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Over the past few years, Skyfire has built up their reputation by offering the most complete mobile web experience on Windows Mobile and Symbian.  Today, Skyfire has announced that their award-winning mobile browser is now available for the Android platform. 

Traditional mobile browsers work hard to bring the full web experience to your little phone, but there are some key issues that hinder the process.  Unless a site is built specifically for mobile, there’s the chance that there are embedded plug-ins, java scripts, and flash components which do not render well due to lack of support on the mobile platform.  Skyfire fixes the majority of these issues by processing your web request on their servers and then displaying the results on your handset’s screen.  Put simply, Skyfire allows web pages to look and function exactly how the web developer wanted, even allowing you to view flash content just as you would on your desktop computer. 

Skyfire 2.0 for Android has a few tricks up its sleeve in addition to the many features we have already come to love on Windows Mobile.  The Android app has three new feature not found on other platforms:

• 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.

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.

Web browsing on Android is already good, but if you’re looking for a great experience, Skyfire 2.0 is probably exactly what you have been looking for.  It is available for free and can be downloaded here: http://get.skyfire.com/dl_android.php or from the Android Market

For more details, check out the full press release:

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 attwitter.com/skyfire.

Probably one of the most notable features of Android is the ability to download apps from the Android Market.  Simply select the Market icon and you’ll be treated to nearly 40,000 applications to choose from.    However, things aren’t so simply if you just picked up the HTC Legend or the Desire.  You still have access to the Android Market, but many of your favorite apps are most likely most visible to you.  Apparently, Google has not updated their ROM database for the Android Market which dictates which phones can see paid and copy-protected apps.  Google uses the database to limit market access to handset in countries that are not yet set up for paid apps, but until Google adds the HTC Desire and Legend to the database, your shiny new phone will be limited to the apps not marked with copy-protection.  It’s unclear if this issue is affecting all versions of the two handsets or a specific subset from a certain carrier over in Europe, but we’re hoping the issue won’t last for too much longer. 

Source: Androinica