AT&T Pogo Browser

AT&T is trying to get in the to the web browser market now with their own browser called Pogo. Before you run out and download this keep in mind, it is still in development and in limited private beta. You can sign up to be notified when the public beta will be opened. Further, unless you have a really powerful machine don’t even bother as the performance would stink. I am sure you are thinking “It is a web browser, how powerful of a machine would I need?”

Well, the minimum requirements are 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and a video card with at least 256MB of VRAM. But, Ars Technica did try the browser on a more powerful machine running dual-processor, dual-core AMD Opteron 2210 with 1.80GHz CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 560 video card with 128MB of VRAM running Windows XP. The results were less than stellar

On this machine, the remainder of Pogo’s features actually displayed, but did not do much else. We found that with even minor use, the browser slowed to a crawl, animations built into the UI were laggy, and at some times, unusable. Performance was extremely poor when even trying to perform basic functions like clicking UI elements.

Pogo is suppose to be a Mozilla based browser, so why is it so power hungry? This is because it has this massive 3D interface for navigating through the browser’s history as well as bookmarks. These screenshots (courtesy of CyberNet News) show the history (top) and bookmarks (bottom). Here are some of other browsers Windows system requirements for comparison:

  • Firefox 2/3 & SeaMonkey

    • Processor: Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)
    • Memory: 64 MB (Recommended: 128 MB or greater)
    • Video: not listed
  • IE 6

    • Processor: 486/66-megahertz (MHz) processor or higher (Pentium processor recommended)
    • Memory: 16 to 32 MB
    • Video: Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors
  • IE7

    • Processor: Pentium 233MHz processor or higher
    • Memory: 87 to 218 MB
    • Video: Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors
  • IE8 Beta 1

    • Processor: Pentium 233MHz processor or higher
    • Memory: 64 to 512 MB
    • Video: Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors
  • Opera

    • Processor: Pentium II
    • Memory: 64 MB
    • Video: not listed
  • Safari

    • Processor: 500 MHz Intel Pentium
    • Memory: 256 MB
    • Video: not listed

It is doubtful I am going to even try Pogo as I don’t see any real benefit, just a lot of bling. Sorta like Windows Vista Aero Interface. I am looking for functionality, speed along with a nice UI (that doesn’t make me feel like I am running a 386 with a dial-up connection).

Source: CyberNet News

5 Comments on AT&T Pogo Browser

  1. wow..so sure of yourself.. Did you ever try it? Can’t tell

    now, my machine ain’t stellar (its years old) and Pojo runs just fine. A diff of a couple months dev, i suppose.

    It took me a few minutes to figure some things out. Where to tag bookmarks (much like FF3 nowadays), what a SpringBoard is (a portal-like view of pages hung in that stirring Void), how Cells work (they are very nearly like Tabs, except they are more like thumbnails hanging out at bottom of browser)

    Note, i only said a few minutes.. but this is not mere seconds, the timeframe many expect revelation to fall upon them

    What i’m *missing* is ability to install Extensions.. i found your site trying to deal with this, since this is supposed to be a mozilla-based browser, right? But you don’t mention anything about it, though you are an Extension guru.. Interesting

    I’m finding lots of haters out there, and I’m irritated.. The usual magnified Internet sentiment (as this very comment exhibits as well)

  2. Hadn’t heard that it has been released to the public. Hmm, not being able to install extensions, reminds me of the Epiphany Browser for Linux. I could try this out, but then again I am the Firefox Extension Guru, not the Pogo Guru, so I may not be able to magically get it to work.

  3. Heck, i’m a jerk..
    I haven’t used Pogo for a couple days now, and I realize why (its very minor)..

    The search bar is screwed up. I see duplicates in there, and when I add custom sites (e.g. Urban Dictionary, etc..), it seems to get worse. Plus, they wrap Google in some AT&T usage of their API, which just ain’t as smooth as Google’s anyhow (I get irritated with the Titan Google like anyone else might, but their results certainly are getting slicker)

    Maybe they’ll fix this soon. I haven’t tried to figure out how to update it yet. I feel protective of newcomers, however.. Its tough to get a hold of turf on the interwebz..

    You have a cool site, sir 🙂

    BTW, I *was* able to install extensions into Pogo.. however, Firebug UI did not completely look right

  4. My friend and I were recently talking about how we as human beings are so hooked onto electronics. Reading this post makes me think back to that discussion we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.

    I don’t mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside… I just hope that as the price of memory drops, the possibility of downloading our memories onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It’s a fantasy that I daydream about all the time.

    (Posted on Nintendo DS running R4i DS S3)

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