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Samsung's Android Browser Hits 1 Billion Downloads, More Than Firefox and Opera Combined (androidpolice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung's mobile internet browser, if you ask its users, is pretty great. A lot of folks even say it's better than Chrome. That appreciation has manifested in the app hitting a very exclusive Play Store milestone: Samsung Internet Browser now has more than one billion installs. That impressive figure puts the browser's install base ahead of those of Firefox and Opera combined. Now, there are a couple of caveats here: for one, Samsung's browser comes pre-loaded on Samsung devices, of which each activation counts as an "install." What's more, both Firefox's and Opera's Play Store listings report that each browser has "100,000,000+" installs, which, because of the somewhat silly way figures are reported on Android's app marketplace, means their combined installs total anywhere between 200 million and 999,999,998. Still, though, Samsung's browser is on more devices than the both of 'em.
I rather think not.
I wonder how many people actually use the Samsung browser instead of Chrome which is likely also on many of those devices. One would imagine folks downloading Firefox or Opera actually used it at least once.
I have this installed, as I have a Samsung phone - number of times I have used it ... once ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The world's largest Android OEM installs its web browser, which is impossible to uninstall or even disable, on every device sold. If anything, this is just a testament to how much Samsung Android devices are out there.
In my opinion, it blows chunks and I don;t use it. But, that doesn't stop Samsung for forcing it upon me and my phone. The whole thing is rather like Microsoft and Edge.
I find that, despite making great hardware, all of the Samsung apps blow chunks!
I prefer Waterfox since it allows me to use the same add-ons I use on the desktop. I tried the Samsung browser when I had a Samsung device and it was meh. I'm sure it being pre-installed on all Samsung devices is skewing its actual "user" base.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Just because it's installed doesn't mean its actually used.
The word "install" is a verb. The noun is "installation". You install something. The something in a state of having been installed is an installation.
You invite someone with an invitation. A judge passes judgment. Someone passing judgment when one shouldn't is being judgmental.
News for nerds, parts of speech that matter.
If an application is forcibly preinstalled, it shouldn't count towards the Play Store's install count. It's completely disingenuous, and implies far greater interest than there actually is.
Yeah yeah I know. Apparently I'm new here.
usually to check repair times from my electrical supplier during outages.
The only thing it had going for it was it used less of my battery than chrome or ff at a time I needed to check 3 or 4 times an hour...
Then I was notified about an update to the app which required so many permissions my head almost exploded.
Installing a browser by default on a popular platform, and then claiming it's the most installed browser, is a tad disingenuous. It's like Microsoft claiming that IE was the most installed browser on PCs, even if a great number of people only ever used it to download Firefox or Chrome.
I have a Note 9 that came with Samsung's browser, which almost certainly counts as an install, even though I use the Adblock browser exclusively.
So really, it's all market-speak. Nothing to see here.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
How many people not using Samsung phones have installed this? That would be a far more interesting number.
"installation" is an adjective. And "install" is a preposition. Your looking four "interallerate" as the verb and "installian" as the noun.
Even if not installed, Samsung apps require it for Samsung account access, no way to make it work with chrome
their software wants to overshadow most of android, and that bixby thing kept getting in the way, and on my phone case i took an exacto knife and trimmed the inside of the bixby button so that button wont work anymore and i had to finally sign my phone out of my samsung account, then disable and uninstall as much of samsung's software as possible in order to tame it and make my phone more like a pure android, but there are a few samsung apps that wont go away, i like samsung's hardware, just not a big fan of their software but some of it is okay if it will stay out of my way when i want android software, my next phone is going to have to be something that offers a pure android software environment, or if somebody ever builds a FOSS Linux smartphone that would be even better but i have not even seen one anywhere
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
software baked into the OS by the OEM is not "installed"
Isn't it?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/install#Noun
Before you get all triggered Mr. Mischief, "noun" has been verbed:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/noun#Verb
Woops, better include this just in case:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verb#Verb
Sorry I don't know how to link my links.
...if it still counts if you uninstall updates, then disable it.
I really love Lineage + MicroG - no avalanche of updating apps. It's quite a bit of work to shut them down on most stock ROMs.
I am wondering what % traffic use this browser on my site. Hence, does someone have the user-agent handy?
I install multiple browsers on my devices, because some let me do things that others can't (such as being able to bypass javascript malware that denies me access to the right click/long tap function without having to disable Javascript). At least one of those browsers have the ability for me to change the User-Agent string, to be able to download stuff to Android which would otherwise be denied*, or get a page that is not gimped^Woptimised for mobile.
*and I really hate those kind of sites; "Oh you smelly Android user, how dare you allow your filthy system to even look at our precious website! Be glad we don't try to force a malicious APK down your filthy throat". Sourceforge is very guilty of this kind of behavior. The web should NEVER be balkanized.
>Android's browser, if you ask many of its users, is pretty great. And installs!
I paraphrase of course but by concidence immediately after reading this article I had a long-awaited reservation at a 3-hat restaurant. So using the same logic I asked for a Mcdonalds burger.
Their cardboard packaging looks really weird, sitting on silver service plating.
My friend told me he used the same logic based on TV footage of numbers of people turning up to rallies of presidential candidates. And ended up with Trump.
Boy, the lack of crowds at the inauguration showed him!
The article actually says downloads, not installs. So the implication is that over a billion people made an active choice to download it.
Of course, the article is wrong. It looks like whoever wrote it thinks "installs" and "downloads" are the same thing!
Amusingly, Slashdot fucks up about as badly. The headline says "downloads" but the summary says "installs." Best guess, the editor doesn't know much about computers.
according to my web traffic reports, which says that out of 2.4 million page views, that browser came in at less then .05% of my overall traffic. Meh.
Sadly on Android neither Chrome nor WebView supports extensions. I'm sticking with Firefox for this sole reason. Yandex is too much of a hurdle.
And no. Brute-force adblocker via VPN or hosts is just meh.
been using it for the better part of a year. very happy with it.
- js.
It is better than chrome. Choice of adblocker. better privacy mode. better tab management. I use Firefox, but Samsung is actually a good choice.
Just another WebKit browser? Sigh.
I would have accepted the idea that it can't be uninstalled or disabled, has upsell notifications and suggestions, if it were anything but yet another WebKit browser.
Kriston