Microsoft on Thursday unveiled a prototype of a mobile Internet browser designed to mirror the ease of going online via a desktop computer.

"Think about your mobile browsing experience today," said Microsoft Live Labs director Gary William Flake.

"It's often less than intuitive, the pages don't look like what you've come to expect on the desktop, and it takes a long time for a page to load. Deepfish aims to solve that problem."

Instead of relying on websites being tailored for mobile devices, Deepfish captures and delivers "as-designed" views of online pages of all kinds, according to Microsoft.

Users can also zoom in or out on sections of web pages.

"All of this adds up to an easier and faster way to navigate through a page," Flake said.

Microsoft said it is releasing a Deepfish prototype to get feedback from users and that it remained to be determined when a final version might be rolled out for the public.

The company said the Deepfish technology is available for public preview on a limited, first-come first-served basis at the website http://labs.live.com/deepfish/. The software is compatible with Windows Mobile Smart Phone or Pocket PCs running Windows Mobile 5.0+.For desktop setup, NET Framework 2.0, ActiveSync 4.0+ or Windows Mobile Device Center(WMDC) for Vista is required. Note that the currently available version is a BETA, which means that itdoes not support ActiveX controls, AJAX, cookies, Javascript, and HTTP POST.

The announcement came as US Internet search titans vie for the devotion of mobile Internet users in a mushrooming market.

Google made a new mobile search engine available to the public on Tuesday, the same day that rival Yahoo enticed website publishers to enhance the "oneSearch" mobile search engine it released early this year.