TV-Optimized web browser?

[CaptainVideo]

Does anyone know of a free web browser that can be optimized for viewing on TV? I've set IE-6 with "largest" text, but some text still appears small. Also, you frequently end up having to scroll left & right to read web pages. It is very annoying.


Thanks!

P.S. sorry about all the questions all at once. I'm not able to be online for long during the week, so I save up my questions and send them all at once.

[mikerm19]

This has been tried before with other platforms, for example the Dreamcast has a web browser. The problem is that TV's dont have the resoultion and the clarity needed to read small text, so you would have to have every webpage you want to visit made specifically with large text and formatted to meet the low resolution of a regular TV. I don't know about HDTV, but I suspect you would run into the same problem.

[jasonf]

Maybe the WebTV viewer? It's intended for checking to see how web content looks when displayed on WebTV, but you might be able to repurpose it for your needs.

http://developer.msntv.com/Tools/WebTVVwr.asp

Oh, and the reason why some text still looks small when viewed with IE in the largest font setting is because the web page designer probably used absolute font sizes instead of generic sizes.

For instance, if I assign "font-size: 8pt", then it will always be 8 point, regardless of IE's setting. However, the "appropriate" way to write a web page is to say "font-size: small". Then, "small" is just an interpretation of the current browser settings (so you can CTRL-mouse wheel through the browser font sizes to see how it changes).

[stefan]

I use opera. Then you can use +/- buttons to increase/decrease font size for each opera tab.

[CaptainVideo]

Cool! I'll try those out. Thanks! I don't plan to do any heavy duty web surfing, but it would be nice to bring up a browser suitable for viewing on TV every now and then.

[hasso]

Also try Firefox. It also has Ctrl + and - feature to make the text larger or smaller. There was also a browser used for myhtpc, which also works standalone...
http://cloud.prohosting.com/ruelweb/frontend.browser/

[nkh]

Avant browser has a zoom function aswell as the text size function. The zoom enlarges everything, so webpages doesn't get messed up, but you'll have to do alot of scrolling It's an extension/overlay for MS IE, so it's not picky about what it's showing.

http://www.avantbrowser.com