Disqus
Less than 3% of all the Android devices on the market run Ice Cream Sandwich. Those few and privileged people have access to what is perhaps the best Android app currently out there: Chrome. That’s right, Google ported their Chrome web browser to Android, but instead of building it into the OS, they made it a separate download. Why? Some are speculating that Google is using Chrome to force handset makers to comply with their rules so that they get access to the Android Market. That’s just speculation though, and we’ll likely never find out the true reason. Anyway, today Google has announced that there’s an update to Chrome for Android. New features include the ability to request the desktop version of a website, the ability to make a bookmark shortcut on your homescreen, you’ll be able to pick which apps get opened up when you click on a specially formatted link, such as an email address, and best of all there’s now support for over 30 new languages.
Who would have guessed, the best competitor to Android’s stock browser was made by Google themselves! We’ve been cheering Opera on for years, but for some strange reason they haven’t been getting a lot of love. Readers in India, China, Brazil, and countries where mobile data is expensive, should check out Opera because it has a “Turbo Mode” that compresses a website by as much as 90%. How? The site you request is rendered on a server farm, it then gets squeezed down, and finally Opera spits it back to your phone. It’s especially useful if you’re on an EDGE connection.
But back to the question we posed earlier, why didn’t Google simply rebrand the stock Android browser to Chrome and call it a day? Something tells us that the search giant has plans to bring their browser to other platforms, though we can’t think of another smartphone OS that allows for alternative browsers that use completely different rendering engines.
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
