YadaYada includes a very good Web Browser (by Palm standards) that uses a proxy server to do the brunt of the work. Since our little Palms don't have the power, memory or interest to chew up GIFs and JPGs, they have servers do the work for you. When you request a page from the browser, it doesn't actually reach out to the net and retrieve the page itself. Instead, your Visor asks YadaYada's servers to retrieve the page on your behalf, via proxy, and YadaYada's server returns small clear black-and-white "Palm Optimized" graphics. All of this happens transparently and doesn't affect you at all. This is the same principal that was used during the early days of Palm with a browser called TopGun Wingman, which started out as a Ph.D. thesis project, and became ProxiNet's ProxiWeb. Pumatech then bought ProxiNet. However, and the reigning champ of Proxy-based browsers is BlueLark's Blazer color web browser. This is a lovely history lesson, of course. But the point is, you have several choices available to you, and the YadaYada service includes a good one. YadaYada doesn't lock you down to their browser, you are free to pick and choose what's best for you. I would say that their browser would fill most typical users browsing needs.

YadaYada runs their custom Application Launcher when you press the only button on the modem. The include a lot of web optimized content. Even if you don't use the YadaYada wireless service, you can sign up for a free "My YadaYada" account at http://my.yadayada.com. It includes PDA-optimized content for all the standards: news, weather, sports & stocks, local dining, movies & events, maps & directions, horoscopes. MyYadaYada is a fine wireless portal. Some of the look and feel (i.e. Colors, DHTML menus) of the site may seem slightly cheesy from Internet Explorer, but the PDA-Optimized content works well and loads quickly on a Visor.

One important service that is lacking from the YadaYada service is the support for Palm VII PQA "Web Clipping" support. By not supporting this standard, YadaYada is shutting the down on literally thousands of Palm Query Applications (PQAs) that you can download from http://www.palm.net. But, by not supporting PQAs, YadaYada opens the door to wireless internet access to non-PalmOS 3.3 users like Visor Deluxe and Visor Solo users. So you can see that it's a tough choice they've appeared to have made.