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For many months, AvantGo Inc. has been working to make its flagship application compatible with Palm OS 5. This week, the company announced a final version that offers this and other enhancements.

The company has had a public beta program since the end of last year. While early betas were quite buggy, later ones became increasingly stable.

Actually, most of those who were taking part in the beta program probably already have the final version, even if they don't know it. AvantGo 5.2 build 83, which it released as a beta on May 14, has been given the final stamp of approval and made the "official" version.

For those who don't already have it, the latest version of the AvantGo client app can be downloaded from the company's website.

This version offers some substantial changes from earlier ones. The most obvious of these is support for Palm OS 5. It also now supports the 320-by-320 pixel resolution and 320-by-480 pixel screens on Sony's NX series. In addition, users now have the option to store their data files on a memory card, rather than in RAM, though this runs a bit slowly.

Though it is probably the most widely-used offline viewer of Web content, AvantGo can also be used as a regular Web browser on those handhelds with some kind of wireless connection to the Internet. The new version adds the ability to store bookmarks.

This version works only on Palm OS 5 devices. At this time there is only a Windows version.

AvantGo, which was a struggling small company for most of its existence, was acquired late last year by Sybase.

Related Links

• Download AvantGo 5.2 build 83 (EXE)
• Struggling AvantGo Acquired by Sybase