The PSP Internet browser was not originally among the programs included by Sony in the portable video game console, but was offered as an update after the PSP’s launch in 2005 to take advantage of its Wi-Fi capability. If you do not yet have the browser on your PSP, you can get it by simply downloading the program using the System Update link on the menu. Select the Update via Internet option in order to install the most recent version of the PSP firmware. To successfully install the program, your PSP will have to restart itself; you should see an Internet browser icon if the program is installed successfully.
In order to surf the web using the PSP Internet browser, you will have to use the virtual keyboard to type the URL of the site you want to visit. To make the keyboard appear, launch the browser and then press the Up button to highlight the IP address. Then push the X button to make the keyboard appear and then use the directional buttons to type in the web address. Use the left button to navigate back one page and the right button to move forward one page. The X button also allows you to open a new tab so you can visit multiple sites. To navigate between tabs, press down the upper square button, then the upper left to move back one tab and the upper right to move forward one tab.
Since the PSP also allows you to view videos, you can use the PSP Internet browser to download movies onto your console. Since the PSP itself lacks the internal memory to store video files, you will need a PSP memory stick to store these files. Once you begin saving the movie you want to view, select Video as the destination of the file. Make sure, however, that the file format is compatible with the PSP; apart from MP4s, the console also supports AVI and MNV formats.
However, limitations put in place by Sony make the PSP Internet browser make it slower than other browsers and even often runs out of memory. But you can download a custom version of the browser from Homebrew Software that uses all of the PSP’s 32/64 MB RAM so it can load pages faster and have more memory available for larger pages. You can also use Opera Mini with the PSP through PSPKVM which reportedly allows better web page capability.
You can also set security settings on your PSP Internet browser to reduce the risk of security issues by restricting how and when the console connects to the web. You can use the security settings application to set a password using the chat input function (the password has to contain more than four characters). If you want to limit access to the browser, you can enable the Internet browser start control, which prevents it from being started without a password. You can also set parental controls that would limit the UMDs that can be played on the console.