Android and Me » android browser

Goodbye old Browser, Chrome to become the standard browser on Android 4.0 and above

Taylor Wimberly — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:42:16 +0000

We saw it coming, but Chrome for Android is the biggest news for Google’s mobile platform this year. It signals that Android will be around for a long time, but we might also look back on today as the day that native operating systems began to die and web operating systems started to take over.

The future of connected devices, the Internet of everything, is when our smartphones and tablets will boot to the web. Google has their own project for this called Chromium OS that targets the desktop, while others like Mozilla are already targeting mobile devices with their Boot to Gecko (B2G) project, the standalone operating system for the open web on mobile.

Their shared mission is rather simple. They believe the open web can displace proprietary, single-vendor stacks (Android, iOS, WP7, etc) for application development. There are still gaps that prevent web developers from being able to build apps that are the equals of native apps, but that is slowly changing. Mozilla plans to announce significant updates to their Boot to Gecko project during Mobile World Congress, so prepare to be surprised.

Back to today’s announcement, Chrome for Android is not a simplified version of Chrome or Chrome-lite. It is the full blow multi-process desktop browser, applied to the Android activity model for small devices. That includes things like advanced HTML5 features, GPU accelerated rendering, and Google’s V8 JavaScript engine optimized for Android.

“You should have your Chrome experience wherever you are,” says Arnaud Weber, Engineering Manager at Google.

Chrome for Android is based on Google Chrome version 16.0.915.75, one that is newer than the latest stable release for personal computers. Because Chrome for Android is pretty much the same browser that we see on desktops, we should expect updates from Google every six to eight weeks.

For example since Google released Android 4.0, they have also shipped Chrome 15 and Chrome 16 to desktops. Chrome 17 should be available in the coming weeks.

When the news broke this morning we were uncertain what this meant for the default Android Browser, but now its fate might be written on the wall. A Google spokeswoman told Computer World that ”Right now, our focus is on making Chrome for Android Beta available to Android 4.0 phone/tablet users to gather initial feedback…. [But] our long-term plan is for Chrome to become the standard browser on Android 4.0 and above.”

Mobile devices running Android 3.x and lower might never see Chrome. Right now users with Android 4.0 can install Chrome without replacing the stock Android Browser, but Google hinted that this might change in the coming months. A Google spokeswoman said, “It currently does not replace your Android Browser.”

Thinking along those same lines, we can also say that Chrome OS does not currently replace the Android OS, but it sure feels like that is where Google is going. Android is the glue that fills the gap until Chromium OS is ready for mobile devices. I believe Google has had this vision for quite some time, but the technology was not advanced enough to achieve that goal. Back in 2009, we thought that Google would abandon native Android apps in favor of web apps, but that obviously didn’t happen.

Now that companies like Google and Mozilla are filling in the gaps of the open web, we could see a true web operating system sooner than we think. Heck we could see a mobile device that boots to the web this month, but I think the actual transition of consumer devices will be much slower since the wireless carriers own everything and they hate changes that make them lose control.

But yeah, Chrome for Android is pretty awesome right now. I’m excited to see where this goes.

Microsoft is giving Android users a taste of WP7 right through their browser

Dustin Earley — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:22:00 +0000

We already know Microsoft makes more money from Android phones (thanks to patent licensing deals) than their own Windows Phone OS, but the Redmond-based company is taking the way they use Android to the next level today. They’re giving Android users a taste of WP7 without ever having to leave the comfort of their browser.

That’s right, by simply going to aka.ms/wpdemo from your Android (or iOS) browser, users are greeted with a somewhat functioning, rather smooth Windows Phone emulator. None of the apps actually work, but you can poke around through a guided tour to get a feel for what it’s like to use Windows Phone.

At this point, you may be wondering why Microsoft would do such a thing. Well the answer is relatively simple. They figure that if more people can get their hands on a Windows Phone device, without ever having to use a Windows Phone device, more people will end up seeing the light and making the switch. While I can see the sense in this theory, I don’t imagine it working. But I do see something else working.

Next time your Android-using buddy is away from his or her phone, load up the emulator as a practical joke. See just how mad they get when they find out their Android phone has somehow changed into Windows Phone. I know I wouldn’t be too happy.

