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The ten best PSP web browser friendly sites

Well, it's not as if you're using Sony's handheld to play the latest games, is it?

The ten best PSP web browser friendly sites
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PSP

After hearing about the new PSP firmware 4.0, complete with its integrated Google Search function accessible from the XMB, we got to thinking about the last time we used our PSP internet browser.

As it turns out, it was back in the dark ages when web 2.0 didn't even yet classify as an annoying soundbite and Facebook was merely a bizarre paring of words rather than a means of distributing unrealistically flattering photos of yourself. Thinking about it, maybe those ages weren't that dark.

Anyway, cue a light bulb going off in our heads followed by a weekend frittered away swanning about on the net via our PSP. After a gruelling session of playing flash games, laughing at cats and, er, researching adult sites, a Top 10 was hastily thrust into existence.

So here, and in no particular order, are ten PSP browser friendly sites that are worth booting up your handheld for.

The ten best PSP web browser sites

Facebook

Not that this needs much of an introduction but it's good to know that the social networking site of choice is PSP compatible. Sadly, none of the flash games that are popular on the full version of Facebook work on the PSP's browser, but you can still stay up to date with former university colleagues you'd forgotten you'd once known with some of the site's more basic functions, such as messaging and checking your friends' pages for updates. See our How To use Facebook on PSP guide more more.

http://m.facebook.com

CAT Dynamics

The casual gaming, comic and flash animation site, NewGrounds, had a great little PSP site that disappeared into a puff of smoke unexpectedly a while back. Hopefully it will be resurrected one day, but until hat happens this site about cats is a very amusing little stop gap. It's essentially an off-the-wall variant of the popular lolcats format (internet geeks stand and be counted) purporting to be all about helping cats in need and then proceeding to suggest a series of insane cybernetic body modifications. In many ways it's a passing fancy but it's beautifully designed and very funny, so well worth a bookmark.

www.newgrounds.com/cat

Mobile Station

This one is a strange beast. It comes over as a Sony experiment to release an official PSP browser portal, but it is a bit austere and the usual Sony flash and bang is nowhere to be seen. That said, it does have one of the best collection of news links from the likes of Sky News and the BBC, all of which are formatted perfectly for the PSP. It also offers a handful of direct download PSP content such as themes, wallpapers and game add-ons – all at a blistering pace, too. This is one to watch, hopefully, but you could encourage its growth by giving it a bookmark and making good use of it.

http://mobile.station.sony.com

The PSP Demo Centre

Fitted perfectly to the PSP's browser and designed to load super fast, even before you reach the PSP Demo Centre's wealth of downloadable content, the site is impressive. As for the demos themselves, all of the titles which are not hosted on the official PSP Store can be downloaded directly and though you will need to sift through a good deal of Japanese and Chinese titles, the list is nothing if not comprehensive. A must-visit for any PSP owner within range of a wireless hotspot. See our guide for more on how to download PSP demos.

www.pspdemocenter.com

eBuddy

This could well be the handiest of all the PSP sites on this list. It doesn't look like much but ebuddy brings together all of the most popular web based instant messaging clients in one place, all in a PSP-specific format. It includes MSN mobile, AIM mobile, Yahoo mobile and Google Talk mobile; if you don't use one at least of the above then chances are you don't even know what a PSP is.

www.ebuddy.com

photobucket

The PSP is a pretty nifty device for storing and looking at photos with, what with its enormous screen. Unlike mobiles, however, there aren't many wireless blogging options available for Sony's handheld, which is where photobucket comes in. The site is effectively a flickr clone, but allows you to upload images directly from your PSP to your account. The really clever bit is that once you have uploaded your photos, you can sync your account with any of your other social networking/personal blogging sites so that your photos are automatically added to your facebook, myspace, TypePad or whatever. We know what you're thinking: "Maybe the Go!Cam wasn't such a frivolous purchase after all"'. Us too.

www.photobucket.com

WORLDview

It's not about to challenge Google Maps anytime soon but if you just want some very quick details on every country in the world using your PSP, then WORLDview is the place to go. The site contains simple info such as dialing codes, currency, capital cities, time zones and emergency service numbers, as well as links to photos of each place. The site is still in beta so hopefully more features will be added to what is already an impressive start over time.

www.longfingers.com/psp/details.php

PSPonme

If it's flash games you are after, then really the only place you ought to go is PSPonme (which sounds a little rude if you say it aloud). The site houses a reasonable quantity of flash games, all playable using the PSP browser, most of which have a darkly comic or just plain daft tone. One of the games we tried, Road Rage, had us driving an old bus into cows to score points, which even in the crude graphical language of flash is quite a spectacle. The site also contains a host of useful links and has been crafted to load super quick on the PSP.

www.PSPonme.com

iPSP As much as we love the very practical XMB, we've often wondered how sexy the iPhone interface would look on the PSP's luxuriously large screen. The iPSP portal delivers on just such a whimsy and though the functionality is stunted in comparison to a real iPhone (you can't make calls for a start) it is still a charming little distraction with nice icon-led links to things like Digg, an online calculator and various other iPhone copycat online workarounds, making it well worth a bookmark. In order to run the portal you need to save a few files to the COMMON folder of your PSP but fret not, it is completely legal, there's no homebrew tomfoolery involved and the iPSP home site provides decent instructions on how to get the whole thing up and running.

http://ipsp.fluidmarkup.com

Download PSP Porn

Right. We would never use our PSP to look at pictures of naked ladies on the internet. Obviously. But we hear that it's quite a draw among many folk out there, so we selflessly poured hours of research into finding the best PSP tailored porn site (there's nothing we wouldn't do for you, dear readers). To be honest, our search wasn't terribly fruitful and what we did find isn't exactly a seamless experience, but it's the best of the bunch. So if you are a purveyor of digital porn, then the cryptically named Download PSP Porn, which is full of links, pics and generally filthy behaviour, is for you.

www.downloadpspporn.com Learn how to do more with your PSP with our PSP How To guides.