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Final Version of Wii Browser Now Available

Posted by Zonk on Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:38 AM
from the enjoy-your-www-button dept.
Wii (Games)
CVG points out that, as of today, the final version of the Wii Opera browser is available for download. Make sure and do the update sometime in the next month or so; as you might recall from the original announcement, it will only be free until the end of June. "You can finally ditch the trial version of the Opera browser and download the full and final package, which comes with added features, such as 'www.' and '.com' buttons as well as improved functionality like a faster boot-up and better zoom capability. You can download it right now for free, first by updating your system, then grabbing the update from the Wii Software page on the Shop Channel."
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[+] Wii Opera Browser is Free Until Next Year 213 comments
Wowzer writes "Nintendo is serious about giving casual game console users multi-functionality by offering not just a weather, news, and photo channels, but a free internet browser with the Wii at the November 19th U.S. launch. From the article: 'Opera's full Web browser is available for download from the Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo has stated that they will offer Opera free of charge as a temporary promotion for all [worldwide] Wii users until June 2007.'"
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  • List of new stuff (Score:5, Informative)

    by AKAImBatman (238306) * <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Thursday April 12 2007, @11:40AM (#18703943) Homepage Journal
    • More advanced zoom. You can zoom in extremely close, or extremely far out.
    • Crisper fonts due to updated font rendering technology.
    • Optimized for faster browsing and video game playing. (Seriously!)
    • Other WiiMote cursors are now visible. They cannot interact with pages, but they can be used as laser pointer replacements.
    • Scrolling has been improved with the arrows only showing while scrolling and a line showing how fast you're dragging.
    • The arrow keys now scroll rather than navigating.
    • The so-called "A-button cooldown effect" has been fixed. This was the bug that prevented rapid clicking.
    • There are now settings for Proxies and other browser features.
    • The toolbar has been updated with easy access to the URL entry, search, and page information.
    • The toolbar can now be hidden.
    • Cursors have been updated with nicer loading and clicking effects.
    • Sounds are now associated with events like clicking and loading.
    • The browser now fills the entire screen. You can change the scaling if the browser is clipped.

  • So how long do you think it will be before an inebriated collection of soccer-moms bands together and attacks Nintendo of America for trying to sell these consoles complete with "porn-access" (a.k.a. an internet connection) to their kids...

  • Still can't get one (Score:5, Funny)

    by CokeBear (16811) on Thursday April 12 2007, @11:50AM (#18704135) Journal
    Great! Now all I need is a Wii!

    (Still searching for one in Toronto)
    • Ditto, but in Kansas. They are nowhere to be found, and I hear shortages are going to continue because of unprecedented demand. Dang it.
    • Check out the forums at redflagdeals.com. They have heads up on stores in the GTA receiving them. That's how I got mine at Toys 'R Us a couple months back.
    • Try the "Great Canadian Superstore", those giant rebranded Loblaws grocery stores.

      I found one in St. Thomas (just outside london) when I checked out their electronics department. People couldn't get them at the local EBs or Wal-marts, but nobody was thinking to check a grocery store.
  • Who's going to pay for it?

  • Free until June - unless you can't get a Wii. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Guspaz (556486) on Thursday April 12 2007, @12:18PM (#18704615) Homepage
    The free-until-June deal originally seemed awesome. Until I realized that every store around here still sells out the Wii instantly the moment they have any in stock.

    There's a good chance that by the time the deal expires in June, it will still be almost impossible to find a Wii, and those of us that have been TRYING to buy one since launch day will have been screwed by Opera for not adjusting their deal to account for this problem.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by SighKoPath (956085)
      Get friendly with the people at wal-mart. Learn when they normally get their shipments, how often they come, how many they get, and what time the sale of new shipments starts.

      For example, I learned that my local wal-mart ALWAYS gets them in on Sundays, and they start selling at 8 am. Also, they do not put 'em out in electronics, but hide them over in Customer Service. As soon as I learned this, I was there the next Sunday morning at 9:30. They had 4 Wiis sitting there in the counter in CS (out of 5 receive
      • Good piece of advice.

