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Silk Browser Ported to Other Tablets

In  the endless quest to get apps running where they’re not supposed to, I bring you the tale of the Silk browser. XDA Forums  member TyHi has successfully ported this web browser from the Kindle Fire to the Kindle Fire.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. What he did was hack the browser so it would run on Cyanogen Mod, the open source Android firmware.  There’s a version of CM for the KF, and now Silk will run on it. And it will run on other Android devices, too.

It’s already been tested on a number of different tablets and smartphones, including the ATRIX, Droid X, Galaxy Tab, but not the Galaxy Nexus (probably because it runs Android v4.0). You can find complete instructions over at the XDA Forums.

Now, some gadget bloggers are thrilled about the news but I don’t see the value.  While I do find this interesting on a technical level, Silk isn’t a very good browser. And that is especially true even when you’re using Amazon’s servers to compress the content. I’ve read any number of complaints about this browser, and there are better options out there. Opera, for example, offers the same compression support as Silk. Actually, it’s better. Did you know that you can get faster browsing on Silk if you turn off the compression?

it would actually be a little hard to list all the better alternatives, but I happen to like Dolphin and Firefox. Both are loads better than Silk.

via XDA Forums

 

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