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Airforcekid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 29, 2008
1,707
680
United States of America
I bought a kindle fire as a Christmas present but tried it out first and found it to be a decent alternative to the iPad for someone looking for only email and web access with little to no apps. The web browsing however was very nice but slower than safari. However it reformats every page in a way where I never needed to zoom etc to read text or scroll left to right. Its hard to explain but I preferred it over safari after some use. Flash was more of an annoyance tan anything and I'm glad the iPad does not have it because most online sites I tried that were flash intensive did not work with a touchscreen. Basically you should try this browser out if given the chance and if it's ever in the app store I would pay around $5 for it easily just for the page reformatting.
 

darster

Suspended
Aug 25, 2011
1,703
1
Silk browser is horrendously slow. I have a fire, and the download speeds are much slower than my iPad. Using Amazon's servers, the max DL speed I ever got was 10 Mbs on my wifi. Turning off some of Silk's functionability and bypassing Amazon's servers pushed it back to my normal wifi speeds greater than 30 Mbs.
 

Airforcekid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 29, 2008
1,707
680
United States of America
Silk browser is horrendously slow. I have a fire, and the download speeds are much slower than my iPad. Using Amazon's servers, the max DL speed I ever got was 10 Mbs on my wifi. Turning off some of Silk's functionability and bypassing Amazon's servers pushed it back to my normal wifi speeds greater than 30 Mbs.

When would you ever need that much bandwidth on a tablet web browser even hd video only needs 2-4 Mbs at most.
 

Mac.World

macrumors 68000
Jan 9, 2011
1,819
1
In front of uranus
When would you ever need that much bandwidth on a tablet web browser even hd video only needs 2-4 Mbs at most.

If you like a browser that loads 4-5 times slower than an iPad and like the 7" form factor, then by all means stick with it. Every reviewer that has played with the Fire has stated the silk browser is anything but silky smooth. I'll believe them over an Air Force kid. #
 

taipan61

macrumors 6502
May 18, 2011
373
0
corner starbucks
silk sucked! why would i want to turn off or slow the features that should make a better browsing experience (did like that i could turn off amazon tracking)
but sideloaded dolphinHD and firefox and have no issues with those browsers, run faster and smoother than silk with less lag
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Flash still work's, I rather use it the way it was shipped. Work's superfast for me, maybe its your internet?

FWIW, other sources have confirmed speed issues, particularly that in at least some standardized tests, Silk is slower with its acceleration feature turned on than it is with the feature turned off.

I'm not saying it can't work -- just that there are multiple sources providing credible data that it doesn't yet. Hopefully Amazon can address this with some updates and/or improvements in next gen devices.

Apple's "reader" function, which I guess is a more limited version of the site content reformatting, which I believe Silk also has, works delightfully well. I think there is a transitional space for that kind of technology, too, until most websites are designed in a multi-resolution friendly format (so that it's not necessary).
 

richpjr

macrumors 68040
May 9, 2006
3,498
2,196
Having to turn off one of the main features that is (or was) used to promote Android.

Priceless.

I have an iPad not a Fire, but will point out the rather obvious - at least they have a choice in the matter.

----------

Just out of curiosity - are there any other browsers available for the Fire in the Amazon market place or whatever they call it?
 

taipan61

macrumors 6502
May 18, 2011
373
0
corner starbucks
they are not anymore, amazon deleted them from their market...obviously
but you can get the .apk file almost anywhere and sideload them easily without rooting
 
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