Google Chrome is finally coming to an Android device near you

Alberto Vildosola — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:22:47 +0000

September of 2008 was a pretty busy month for Google. The company released, not one, but two very important products in that month: Android and Chrome. The former was supposed to unify the mobile world under one platform, while the latter’s job was to push the web forward. Today, Android owns most of the smartphone market while Chrome is about to take second place away from Mozilla Firefox.

Believe it or not, both of these products got to where they are today with almost no interaction between the teams behind them. On the contrary, there were times when it seemed like they were competing with each other for the future of personal computing. But that’s all about to change. According to a post on the Chromium Code website, Google Chrome for Android is right around the corner.

The Chromium revision log indicates that Chrome for Android will include most of the features that its desktop counterpart currently has, something that I’m sure will make some of you very happy. The app will also support the Skia 2D graphics library that Google has been working on. And that’s about everything we know at this point. However, I’m sure we’ll get more details over the coming days and weeks.

As you might remember, Google has something big planned for October 11 and I won’t be surprised if Chrome for Android makes an appearance. The company might even surprise us with things like a Chrome Web Store for Android devices. That will surely turn some heads.

We’d love to hear your opinion about all of this, so let us know in the comments. Do you think the app will be available through the Market or come pre-installed? Are you excited about having the Chrome Web Store on your phone or is it more of a “meh” feature? And most importantly, will you dump your current browser for Chrome?

Android port of Chromium in the works; Chrome for Android could be next

Dustin Earley — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:41:19 +0000

One of the biggest unanswered questions in the Android development world is “where’s Chrome?” Google has made huge strides in web development attached to the Chrome name, some of which Android’s “Browser” has not been a part. Thanks to a bonafide Android port of Chromium, that’s about to change.

Supporting Chromium on Android will bring many advantages for both users and developers alike. Not only will Android more swiftly benefit from the changes made to the project by the open source community, but bugs between browsers will eventually become nonexistent. Andrei Popescu of Google has used the WebKit developer website to announce Google’s new commitment to the open sourced project:

A while ago, we started the effort to upstream the Android port of WebKit. For a variety of reasons, this work took longer than anticipated and was never finished... Over time, the Android Browser has come to share more and more code with Chrome (both WebKit and Chromium). This approach has a number of advantages for the WebKit community... We plan to start by setting up a webkit.org build bot that will compile Chromium’s DRT for Android using the Android NDK, SDK and toolchain. We anticipate a reasonably small set of changes to the Chromium port to achieve this. We’re fully committed to maintaining this new flavor of the Chromium port of WebKit and having a build bot up and running as soon as possible will make this an easier task.Andrei PopescuGoogle

Essentially, it seems Google will be involved with developing two different versions of Android’s Browser for now: Browser and Chromium for Android. Eventually, however, the two may merge as one. If that merger is ever made complete, Android’s browser will most likely transition to Chrome for Android. Google wouldn’t comment on any specific branding, but with the way Google TV and Honeycomb’s browsers have turned out, Chrome for phones seems destined to be. Which brings us to the million dollar question.

Will Ice Cream Sandwich bring Chrome to Android? It may be a little early to assume that, but don’t be too surprised if it happens sooner rather than later.

Mozilla Launches Firefox 4 for Android, mobile browser war heats up

Clark Wimberly — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:03:14 +0000

Today must be the day for major app launches, or something. Mozilla just officially dropped Firefox for Android in the Market, available for download now.

The mobile version of Firefox includes a lot of the bells and whistles we know from the desktop version, like tabbed browsing, add-ons, themes, and bookmark syncing. Well- bookmark syncing might not be a fair title. They call it Firefox Sync, which provides seamless and secure access to personal data across desktop and mobile devices, including browsing history, bookmarks, open tabs, form data and passwords.

They’re also boasting a speed boost, saying, “Firefox is up to three times faster than the stock browser on Android.” Which, at this point, is something I’ve yet to experience for myself. I’ve tried Firefox a few times through the develop process and found it pretty clunky. And while the version I tried today seemed a bit snappier, overall it still felt a bit cumbersome. As I downloaded it I thought I should test this browser out all day. But after literally a few minutes I was running back to my trusty Dolphin HD [or insert your preferred browser here, I'm not here to argue the details].

