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I’ve been spoiled by the iPhone. When I was using a Windows Mobile device today browsing the web with the mobile version of Internet Explorer, I was just about ready to throw the phone out the window. The experience was horrible. Then I opened the new version of Skyfire, version 0.8, which is being released today. Boy, what a difference a browser makes.

Skyfire is a third-party web browser made for Windows Mobile and more recently, Symbian devices. It offers a full web experience on smart phones using technologies such as Ajax (asynchronous JavaScript and XML).

Not only does Skyfire bring a desktop-like experience to Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, in some ways it’s superior to the web experience offered by the iPhone. For example, today I was able to watch full Flash video right from within the browser. The iPhone still doesn’t support Flash, so any site that wants their videos to play on the device must have a version ready that will also load in the iPhone’s QuickTime player (YouTube does this for example).

Even cooler, with Skyfire I was able to watch content from the popular Fox and NBC-backed online video streaming site Hulu. I also was able to watch NFL games streaming over the Internet — had any been live at the time, I could have watched them live.

Fairly intensive websites such as Facebook, also loaded quickly on Skyfire. Switching tabs on the social networks’ new interface was smooth and quick, and I could even stream media within one of the site’s applications (iLIke), just as I would on a regular computer-based web browser.

While Skyfire blows mobile Internet Explorer out of the water, its real competition is the mobile version of the Opera browser, Opera Mini. Today also brought a new entry in the form of a version of Google’s Chrome web browser built for T-Mobile’s new G1 phone running the Android platform. Given Android’s promise of openness, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a version of the Skyfire browser running on Android in the future.

Improvements found in the 0.8 version include better video quality, improved zoom capabilities and faster launching.

Alongside the 0.8 release for Windows Mobile devices, Skyfire is opening its beta program to all those who wish to test the browser out on their compatible Windows Mobile or Symbian devices. The 0.8 version of Skyfire is due for Symbian devices shortly, the company says. Go to the website to find it.

Skyfire raised a $13 million second round of funding back in May. That round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Prior to that, it had raised a $4.8 million round.

The iPhone’s Safari web browser has ignited interest in browsing the “real web” on mobile devices, but it’s not the only mobile browser out there. Skyfire lets you see the web just as you would on your home computer but on a number of Windows Mobile-based devices. Today, it’s launching the beta version of its software for the Symbian platform as well.

Specifically, this version is built for the Symbian Series 60 (S60) platform, which is used on a variety of Nokia phones. Nokia recently purchased Symbian and plans to open the platform to spur development.

Skyfire mainly competes with the mobile version of Opera, Opera Mini, but Mozilla will soon be launching a mobile version of its Firefox browser as well. Skyfire claims it has an advantage in that, of all the mobile browsers on the market today, it’s the only one that supports “all Web 2.0 standards, including full support for Flash.”

It even notes in the press release that this means you can watch YouTube clips on your phone, and even cooler, Hulu videos. Hulu is the NBC and Fox-backed online video site that lets you watch premium television and film content for free.

The first 100 readers who go to this url: http://www.skyfire.com/sign-up/symbian/step2 and use the code Vbeat, will be let into the beta program. Note that this is only for US-based phones at this time.

Skyfire raised a $13 million second round of funding back in May led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This followed an initial $4.8 million round. The company hired former Mowser cofounder Mike Rowehl to be its scalability architect last month.

Skyfire is a hot new mobile web browser that touts itself as “The PC web. On your phone.” It also touts itself as “real fast,” something which new team addition Mike Rowehl will have a hand in maintaining as the company’s scalability architect.

We last wrote about Rowehl two months ago when the mobile web browser Mowser, a company Rowehl co-founded and was chief executive of, was purchased by the Ireland-based consortium dotMobi. He stayed on for a bit to help with the transition, but now has moved on.

Rowehl, who has experience as a programmer, an entrepreneur and a blogger, will be in charge of propelling the Skyfire’s architecture and development forward. The company should have plenty of money with which to make that happen after securing a $13 million second round at the end of May.

Skyfire is competing in the mobile browser space with Opera Mini and soon Mobile Firefox. However, in practice, Skyfire may be more like Apple’s Safari browser running on the iPhone. After all, as we’ve had drilled into our brains from the commercials, the iPhone is the “real Internet,” in your pocket. If that is true, Skyfire is just a bit more real as it includes one key element that Safari does not: Adobe Flash support.

However, right now Skyfire only works on Windows Mobile devices. The plan is to add Symbian support sometime this Summer.

The software is still in private beta testing, but you can sign up to be included on the company’s site.

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Skyfire has raised a $13 million second round of funding as it ramps up its campaign in the mobile browser wars.

The Mountain View, Calif. startup’s goal, says chief executive Nitin Bhandari, is to make a browser that makes the mobile web experience as close to the PC-browsing experience as possible, rather than settling for the simplified web presented on most mobile browsers like Opera Mini. Some of that comes down to the interface: Like the iPhone’s Safari browser, Skyfire lets you see a full web page, then zoom in by touching the screen. Even more significantly, Skyfire supports web formats like Flash and AJAX that don’t work on many mobile browsers. For example, Skyfire is the only one to support the latest version of Flash, Bhandari says. And even with formats that other browsers support, Skyfire is the fastest. Jake Seid of Lightspeed Venture Partners, which led the round, says the browser is normally five to 30 times faster than the competition.

Skyfire is currently in private testing mode for smartphones with the Windows Mobile operating system. Although Bhandari describes the initial response as very positive, he says it’s too early to release any numbers to back that up.

The company plans to add compatibility with other platforms soon, starting with the Symbian operating system, and Bhandari says he wants to leave testing mode in late summer. Apple’s iPhone has been credited with leading the way in popularizing mobile web surfing, but Bhandari says Skyfire doesn’t have any immediate plans for iPhone compatibility. That makes sense, since much of Skyfire’s promise is to bring a smooth browsing experience to mobile devices that aren’t as expensive as the iPhone.

As for making money, Bhandari will only say that there are players in different “layers in the [wireless] ecosystem” that are interested in partnerships.

Seid says one of the big reasons for Lightspeed’s investment is Skyfire’s vision of allowing phone users to access “the real web” rather than a watered-down mobile web. As an example, he points to Flash video site YouTube. Although the iPhone has a special YouTube application, and there’s also a YouTube mobile site, most mobile browsers can’t run videos from the real YouTube site.

Does that mean Lightspeed is essentially betting on the desire of users to access multimedia content on their phones? Not so, Seid says, because more and more web pages in general are moving onto Flash and AJAX: “It’s not a bet on [multimedia], it’s a bet that people want to access the web, period.”

Skyfire previously raised $4.8 million from Trinity Ventures and Matrix Partners, who also participated in this round.