Skyfire 2.0 beta now ready to set Android ablaze
By Vlad Savov 
posted April 29th 2010 12:00PM
posted April 29th 2010 12:00PM
Update: Check out our hands-on preview of the new browser right here. Hint: it's pretty awesome.
Skyfire Launches the First Flash Video Enabled Mobile Browser for Android
The first 'mobile browser for the Social Media generation' eliminates broken links from your Facebook stream, tracks Twitter buzz, and makes sharing easy
Mountain View, CA – April 29, 2010– Skyfire, maker of the award-winning web-browser for mobile devices, today launches Skyfire 2.0 for Android, making the mobile internet experience faster, Flash-enabled and fun, with media recommendations and social features. Skyfire is one of the fastest growing mobile browsers in the world, ranking in the top 10 all-time apps in the Nokia Ovi Store and Windows Marketplace.
Skyfire 2.0 for Android is built upon many of the popular features of Skyfire's 1.0 browser, and uses cloud computing to give a "booster engine" to mobile phones so they can handle rich media like video. And now, Skyfire 2.0 for Android takes mobile browsing to a new level with the addition of the SkyBarTM, a new toolbar that lets users enjoy millions of videos previously unviewable on mobile, and also discover the latest buzz on any topic they browse.
What is the SkyBarTM?
The SkyBar brings the best of the internet to a mobile user's fingertips, without any additional searching. By activating the SkyBar with a single touch, users are given access to Flash videos on a web page that otherwise would not play, related content recommendations, and easier sharing with their social networks.
· Video –The "Video" icon enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos. Behind the scenes, videos are translated into a format easier for the phone to play, like html5 video.
· Related Content – The "Explore" icon brings the most relevant content on the internet to a user's fingertips based on what they are viewing at the time. The Explore button pulls video, buzz, news, images and other sites from the web based on what is on the current page.
· Sharing – The "Share" icon lets users share any article or video easily to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or by email and SMS messaging, adding a comment, and all with a single click.
The first mobile browser for the social media generation:
"Skyfire 2.0 was built for the way people use social media and the web today. People are now starting their web experience by scanning their Facebook and Twitter news feeds," explains Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. "Our new browser allows you to open those links and view the videos that your friends have shared. To make that work, people need a browser that can handle the full internet."
The Power of Cloud Computing:
Skyfire on Android uses cloud-computing technology to enable this web video; the benefits for consumers include faster and smoother video playback, and extended battery life by offloading more of the work to cloud servers. At the same time, since Skyfire 2.0 is built on a webkit core, users get all the functionality they know on the default Android browser, such as pinch to zoom, copy and paste, find text on the page, open up to eight browser tabs, and more.
Skyfire is one of the fastest growing downloadable browsers with usage increasing 500% year over year, and currently streaming over 25 million minutes of Flash video every month, more than any other mobile browser worldwide.
Skyfire 2.0 for Android is available for download worldwide free at bit.ly/skyfireandroid
About Skyfire
Skyfire is the creator of the Skyfire mobile browser, and has a mission to enable the "full internet" including rich media on mobile phones. The browser 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 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.
The first 'mobile browser for the Social Media generation' eliminates broken links from your Facebook stream, tracks Twitter buzz, and makes sharing easy
Mountain View, CA – April 29, 2010– Skyfire, maker of the award-winning web-browser for mobile devices, today launches Skyfire 2.0 for Android, making the mobile internet experience faster, Flash-enabled and fun, with media recommendations and social features. Skyfire is one of the fastest growing mobile browsers in the world, ranking in the top 10 all-time apps in the Nokia Ovi Store and Windows Marketplace.
Skyfire 2.0 for Android is built upon many of the popular features of Skyfire's 1.0 browser, and uses cloud computing to give a "booster engine" to mobile phones so they can handle rich media like video. And now, Skyfire 2.0 for Android takes mobile browsing to a new level with the addition of the SkyBarTM, a new toolbar that lets users enjoy millions of videos previously unviewable on mobile, and also discover the latest buzz on any topic they browse.
What is the SkyBarTM?
The SkyBar brings the best of the internet to a mobile user's fingertips, without any additional searching. By activating the SkyBar with a single touch, users are given access to Flash videos on a web page that otherwise would not play, related content recommendations, and easier sharing with their social networks.
