Amazon has quietly launched a web browser of its own for Android smartphones, in India. The company didn’t make any public announcements, but the app has been available on Google Play Store since March. The browser has a rather generic name of: “Internet: fast, lite and private,” and comes in at just 2MB.
Amazon Internet Browser: Fast, Lite and Private
As the tagline of the browser suggests, the app is a lightweight browser designed to minimize data use, and place less stress on a phone’s internal storage. The browser weighs less than 2 MB in size and eats up just 26MB of storage space on your phone.
Similar to any other web browsers including Google Chrome, Amazon’s Internet also comes with a home page that has an integrated “trending news” section. The stories range from entertainment to current events and sports, with a focus on cricket updates. Besides this, the homepage also has links to popular sites in the country, including Amazon, Cricbuzz, Facebook, Twitter and BookMyShow.
Interestingly, the browser also supports private mode, that doesn’t save browser history. It also offers tab previews and enables an automatic fullscreen mode. The browser’s Google Play description also notes that it’s “private,” which essentially means it doesn’t ask for extra permissions or collect private data that many other browsers do. It comes with a download manager, and a search engine as well.
As for the performance, the browser runs fine on every compatible device, from entry-level phones to high-end flagships. Amazon’s Internet would’ve been the ideal browser for the Android Go phones. However, it isn’t yet compatible with Android Go, but it should in the near future.
The Google Play listing of the app shows that it works with Android 5.0 and above in India. However, I wasn’t able to install the app from the Play store on a few devices running Android 5.1, Android 7.0 and Android 7.1. It seems like some error on Amazon’s part in enabling support for the browser. Hopefully, we’ll see an official announcement from Amazon India soon, with all the necessary fixes and compatibility extended to Android Go as well.
You can download the app from Google Play by clicking here.
