Amazon Launches Lite Mobile Browser Internet Specifically For India

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Amazon has launched an Android web browser app called “Internet: fast, lite and private” that is designed to use minimal storage and data, as per media reports. This is specifically designed for India where most of the mobile users do not have access to high-speed internet.


 


Amazon hasn’t publicly announced the launch, but it’s currently available to Indian users and runs on Android 5.0 and higher devices.

This is the second lite app that Amazon has developed in the past few months. It also offers a Kindle Lite app in India. The data-friendly Android version of Kindle with file size 2MB can work even in low speed on 2G/3G networks.


What are the benefits?

The file size of the lighter version of the browser is 2MB. This is in stark contrast with other dominating browsers like Chrome (21MB), Edge (54.5MB), Firefox (19.9MB) and Opera (14.7MB).

The app offers a web browser that supports private tabs. Unlike other apps, it doesn’t save browser history and has a homepage that is designed to keep users up-to-date with news, cricket, and entertainment.

‘Internet’ is also different from Amazon’s existing browser Silk, which uses a split architecture where some of the processing is performed on Amazon’s servers to improve web page loading performance. Silk browser is based on the open-source Chromium project that uses the Blink engine, but it is unavailable in India.


The internet penetration in India

In India, Internet penetration is mushrooming but download speed is always a matter of debate. As far as users’ engagement is concerned, a number of popular consuming apps in the country has launched their slimmer version. The list includes Facebook Lite, YouTube Go, Gmail Go, Ola lite, including several others.

They provide the same basic features as the full apps but typically take up less space and are optimized for fluctuating network connections.

We hope that this browser would come handy to the ever-increasing number of internet users in India who do not have access to high-speed internet.


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