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May

[New App] GO Launcher Dev Team Releases Next Browser, Gives Chrome, Opera, And Dolphin A Run For Their Money

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

Android users have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to web browsers. Chrome, Dolphin, Opera, and Firefox all have their pros and cons, not to mention their fans. It's been a while since we had a promising newcomer hit the mobile browser space, but the Go Launcher Dev Team (makers of the customization-friendly GO Launcher and Next Launcher 3D, among many others) are giving it a shot. Next Browser is a free download, available now for devices running Android 2.2 and higher.

Next Browser takes bits and pieces from all the major Android browsers and mishmashes them together.

Apr

Exclusive First Look: AirDroid Version 2 Headed For The Play Store Today - Here's What You'll Find Inside

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, Exclusives, News

Even in its current and somewhat dated form, AirDroid is easily one of the best apps on the Google Play Store. The sheer flexibility and polish of the remote access tool has made it one of the first things I install on any new device. The original AirDroid is still great, but for the last few months the development team at Sand Studio has been beta testing AirDroid version 2, with a ton of new features added to its original toolset. AirDroid 2 will be live on the Play Store in a few hours - here's an exclusive preview of the final build.

Apr

Roundup: Our Top Six Favorite New Apps From March 2013

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, Roundups

Last Updated: May 13th, 2013

If you're like us, you have an obsession with new apps. When you try every new app you come across though, you're bound for disappointment. After all, not every app can be a paragon of functionality, style, and convenience. With that in mind, we go through the long list of new apps submitted to the Play Store every couple of weeks and bring you the best. Even that, though, can be a little too much to digest for some users. For that reason, we've got monthly roundups featuring just a handful of the very very best apps and games from the previous month.

Apr

Google No Longer Cares For WebKit Either, Apparently, Forking The Engine Into New Project Called 'Blink'

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Man, WebKit cannot catch a break today, can it? After Samsung announced that it would be teaming up with Mozilla to build their own mobile browser engine called Servo, Google says its planning to fork WebKit to create a new project called Blink. Unlike Servo, this one will still be based on WebKit, but this new fork actually seems to be aimed not at competing with whatever Samsung is putting out, but rather at gaining freedom from another browser: Safari.

You see, Chrome doesn't actually use the entirety of WebKit. It mainly uses what's called WebCore, which handles HTML and CSS rendering.

Mar

Chromebook Pixel Lightning Review: The Best $1300+ You Can Spend On A Web Browser

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Google, Other Reviews

Yeah, we know – it doesn't run Android, and really, it has nothing to do with Android. But it is a Google product, so by default it's at least tangentially related - call it Android's cousin. It's also Google's statement that ChromeOS is important, that it's not just some side project. It's saying that we should all pay attention. That ChromeOS is the real deal, and the Chromebook Pixel is the best experience that ChromeOS has to offer.

And what an experience it is. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill, $250 Chromebook. Far from it, in fact – the Pixel is jam-packed with some of the best hardware on the market (rivaling most Ultrabooks), and has the most beautiful display I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Mar

[New App] Opera Browser Beta, With Ground-Up Redesign And Webkit Rendering Engine, Is Live In The Play Store

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

Get those fingers ready, Opera fans: the biggest thing to happen to your favorite mobile browser in years has arrived. Opera Software announced a new and retooled version of their browser in February, and demonstrated it during Mobile World Congress. The Opera browser beta (no Mini or Mobile here, it's the "full" version a la Chrome) is live in the Play Store. It's a free download for just about any Android device, so get to it.

The biggest draw in this new release is the WebKit rendering engine, the same one used by both Chrome and the AOSP Android browser.

Feb

Your Lunch Goes Viral: Full Instagram Feeds Are Now In The Web Browser

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Since the dawn of time, people have been using the internet to share images of cats and food (and maybe some other stuff). Then something called Instagram came along that changed the way people share said images. As a social network based on pictures, everything from your bff's lunch to what your Aunt Cindy is making for dinner was only a tap, flick, and touch away. There was only one problem: Instagram was only available in the mobile space.

The Instagram team knew that people wanted pictures of food on places aside from their mobile, so they introduced the ability to see profiles from Instagram.com.

Jan

Mozilla Lays Out Feature Sneak Peeks For Firefox For Android: Private Browsing, Themes, And More Devices

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

The browser wars have seen a strange resurgence in the mobile world, as each platform brings its own-branded browser (Safari for iOS, Chrome for Android, IE for Windows Phone), and competitors see this as a new opportunity to gain more relevance after the desktop arena begins to settle. Mozilla certainly seems to think so as it starts to tease some new features it's currently working on for its Android-based Firefox app.

For starters, private browsing. It should go without saying that whether you're looking for some—*ahem*—discrete fun, or just want to check out a site without storing any personal info, this is an absolute must. No word on when it will arrive, but it will.

Dec

[Weekend Poll] What Type Of Browser Are You Using On Your Android Phone?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Polls

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see What Type Of Keyboard Are You Using On Your Android Phone?

Much like keyboards (which we covered last week), browsers are a dime a dozen. Google ships one browser with Android (in more recent versions, that's been Chrome), which most manufacturers then replace with their own proprietary version. And then there are the dozens (if not hundreds) of third-party browsers available on the Play Store.

What browser do you use on your phone? Stock Android (from before the days of Chrome as default), stock manufacturer, Chrome, or third-party?

Oct

Dolphin Browser Updated To v9.0, Adds Support For 'Jetpack,' Network Diagnostic Tool, Night Mode, And More

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

One of the most popular third-party browsers in the Play Store, Dolphin Browser, received a fairly major bump today up to version 9.0. This brings a handful of worthwhile enhancements, including support for the HTML5 rendering engine from Dolphin Beta. In this case, however, the Dolphin team has made the engine an optional addon called Jetpack instead of making it the default. So, basically, making the browser faster on HTML5 sites is optional, for whatever reason.

Aside from Jetpack, this new version also includes a built-in network diagnostic tool that can help find and solve issues on your network, as well as "night mode," which lowers the brightness while browsing in the dark, and Dolphin Connect for sync.