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Skyfire’s just issued a press release letting us know that version 4.0 of their browser is in the works. We haven’t gotten a look at it yet, but we’re told it’ll be a significant upgrade and will change the experience just as much as version 3.0 did. That version added better social networking integration and tightened the experience up.
What we can confirm is that it’ll have a whole new look. We also imagine there’ll be new tablet-specific features and layout changes for the now-available Honeycomb platform. Skyfire announced that new pricing models would be introduced alongside the upgrade, but had nothing further to announce.
Don’t fret if you already have the browser installed, though: those who have been using Skyfire since 3.0 and earlier will get the upgrade for free no matter what. Read on for full press details.
Skyfire Preparing Major Update for Their Popular Android Browser with New Features and Pricing Model
Skyfire focused on bringing greater personalization and customization to the Android browsing experience.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (March 10th, 2011) – Skyfire, the company that brought you the most innovative smartphone application of 2010, is at it again in 2011. The red-hot Skyfire mobile browser on Android is about to get a whole new look, pricing model and killer features.
Skyfire for Android is one of the most popular applications in the Android Marketplace and has seen over 2.5 million downloads since launching in April 2010. The mobile browser was upgraded to critical acclaim in November 2010 with integrated social media and Facebook capabilities. This latest update will continue to build on Skyfire’s strong track record of innovation.
The company is expecting to announce Skyfire for Android version 4.0 in the coming weeks. All existing features will remain free to the 2.5 million beta testers across the globe and these users will continue to receive Skyfire’s innovative updates moving forward in gratitude for their help and support in the launch of the product.
Download Skyfire 3.0 for Android today: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.skyfire.browser
About Skyfire:Skyfire is dedicated to using cloud computing to improve multimedia experiences on mobile phones, and has created the first “Compression as a Service” (CAAS) offering for wireless carriers and device makers. Skyfire’s technology has been visible to consumers through the Skyfire browser app, which has enabled Skyfire to refine its technology with millions of users.
The app was named the #2 App of All-Time for Android by TechCrunch, and was the top pick in a PC World September 2010 comparison of all Android browsers. Skyfire won the Best Mobile Application-People’s Voice at the 2009 Webby Awards and was named a Top App of 2009 by the New York Times’ Gadgetwise. Skyfire’s iPhone browser, launched in November 2010, quickly reached the top selling app rank on the Apple App StoreSM, as the first way for iOS users to access videos designed for the Adobe Flash PlayerTM. Skyfire was recently recognized by Light Reading as the #4 StartUp to watch in 2011.
Skyfire is based in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. For more information, visit www.skyfire.com, or follow Skyfire on Twitter at twitter.com/skyfire.
Meh, Skyfire will still be Skyfire though… Not as fast as Dolphin Mini in any way…
I definitely prefer Miren browser over anything else.
waiting for firefox to get cleaned up
personally I found dolphin annoying and not visually appealing
Personally I’m waiting for IE9 for Android.
Speed is what matters most to the majority of people which means sticking with stock as it still is undeniably the fastest browser, with miren coming in a close second and dolphin mini coming in a close third.
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For me miren has a few more features that have enticed me enough to make the switch, but you’ll never catch me on some slow, full featured browser like skyfire or dolphin hd
Dolphin / Miren / Xscope – the browsers to beat. Sorry Skyfire you were a stepping stone to Froyo. Now that Flash is out and runs relatively well on the above browsers, I have no need for your services anymore unless of course you decide to support the official Flash plug in. Maybe the iPhone boys will be more interested.
I like opera mini but that’s probably me being 1 out of 100 though
yeah, haven’t tried Miren but most everything else. Xscope is still my browser of choice and kwest you probably haven’t tried it or you would realize it was just as fast the stock.
skyfire’s popularity shows that Apple made a mistake by not having Flash. Now they won’t use safari.
Dolphin HD FTW. I can use my volume rocker to switch between tabs. That sweet.
I just installed Dolphin HD on my Inspire yesterday and love it. The only other browser I’ve tried besides stock is FF. Does Xscope or Miren support gestures? I’m loving that!
@John,
You really should take a browser for a cell phone more personally.
Its like Skyfire took a shit in your living room.
John time to get out of the basement and maybe GASP talk to a female other than the Google Voice voice.
LOL @ SEAN!
Good one!
That made my crappy last hour much better!
Cheers!
@Bobert
Is Skyfire your girl or something? Sorry I dissed her man, LOL!!
@joshua, on the contrary actually, I’ve tried miren, xscope, dolphin mini, dolphin hd, skyfire and obviously stock (i may be forgetting one….)
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I have a friend who also owns a droid x and we ran side by side tests (quite exhaustive ones I may add).
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In terms of overall load speed stock was never dethroned (although it wasn’t always the first to partially render a page)
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For a short time (before miren and dolphin mini, xscope did hold second place. Then the aforementioned two hit the scene and for a while dolphin mini held #2. Now it’s held by miren with dolphin mini (3rd) sitting just in front of xscope (4th).
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@joshua, Please don’t make presumptions about what others have or haven’t done just to attempt to make your favorite piece of software sound like the king. I’m not offering my testing as the be all end all (or even conclusive results), but it’s annoying to have sometime step in and attempt to completely devalue what I’ve said by using (incorrect) presumptions as a weapon of sorts.
@kwestq12
I’ve found the stock browser to be quite inconsistent in terms of speed. Some pages it loaded quickly and some it seemed to get stuck on. It was also inconsistent in terms of rendering mobile vs desktop pages even with the hidden user agent set to display in only desktop mode. It also wasn’t as accurate when it came to page / text fitment and fell short compared to the others more often than not.
For Flash playback smoothness, I have yet to find another browser to match Dolphin. Stock is not bad but but is not quite up to the others in terms of smoothness IMO. Xscope and Miren comes close but video playback can still be a little jittery at times.
Between Xscope, Miren and Dolphin it’s difficult to tell which is faster as they all at times seem faster than the other. However as much as I like to experiment with each, I always find myself coming back to Dolpin Mini.
These are just my own observations which may differ based on my usage habits so take it as just that.
jittery in those browsers.
We’ll I’m going to eat some crow regarding the stock browser on the Galaxy TAB. For whatever reason it seems quicker than on my droid X. I avoided it on the tab altogether because of my experience with it on the X but so far its been much more consistent and beating out even Dolphin on my favorite pages. I wonder if samsung did some tweaking?
John, I’m not at all surprised to hear that your experience had been different than mine on the droid x. With how close my testing results were, I’d bet a simple little variance in the hardware (abundant when it comes to processor batches) or the apps you use, or even the type of sdcard that they stuck in your dx (there are about 5 different ones people received I think) could yielded different results. If you haven’t tried wiping the stock browser data via settings > applications > manage applications, I suggest you give that a shot to achieve better results (I’m betting you’ve probably done that though)
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As for the tab performance, I again am not surprised for the same reasons as I listed above; the variances between the droid x are obviously even greater than those between your dx and my dx!
Actually now that I look back at your first post I am actually a bit puzzled as to why stock seems to be so very inconsistent for you… Not sure I can be of any assistance troubleshooting though :/ like I said, I use miren regardless of stock testing as the quickest on my dx.