· Video –The "Video" icon enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos. Behind the scenes, videos are translated into a format easier for the phone to play, like html5 video.
· Related Content – The "Explore" icon brings the most relevant content on the internet to a user's fingertips based on what they are viewing at the time. The Explore button pulls video, buzz, news, images and other sites from the web based on what is on the current page.
· Sharing – The "Share" icon lets users share any article or video easily to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or by email and SMS messaging, adding a comment, and all with a single click.
The first mobile browser for the social media generation:
"Skyfire 2.0 was built for the way people use social media and the web today. People are now starting their web experience by scanning their Facebook and Twitter news feeds," explains Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. "Our new browser allows you to open those links and view the videos that your friends have shared. To make that work, people need a browser that can handle the full internet."
The Power of Cloud Computing:
Skyfire on Android uses cloud-computing technology to enable this web video; the benefits for consumers include faster and smoother video playback, and extended battery life by offloading more of the work to cloud servers. At the same time, since Skyfire 2.0 is built on a webkit core, users get all the functionality they know on the default Android browser, such as pinch to zoom, copy and paste, find text on the page, open up to eight browser tabs, and more.
Skyfire is one of the fastest growing downloadable browsers with usage increasing 500% year over year, and currently streaming over 25 million minutes of Flash video every month, more than any other mobile browser worldwide.
Skyfire 2.0 for Android is available for download worldwide free at bit.ly/skyfireandroid
About Skyfire
Skyfire is the creator of the Skyfire mobile browser, and has a mission to enable the "full internet" including rich media on mobile phones. The browser 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 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.
@Beaner
You're slowly becoming one of the minority. More and people are growing up with little care for digital privacy. Facebook, Twitter, Google - any of their services. They are all collecting, analyzing, and selling your personal info. You can either take offense of this and stop using "free" services or you can try and realize that you aren't that important as an individual compared to the millions you are thrown in with.
Personally, I'm of the former camp.
Anyone notice what it says on the Skyfire website under the Android section on the Nexus One? Why would they put that there?? lol, that's so wrong
This should be featured! Good news is good.
Really liked that it has bookmarks & history already from native android browser. +
multitouch animated slow but I don't think that was because of lag - i think that's just their choice on how to do it
browsing multiple windows is nice - looks more like iphone w/ full page cards
couldn't get hulu to work, but did watch flash videos on a couple other sites w/o problems. nice
@dii15
hmm also formats into columns when you zoom in before the page even stops loading - major time saver that was one of my gripes w/ default browser.
Looks awesome, ill check it out :)
I liked the original browser, tried dolphin but found it a bit flimsy, requiring to be force closed a couple of times
Low res icons on Nexus One. Nothing major, but kinda annoying.
*Deletes Opera Mini Application*
Hmmm, not having a lot of luck. Tried gametrailers.com and cnn.com and in both cases got a "You need to install Flash" message and the video button didn't activate.
@GRT Hit the desktop version and then iPhone, they have iPhone specific tags going on.
It's definitely a beta. I went opened it for the first time, went through all of the instructional stuff, and then to the New York Times. Then, it crashed.
This actually works amazingly well.
doesn't work for a lot of things, but still a step in the right direction. South Park studios works. Xvideos doesn't. :(
Damn, it's awesome, it renders pages correctly and FAST - I'm really glad to see it come to Android for everyone, it was great on WinMo too.
skyfire is better than all browsers.
Works great on my HTC Eris and Archos 5 IT. Thanks all.
Working great on my Motorola Droid with Droid Mod 1.0. Liveleak on my phone makes me a very, very happy person. :D
wow, just walked in the door with my new Incredible and skyfire 2.0 is announced. Its going to be a good day
@dswatson83 Damn Watson! it WILL be a good day...
Where is a home button the Task Bar ..... Google set as home page ... i wanna get back to google .. no home button ... Browser is awesome but that is a slight flaw
@chosenone1 Home button on/in the task bar i meant
Android!
Well there's a site I like to watch flash vids but the vids play button is on the very bottom of the screen so whenever I touch it to start playing, the Skyfire button pops up so I can't play it at all. In short, it's not perfect. One last thing, very poor performance zoom in/out action.
Just one thing. *Read* their privacy policy. Seriously!