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Skyfire Browser 2.0 (beta)
Tested version: 2.0.2
Latest version: 4.1.0
Requires Android: from 2.0
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Summary
There’s been a fair amount of hype around Skyfire Webbrowser. I’ve been anticipating its release too, despite the fact that I’m totally satisfied with the Nexus One standard browser… But perhaps Skyfire will be able to top this? You’ll find out in today’s test review.
Features & Use
Although Skyfire does provide a lot of features, I’m note sure if the marketing blurb in the market, which promises that you can "play millions of Flash Videos“, is 100% true. It does play Flash Videos, but not all the time; I’m not exactly sure why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t work. I couldn’t figure it out whilst testing the app. I tried watching videos on Clipfish, MyVideo, Dailymotion, Yahoomovies, and Vimeo... with mixed results. I couldn’t watch any videos on Clipfish, and only a few on Dailymotion. Aside from that everything worked fine—provided that the video is recognized as such on the page (this allows it to play via a small pop up window in the lower half of the screen). So you have to experiment in order to find out whether Skyfire will allow you to watch videos from the site of your preference. However, as opposed to normal browsers, Skyfire does give you more options when it comes to watching Flash Videos (you can’t watch them at all with the standard browser).
Furthermore, Skyfire also provides everything you need in order to surf at your leisure. You can use several tabs, forward pages, and you can zoom in by using double click, “Pinch-to-zoom” (this doesn’t work all that well though; see “Screen & Controls” below), or the standard zoom icons.
I was impressed that you can synchronize bookmarks with the standard browser, and that if you bookmark something within Skyfire you can access it when you’re using the standard browser.
Skyfire is loads pages very fast and allows you to surf at a good speed. Like Opera Mini 5, Skyfire deviates the pages you want to open via a proxyserver, where they are adapted so that they can load rapidly. Being able to watch Flash Videos is also a result of this.
Screen & Controls
After you’ve started the app for the first time, Skyfire will access www.m.skyfire.com/android. Via the appropriate icons you will then be able to access various pages, most of them with flash videos. You’ll find a navigation bar in the upper half of the screen, into which you can insert URLs. Just next to it there’s a button with which you can interrupt or refresh the loading of pages. Directly beneath it you’ll find two icons which give you easy access to some important functions: “Back”, “Bookmark”, “Window”, and “Change display between Android, Desktop, and iPhone”. “Bookmarks” shows you your history as well. Windows are displayed as mini websites, and you can switch from one to the other by wiping your finger across the screen and then tapping it once.
The button in the upper half gives you the following options:
• Forward
• Home
• Find on page
• Select text
• Add shortcut to home
• Share Page
• Settings
• Downloads
• Report video problem
• Help
Under “Settings” you can choose whether you want the status bar to be displayed or not, as well as switch “Screentimeout” and “Toolbar” on or off. You can also access another options menu via “Browser Settings”, where you can decide what should be your welcome page, as well as whether images should be loaded, and if Javascript should be on or off.
Once you’ve accessed a website you can display the “Toolbar” via the menu button. This will give you the following options:
• Video
• Explore
• Share
"Video“ can only be activated if the video on the site can be played by Skyfire. A pop up window lets you know whether a video that you can view is available; you can switch this option off via “Enable Video Alerts” in the upper right corner if you feel you don't need it. You can play a video by clicking on the pop-up or the “Video” option; the video will then have to buffer, which means that it’s probably being accessed via the proxyserver. This can sometimes take a while.
When the video is playing you’ll see a bar that lets you know how long the video is, what part you’re at, and how much has already buffered. It isn’t possible to skip forwards or backwards, but there is a Play/Pause button in the lower left half, as well as four other buttons, two of which didn’t become active during the testing phase, so I couldn’t ever use them; probably Fullscreen and Info. The other two buttons allow you to forward a link to a video and regulate the volume.
You can zoom in by double clicking: the text is then adapted to the screen. This function works really well. You can also use “Pinch-to-zoom”, but it doesn’t work as well on the Nexus One as with the standard browser. You can also use the standard zoom icons; if you don’t need them you can disable them under “Browser Settings”.
Bottom line:
I found Skyfire to be really user-friendly. The options I’m most interested in (Bookmark, Window, and Share) are easy to access. It ran quite fast and surfing the web was effortless. I’m still not convinced by “Pinch-to-zoom”, but double clicking does the job.
Skyfire doesn’t (yet) fulfill all of its promises, but it is worth checking out if you enjoy watching flash videos—even though Skyfire may not be able to play them all.
Speed & Stability
No problems to report. I had the impression that pages were loading a bit faster then when using the standard browser.
Price/Performance Ratio
Skyfire Browser can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.
Comparable Apps
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