywood mockups.

Fancy light shows with expensive glitz

[Bananatree3 (872975)]

If all I get for that kind of performance requirements is fancy light shows I'm going to put my precious hardware resources someplace else Thankyouverymuch.

Lex 2.0

[Speare (84249)]

a browser from AT&T with new features like a 3-D history and bookmark view

Lex turns to the clueless paleontologists, "This is Pogo! I know this!"

rice browser

[trb (8509)]

I don't need a browser with tumbling history and ray-traced menu buttons. Just serve up the pages quick and clean.

There's no taste for accounting.

Re:

[Shivetya (243324)]

maybe they are trying to cache the internet?

How well does it spy on you?

[Jeremiah Cornelius (137)]

I want it to report simultaneously to the DHS and the NSA, when I change my vest and underpants.

Re:How well does it spy on you?

[palewook (1101845)]

wonder how many backdoors at&t will build into it

Re:2GB of RAM???

[tomtomtom777 (1148633)]

It's not just made for Vista. It's modeled after Vista too.

Re:2GB of RAM???

[Sillygates (967271)]

So vista takes up a GB of ram on boot, and the AT+T browser takes another 2?
If I'm not mistaken vista still can only "use" 3GB of it's ram.
Does anyone else see a problem?

Re:2GB of RAM???

[krewemaynard (665044)]

Does anyone else see a problem?

Yeah.

I need more RAM.

Re:

[compro01 (777531)]

it's variable. it's 4GB total minus some other stuff, most prominently video ram, so if you have a 512MB videocard, you'll be able to use about 3.5GB.

Re:2GB of RAM???

[aliquis (678370)]

Depends on how much memory mapped IO you have. Without or with a low memory graphics card, no soundcard, usb and firewire disabled, and so on maybe.

Re:

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

Unless things have changed drastically since the last time I looked, that's all the ram of a typical home system or 2-4x if you could those that were bought years ago.

Re:2GB of RAM???

[Darundal (891860)]

Typical home systems have 4 gigs of RAM? Last I checked, most systems were coming with 1-2 gigs of RAM, and the majority of systems people have are running between 512megs and 1gig.

Re:2GB of RAM???

[Jarjarthejedi (996957)]

At least 2GB of RAM for a typical home computer? I want some of what you're smoking. Wow...I must live in the wrong area with my 1GB primary computer, which I use to play games on. Guess I should be upgrading so I can run this web browser...

I mean seriously. 1GB is still a perfectly reasonable amount of ram. I can run 80% of modern games (GAMES! We're talking Call of Duty 4 without lag here) and my system isn't up to spec for this WEB BROWSER! And the default response is, of course, 2GB isn't that much. I mean, no one has less than 3 right now right?

Sometimes even those of us who love technology and play computer games can't afford an upgrade (and before you talk about how cheap ram is, my laptop won't take standard ram, and has 2 512 cards right now. It would be ~$60 to upgrade to 2 gigs, and I'd have to either have a tech out or send it in. Yay Laptops) No Web Browser should require more RAM than Call of Duty 4. Ever.

Re:2GB of RAM???

[Hatta (162192)]

Read a little bit harder. The OP said "That's[2GB] up to half the RAM on the typical home system." "up to half" means that 2GB would be at most 50% of the RAM on the typical home system. Which would mean that the typical home system has a minimum of 4GB. It could be less than 50%, say 10% in which case the typical home system would have 20GB of RAM. Obviously this is wrong.

I corrected the OP to say "That's at least half the RAM on the typical home system. "at least half" means that 2GB is never less than half the RAM on the typical home system. Which means the maximum amount of RAM a typical home system can have is 4GB. That's about what most typical PC motherboards accept, and all that can be addressed by a 32 bit OS.

You are right though, 2GB is an insane amount to require for a web browser.

libcompiz?

[Constantine XVI (880691)]

Speaking of Compiz, is there any sort of "libcompiz" that lets developers use the effects from Compiz within their apps?

Re:

[calebt3 (1098475)]

So will your significant other.

Re:

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Bell Labs is gone. I'm glad you brought up its accomplishments, because AT&T Labs developing a bloated browser when we've got several and don't need more divergence from the standards compares very poorly with the old Bell Labs. This new lab doesn't get credit for the old one. To the contrary, getting rid of the old one shows what AT&T is not interested in: science in the public interest.

I'm going to leave out how your admission that you have no gripes with AT&T's treatment of privacy reflects o