App: Google Chrome
Developer: Google
Price: Free
Rating: 4/5
Once again, the ugly specter of smartphone viruses rears its ugly head. Due to the news that the Samsung Touch Wiz UI’s stock browser is susceptible to a virus that allows individuals to remotely reset your phone by simply clicking on a link, I have decided to take the next few weeks and go over some of the other browsers that are offered in the Google Play store. These browsers were mentioned as not being vulnerable to the reset virus. This week’s browser is Google Chrome. Now I’ve experimented with Chrome for my PC and I did not enjoy it at all. It crashed a lot, and occasionally took forever to load pages. So I had little faith in using the mobile version on my Galaxy s3. I was pleasantly surprised by the mobile version, however. It is very smooth and noticeably faster than the stock browser. The UI is very simple but elegant, with sleek looking tabs and easy to find features. These features include the ever popular Incognito tab, which allows you to surf the web without worrying about any of your exploits showing up in the browser history. There is also a great feature that allows you to sign in to Chrome and sync all your bookmarks and info across all of your devices. This feature also allows you to continue work you started on your PC on you smartphone or tablet. Of course, with Android being Google’s baby through and through, it seems like Chrome plays nicer with the Android OS in comparison to my PC. I have yet to encounter any difficulty in using the Chrome browser on my Galaxy s3, save for the usual pain that comes along with using something new. I really enjoy the Chrome browser so far, and give Google’s mobile offering a rating of 4/5.