Google Chrome to Phone

Summary

Are you ever in a situation where you don’t want to use your phone to send a text message? Or else that you would prefer to watch a YouTube video on your phone’s display rather than on your computer? All you have to do is send the contents of your browser to your phone.

Is this something to get excited about, or just another stupid app that nobody gives a hoot about? That’s what we’re out to discover in today’s test.
 

The principle behind the whole thing is relatively simple, so there’s not that much left to explain. Your browser offers a so-called Extension which makes it possible to send the current contents of your browser to your phone.

This is possible thanks to a Cloud: the content is sent to a Google server which in turn sends it directly to your Android phone. The app ChrometoPhone has to be installed, of course. You then have to log into your Google account on your browser as well as in the app so that the server knows which browser content to connect to which device.

That’s all there is to it, in theory. But does it really work that way?

I honestly have to say that I was taken aback by how well the system works. You send a page from your browser to your phone, and the app opens up your phone browser and displays the page. It’s as simple as that. If you send YouTube/Google Map links to your phone it automatically opens up your YouTube/Google Maps app.

I find that more integrated apps, e.g. Facebook, Amazon, etc. wouldn’t be amiss. It would be cool if it opened up the apps for Facebook/Amazon, etc. just as it does for YouTube and Google Maps. Maybe the developers will make adjustments in the future.

What I’m most impressed with is that you can send the text to your phone’s buffer. All you have to do is highlight the text and then press Send to Phone via right mouse click. This makes sending text messages really easy.

Bottom line:
Excellent concept! It would be great to see more apps being supported, though.
 

Controls are kept pretty simple. One button in the upper part of the menu suffices.

You do have to install the Extentions first:

• for Google Chrome
• for Firefox

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find Extensions for the other big browsers like Internet Explorer or Safari, so if you happen to come across one please do let us know in the comments section!

Bottom line:
Awesome!
 

Speed? Woah, this really knocked my socks off. I thought I’d have to wait for ages, but no! The text appears on the phone’s display within seconds.

And nothing to complain about as far as stability goes, either.

Bottom line:
Runs quickly and smoothly. Google shows us how it’s done.
 

ChrometoPhone can be downloaded free of charge from the Android Market.

The Extensions are also free.