Firefox Mozilla MARKET QR POWERED BY APPAWARE

If you want some more Firefoxiness, you can find the market link and QR code above, or check out the handful of screens and video below.

Quick update: I’ve also noticed our site doesn’t load the mobile version when using Firefox, which I assume means they’ve not included “Android” in their user agent string. I’ll look into it later today and try to push a fix to make sure Firefox users and getting served the correct version of the site.

Samsung Tab video series: Browsing the web

Clark Wimberly — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:40:58 +0000

Instead of rushing out a written review, we thought it’d be fun to do some incremental videos highlighting the main features and interesting bits we’d discovered in our daily use of the Tab.

We’re going to start with what we seem to be using this thing for the most: browsing the web. Check out the video below or read on for more details…

For the most part, browsing on the Samsung Galaxy Tab is an awesome experience. The 7.0 inch TFT-LCD looks simply gorgeous running at 1024×600- text looks crisp, images render huge- it’s a browser’s delight.

Aside from the extra screen real estate (although that really is the key selling point here), the stock Tab browser has a couple of trick features up its sleeve. It’s got a separate brightness control from the device itself, which would be pretty handy when doing a large amount of screen reading. The favorites menu pops in nicely and combines with “Most Viewed” and a history tab for easy navigating. The multi-window view, while not as handy as tabbed browsing, is still pretty slick and totally useful.

The Tab also scores big points for replacing (or supplementing, at least) the default system fonts, Droid Sans and Droid Serif. I can’t even put into words how sick I am of seeing all type rendered in the same two (mediocre) fonts. That’s probably a nerd problem but clearly someone at Samsung was thinking the same thing.

One drawback of browsing on the Tab and its gigantic screen is mobile sites no longer seem appropriate, yet most major sites are still serving them (ourselves included). With a screen this large, being served the mobile site sometimes feels like a disservice and I’m really surprised Samsung didn’t build in an easy mobile/desktop agent switch. I had some success with Dolphin Browser HD, but even it sometimes isn’t able to access the desktop versions of my favorite sites. Don’t get me wrong- it’s a minor annoyance and it mostly lays in the hands of website developers- I’m simply saying I wanted even more of the full web on my Tab.

The Tab is also sporting Adobe Flash 10.1, allowing in-line video playback and the like. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: while Flash isn’t a necessity, it sure is nice to have. Yes, it can load slowly. Yes, it can get clunky. But the bottom line is my device can still access the content, and that’s my main concern when browsing the web. During our tests we hit a number of heavy desktop sites and the Tab was able to render most of them with a passing score.

The Verdict

All things considered, I’d say the Samsung Tab offers one of the best Android-powered web browsing experiences to date. When browsing mobile sites, the stock browser is beyond speedy. When viewing desktop sites, things look awesome. When viewing a Flash heavy site, the Tab makes do. The text is crisp and perfect for reading. The UI is clean and extremely easy to use.

The only downside is the Tab has alerted me to an entire new segment of devices I’ll actually have to code for: Android tablets that don’t suck.

PS: Big thanks to @bigkeivan for the video assist.

Firefox 4 Beta for Android now available, faster and sleeker

Taylor Wimberly — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:04:41 +0000

Today Mozilla announced the new Firefox 4 Beta for mobile devices which is now available to download for Android. Based on our site analytics, Google’s Chrome browser is the top choice for our readers, but Firefox comes in at a close 2nd so I’m sure many will want to check this out.

The latest Firefox 4 Beta for mobile includes a 60% install size reduction on Android (from around 43 MB to 17 MB), reduces memory usage, and improves text rendering. Mozilla has also made quite a few UI improvements, which has undergone an overhaul to include an Android-inspired theme.

Things will continue to improve as the Mozilla team nears the final release. Currently they are working to add hardware acceleration to make scrolling and zooming even faster and will enable HTML5 video to “bring a more rich browsing experience to your phone”.

Mozilla is also encouraging developers to begin building add-ons for Firefox 4 Beta for mobile. If you want to get involved with the beta release visit the official project page.

