The Mobile World Congress (MWC) attendees in Barcelona, Spain, witnessed the Research In Motion (RIM) co-CEO Mike Lazaridis unveil a ‘better-overall’ WebKit-powered BlackBerry browser; which will, towards the end of the year, be available as an alternative to the oft-complained-about current BlackBerry browser.

While the present browser of the BlackBerry phones has been much criticized because of its slow speed, issues with JavaScript-heavy pages and some altogether illegible Web pages; the better-performance new browser is fast as well as smooth.

In his keynote address at the MWC, Lazaridis specifically mentioned that the new, WebKit-based BlackBerry Browser – which supports HTML 5.0 and CSS3 - is not only capable of loading JavaScript much faster; but also more efficient at handling AJAX.

Supporting both BlackBerry Widgets and JIL Widgets, the WebKit browser boasts an extended functionality of the browser; underlining the potential for the creation of some new attention-grabbing “Web apps” or apps that run in the browser.

Exalting the virtues of the open source WebKit browser engine, Lazaridis told the audience at the MWC: “You’ll see how fast it downloads, how quickly it renders and how smooth it scrolls and zooms in.”

RIM will be banking on the new browser to broaden the appeal of its BlackBerry smartphones - which are highly popular among business users - to an increasing number of non-business users.