Chrome might be most people's choice for browsing the web, but that doesn't mean it's the only option out there. Kiwi Browser is based on the same underlying code that powers Chrome, but it has its own unique features, including being one of the few mobile browsers to support desktop extensions on Android. The project hasn't seen many public-facing changes in the last year, but now a new release is coming down the pike.

After going on somewhat of a hiatus for the past year, Kiwi is poised to return to the frontlines of the browser wars. New commits started appearing on the project's Github page on August 31, and have continued at a steady pace. Founder Arnaud Granal confirmed that the new test builds will likely roll out to more users shortly.

Following the distressing news about Mozilla and the future of Firefox, many users began looking for alternatives like Kiwi. Maintaining an Internet browser with more than a million installs from the Play Store is no small matter, but recent interest has caused the project to pick up steam again after going completely open-source earlier this year. Though the release being tested is mostly just stability improvements and bug fixes, this is a step in the right direction for the Kiwi Browser.

And the future may have even brighter things in store. Granal and Brendan Eich, the co-founder of Mozilla and CEO of Brave, have indicated interest in teaming up and working together to make development more efficient for Chromium-based Android browsers such as Kiwi and Brave. Doing this would allow third-party browsers to integrate the latest security fixes more quickly while keeping their own unique features stable.

If you're eager to try the latest release of Kiwi (even though it might not be fully ripe yet), the APK can be downloaded from APK Mirror.

Kiwi Browser - Fast & Quiet Developer: Geometry OU
Price: Free
4.1
Download

Source: GitHub (1), (2); @BrendanEich

Thanks: Fred