The mobile browser is similar to your computer browser in that it can be used for a wide range of activities such as search, information access, and entertainment, including downloading applications and content to your phone. In fact, according to the leading mobile industry research firm M:Metrics, people most commonly use their mobile browsers for these activities:

- Search: Find and look for information; such as an address, directions, traffic information, news stories, movie listings, restaurants, recipes, and more. Find information about a company or product by going on the mobile Web to Google or Yahoo! directly from your phone.

- Community or finding dates: The mobile phone is a personal device, and more and more people are using it to stay in touch and interact with their social networks when away from the computer. Access your Facebook or MySpace services from your mobile browser.

- Accessing financial accounts: With banking and stock trading online, you can now access your accounts, balances, transfer funds, trade stocks and more by using your mobile phone. You can even locate the nearest ATM to get cash, for example.

- Browsing news and information: Read the latest headlines or current events articles, and keep up on entertainment news and your favorite humor columns and comics. Track information about your finances, travel plans, personal health, horoscope, sports, and weather forecasts. CNN, BusinessWeek and Fox News keep you updated on the move from their mobile Web sites.

- Shopping: From made-for-mobile shopping sites, product and service comparison shopping services, and even virtual shopping malls, the mobile Web brings it all to you where ever you are. Mainstream Internet shopping sites, such as eBay, Amazon, and more are going mobile.

- Messaging: Send personalized business e-mail, swap instant messages, send text messages and multimedia messages, and maintain your social networking site from anywhere you are in wireless carrier coverage. Windows Live Mail, Gmail, and related services accessed from your mobile browser are quite similar to your Web mail.

- Downloading digital content: Check out top-rated made-for-mobile graphics, ringtones, games, music, and video files on the fly. All available from your wireless carrier’s mobile Web site from entertainment providers, such as Universal Music, MTV, EA, CBS, or from a third-party content provider unaffiliated with the carrier.

Although the mobile phone browser is similar to your Internet browser in concept, in practice it has some stark differences. For the time being, don’t expect to find the same rich, interactive experiences on your mobile phone browser as you do on your Internet browser, because of their differences in these areas:

- Language: Your mobile phone browser doesn’t always speak the same languages as your Internet browser, so you can’t view nearly as many Web sites on a mobile phone. (See the nearby sidebar, “The language of Internet browsers” for details.)

- Power capability: Your mobile phone isn’t as powerful as your computer in terms of processing capabilities and memory.

- Screen size: Your mobile phone’s screen is much smaller than your computer screen.

- Input devices: The keyboard and input methods tend to be quite different.

- Network bandwidth: The data speed varies greatly across different wireless carrier networks.

Because of these differences, not all Internet-based Web sites can be viewed on your mobile phone, and you’ll have a different Internet experience on your mobile phone than the one you have on your computer.

The best way to check how a Web site (either Internet or made-for-mobile) will look on a mobile phone is by using the excellent, free service that the dotMobi company offers at http://ready.mobi. Simply enter any Internet or mobile Web site URL (mifd. mobi, or for a better example to see Internet and mobile Web site differences try www.bmw.com and then bmw.mobi), and you’ll receive a full report on how the Web site will work on a mobile phone browser. The site also gives you a full report on the estimated costs associated with surfing the site from your mobile phone.