The fight for mobile browser share continues to heat up as the smartphone market grows. While most current Windows Mobile devices have, by default, a weak browser compared to the competition, the platform has among the richest third party clients to rectify the situation. You should be familiar with, and perhaps even use, Mozilla's desktop client, Firefox. The improvements in Alpha 3 may make the mobile version worthy of your Windows Mobile device.The release notes for Alpha 3 outlines the new and improved features. They include:

• Much improved panning/scrolling performance
• Improved start-up time
• Support for running in full screen
• Support for touch sensitive directional pad on HTC devices
• Improved zooming support
• Support for multiple screen sizes

There are numerous other fixes and enhancements so check out the release notes for the full list. Unfortunately the browser only works on WinMo 6 Professional devices, so older WinMo 5 devices or any non-touchscreen device can't use it.

Because the browser that ships with Microsoft's mobile platform is so weak in a day and age where phone users expect a near-desktop experience with the ability to fully render a desktop page and then reflow and allow zooming so it works well on a tiny screen, the market for third party browsers is ripe. Some of the more impressive browsers include SkyFire and Opera.

I'll be interested to see what happens though when WinMo 6.5 ships. Microsoft has overhauled the browser and it should provide a very rich out of the box experience for users. I've not tested the new browser yet so I won't claim it will match these third party browsers. Even if it doesn't match the competition feature for feature, it should be "close enough" that many people won't care and won't bother installing a competing browser on their device. That is a good thing in that we'll finally be rid of a browser designed nearly a decade ago, but a potentially bad thing in that it may reduce the competitive desire's of third parties to develop and market browsers.

We'll know in a few months if MS's new browser is considered good enough by early adopters of WinMo 6.5 devices. Until then, Fennec should be on your short list of alternative browsers.