This update of Firefox 4 Beta for mobile is smaller, sleeker and faster with:

a 60% smaller install size
a new theme with a fresh look and new features for tabbed browsing and link sharing
optimizations that make it around 25% faster on the SunSpider Javascript benchmark than the stock browser on Android 2.2

Speed Tests: Benchmarking the Android browsers

Nick Gray — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:36:11 +0000

With an open ecosystem and unrestricted market, consumers always benefit by having the option to choose which product they want to use. One of the best examples of this is the number of web browsers available to consumers on the Android Market. Yes, many of them have unique features that give each of them a small advantage over the competition, but I’m sure we can all agree that speed is one of the main concerns for most of us.

To help us sort everything out, PC World has pitted some of the most popular Android web browsers against each other to see which one rises to the top. To be honest, the results should not be shocking to most of you who have used other browsers than Google’s stock option, but we were a little taken aback by the fact that Skyfire 2.0 did take the number one spot.

If you have never tested out any of the browsers features in PC World’s test, we’d highly recommend you head on over to the Android Market and give a few of them a try. Skyfire 2.0, Opera Mini, and Dolphin HD all offer a pretty unique browsing experience that you simply don’t get with Google’s stock browser.

We’d be interested to hear which browser you use on a regular basis. Leave us a note in the comments to let us know which is number one on your Android phone.

Opera Mini for Android updates to 5.1, sheds beta tag

Anthony Domanico — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:35:59 +0000

Back in March, Opera released a beta version of their Opera Mini browser for the Android platform. I like several thousand other Android users, was very eager to try Opera out to see how it stacked up against the stock browser and other browser alternatives. Though webpages seemed to load very quickly in Opera Mini, I was fairly unimpressed by the overall Opera Mini experience.

Earlier this morning, Opera has announced that it is upgrading the Opera Mini browser to version 5.1, and is getting rid of the beta tag suggesting Opera may be ready for prime time. Time will tell how it stacks up against the mass of other products out there, but this time around Opera seems to be trying to actively set itself apart from the competition.

Recognizing the trend in the cell phone industry to move away from unlimited data plans (looking at you AT&T and Verizon) and toward tiered plans, Opera is touting the fact that its compression technology delivers websites quicker and can reduce data costs by up to 90%. This may be good enough to convince some of those Android users who are or will soon be on tiered data plans to give Opera Mini a closer look.

So what’s new in Opera 5.1 you may ask? Well, the Opera Mini blog reveals the following enhancements:

96 languages are now supported in the user interface.
Improved page layout on high-resolution screens.
Improved kinetic scrolling.
Opera Mini can now be set as the default browser.
Automatically save browsing sessions if Opera Mini is killed by the system while in the background. Your session is restored if Opera is re-opened within 60 minutes.
Full-screen now uses the whole screen.

If you’re looking for a browser to replace the stock Android browser, I’d encourage you to give Opera Mini 5.1 a shot. Already trying Opera Mini 5.1 out? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Skyfire 2.0 opens up a world of Flash video for Android

Taylor Wimberly — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:56:08 +0000

After a short alpha testing period, Skyfire 2.0 is now available in the Android Market as a public beta. This alternative browser is unique because it offers the ability to play some Flash videos (sorry, no Hulu). Cool features include the SkyBar which automatically detects video, searches for recommendations, and allows you to easily share content with your friends.

Grab the beta now and check out your favorite site with Flash video. Skyfire already plays millions of videos and it is learning new sites every day.

Highlights of Skyfire 2.0 beta include:

VIDEO: magically offers up videos that appear as broken links on all other mobile browsers, enabling Flash video to play quickly and smoothly.
EXPLORE: reads your mind and presents smart recommendations for related media content from sources such as YouTube, Twitter, Google, Digg and more.
SHARE: makes browsing social, with one-click share features to help you get the word out.
Supports Flash web video with patent-pending adaptive streaming technology for smooth playback
Pinch to zoom (on Android 2.0 and above)
Multi-tab browsing – open up to eight windows and browse simultaneously using visual tabs
Choose to load full desktop webpages or mobile optimized versions
Clear session history easily upon exit to maintain anonymous browsing