        If the people at the store doesn't seem friendly, you can also do it Corleone style: grease the right hand to give you a call when the next shipment arrives ;)
      • I would like to learn more about this "pre-modded" of which you speak. Is there a wiikey wiki?
      • Just lazy, eh? Showing up to multiple stores once or twice a week to buy the thing is hardly lazy. The problem is that any store that gets them sells out within minutes.

        Walmart might be a good bet, except they almost certainly don't get their shipments at the same time as they do in the US. I've heard rumors they get them Tuesday mornings... while I'm at work.

        We don't have GameStop in Montreal. Or in Canada, I'd imagine. And my local EB Games Boutique has had a sign up in the window for the past five months
      • Right. You obviously never bothered to check if any of those stores even SELL the Wii online.

        Costco (US): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself
        Costco (Canada): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself
        Walmart (US): Only has the $600 bundle. Sold out.
        Walmart (Canada): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself.
        Target (US): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself.
        Target (Canada): There is no Target in Canada.

        What was that about problem solved? You'll see the same situation at pretty much any online store. If they carry it, they
        • This "sold-out" malarkey is alien to me, I pre-ordered mine in October, and picked it up 2/3 days after launch and have been enjoying it ever since (with a brief hiatus due to a bad back..:)

          Are there any U.K.-ians who are having trouble getting hold of a Wii? Or is it just in the US? I know there were shortages here shortly after launch, but is it still a problem?
          • Found it at Costco

            Is it This?

            Hello Kitty® 128MB MP3 Player? No. That's not it.

            Just keep checking Toys and Games - Special Deals and One-time Offers. It was online for at least 90 days.

            costco.ca doesn't have that section. And on costco.com (which probably doesn't ship to Canada anyhow), it's actually "New Items & Limited Time Offers", not "Special Deals and One-time Offers".
            • or, it might be regionally coded, and show different things to different people, from a .apx file - hmmm, maybe in the South it says "Newfangled Stuff and Things Your Ma Won't Like" or something like that ...

              In fact, availability might be impacted by other factors.
  • I'd say overall it's quite an improvement - it really takes it from a useful oddity to a full-scale tool. My takes:
    • The scrolling takes a bit of getting used to, but it definitely works better, and the precise scrolling works very nicely.
    • Resolution seems better.
    • Definitely faster.
    • I saw no hangups this time.
    • More useful layouts and controls.


    Now, if there was just a keyboard for the Wii . . .
  • Gamestation's website (google it, not link whoring) has a "news letter" type sign up for the wii. They will tell you 48 hours in advance of when they put the Wii on their website to order. This is how I got mine the first time I was told they had some in stock.

    It's not hard, just requires a little planning.

  • I was kind of nervous at first that outgoing requests would be sent to Nintendo, who would fetch the page and return a pre-digested version, ala WebTV. I was pleasantly surprised to see from my own server logs, though, that my Wii was directly connecting to remote hosts without going through any proxy. That makes me feel infinitely more comfortable about using it to access my webmail, online banking, etc.

    Just throwing that out there for anyone else who had the same concerns.

    • Re:Why isnt it (F)ree as in FREEDOM (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CogDissident (951207) on Thursday April 12 2007, @11:48AM (#18704095)
      Um, because they don't want people being able to hack the virtual console, and possibly hack into other people's Wiis and steal their points, or some such?

      And by saying you only use Open Source software, that means you don't use any consoles, because none of them are open source. Or use blue ray disks, or HD disks, or office products, or most websites...

      Open source zealots really need to be better informed before they go off on these rants, makes the rest of you intelligent OSS people look bad.

      • or office products

        It's true. I have been having a really hard time getting full blueprints for my stapler.

      • Security through obscurity does not work. The reason that they don't open the source has nothing to do with that and everything to do with making money. They don't want someone to be able to make a WiiPC and skip their hardware altogether. Unlike the other console makers, Nintendo make s a profit on each and every console sold.
        • Actually, security through obscurity does work, against a significant number of potential hackers (80% or more). The more determined ones are going to be doing it anyway, but it at least stops the clumsy hackers. I'd rather have 50 hackers having cracked the Wii protection than 500.
          • I think you're a bit confused. 'Security through obscurity' has to do with software, not personal data. It has to do with obtaining personal data through bugs/holes in the software, not by someone posting that info on a forum. If you think asking for my password makes you a hacker, I'm not only not scared of anything you could ever do, but I'm happy to know that fast food restaurants will always have plenty of employees.

