The Silicon Review ^Asia

Amazon has rolled out a new web browser for Android that will use minimal storage and data. The browser is called Internet, and will be helpful in places with limited access to high-speed mobile data. The app was first seen on the Play Store in March and has fewer than 1,000 downloads since then.

 However, the web browser is only available to Indian users with devices running Android 5.0 or higher. Available with the tag ‘fast, lite and private’, the browser takes less than 2 MB of space, that is much smaller in comparison to other browsers. In addition to that, it offers private tabs and doesn’t ask for extra permissions or collect private data like other browsers. It also has a homepage that lets users read general headlines as well as news related to cricket and entertainment from top sources. Along with its new light-weight browser, Amazon also offers a Kindle Lite app for India.

Talking of building light-weight mobile applications, there are many other competitors for Amazon. Facebook gives a major competition with its light-weight apps, Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite. Google too didn’t stay behind; it introduced a suite of apps aimed to reach users with limited connectivity and data access. Some of these include Gmail Go, YouTube Go, Files Go, Google Assistant Go, etc.

Amazon already has a browser available to the users called Silk. But it is interesting to note that it built a completely different app instead of offering a updated and light version of its existing Silk browser.