            Also, I never said that earning a buck was a bad thing. You simply assumed I was lik

    • It's mid-April! They've got 2.5 months until the end of June.

      Yeah, Zonk has a bad floppy on this one. The final version was originally going to be released on March 16th. It was then pushed back to March 30th. Then (a few days before it was supposed to be released) it was pushed back to "sometime in April". Well, it's "sometime in April", so I'm not surprised that it's here. :P
    • Oh, I almost forgot to mention what *is* in June. June is the release date for multiplayer gaming on the Wii. The Japanese already have it with Pokemon, and the Brits are getting it soon. That leaves us Yanks as the only ones left playing with ourselves. :(

    • Re:Yay (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Erioll (229536) on Thursday April 12 2007, @12:03PM (#18704373)
      Does the new text rendering also go into things like the news reader and Wii Shop? The text there could use some work too.
      • No, unless the Wii firmware update that you had to do has some text updates, I doubt there's been any change. However, I would say that the News channel always had pretty good text, the Internet channel now matches the News channel's quality. If you're having problems, you should probably get a componant video cable, if that's an option for you... 480p looks A LOT BETTER.

        • If you're having problems, you should probably get a componant video cable, if that's an option for you... 480p looks A LOT BETTER.
          I run my Wii through component into a 1080p LCD. ;)

    • Re:Two Things (Score:5, Informative)

      by MBCook (132727) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Thursday April 12 2007, @12:17PM (#18704595) Homepage

      YouTube works. I've used it. In fact, I heard that was one of the original reasons the browser beta was delayed was so they could update flash and make YouTube work.

      They are selling people Wiis. That is just a troll comment. The fact they are so popular they can't produce them fast enough is not Nintendo's fault.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by gasgesgos (603192)
      One of the major things I use the Wii browser for is Youtube, it works pretty well. Also wiiarcade.com has a handful of games that will work well with the Wii remote. I haven't tried other streaming sites, but I imagine that they would work as well (provided they use flash and not WMP). One warning, it seems that the browser only supports up to Flash 7.

      • Also wiiarcade.com has a handful of games that will work well with the Wii remote.

        I don't think you really want to be sending people to WiiArcade. As you said, they have a handful of games. WiiCade.com has all the same games, plus some good ones, plus games that actually use the gamepad functionality. (As opposed to mouse-only games.) About 300-some games altogether. (At least, if you believe the game ids.)

        Another great site to visit is video.stumbleupon.com [stumbleupon.com]. They have YouTube videos organized as channels.

    • I did some Google video. I think it wasn't instant-play like my regular PC is, but it was still quite usable for video watching. It isn't a replacement for my home theater PC, but for those looking for a cheap and easy to setup browser for the living room, this will fulfill that need.
    • 1. Does Youtube work?

      YouTube (and google video) has worked since the beta in December. There was even a site [wiitoob.com] created to help autoformat it so all videos display nicer on the Wii. This is just a front end to YouTube's site so you can bypass it if you don't care for how they are formatting it. Of note Strongbad, [homestarrunner.com] and Foamy [illwillpress.com] work great too.

      Does it handle streaming audio/video?

      The beta didn't do shoutcast, but I have been using Finetune [finetune.com] for quite some time.

    • 1. Yes, YouTube works. It works *great.*

      My favorites page is full of YouTube videos that I like to share with guests, friends.

      2. Get in line at 4AM, like I did, and they'll sell you one. :)
      • NBC doesn't mix well with Opera in general. I normally use Opera on my laptop but I had to open up IE to watch past Heroes episodes.

        • Ok, and how?

          Without going into too much detail, you could in theory:

          Use a fake user agent on the wii shop channel site, such as "Opera/9.00 (Wii; U; ; 1038-58; Wii Shop Channel/1.0; en)"

          Download update in question to disk.

          Later when you get a Wii, run a local DNS server and reroute the DNS entry for the Wii shop channel to your local webserver with a page that contains the file.

          Tell the Wii the DNS server is that one, open the Wii shop channel on the Wii, which should show your page and download that update

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