Skyfire 2.0 Lights Up Android with Flash

April 29, 2010 By Geoff Duncan

The SkyFire 2.0 Web browser for Android sports a SkyBar that enables video previously inaccessible on phones...like Adobe Flash.

Hot on the heels of Apple CEO Steve Jobs dissing Adobe Flash, Skyfire has released version 2 of its Skyfire Web browser for Android devices…and guess what? It (sort of) includes support for Adobe Flash content. In addition to nuking broken links in Facebook streams and putting Twitter front and center, Skyfire 2.0 sports a new “SkyBar” toolbar at the bottom of the screen that can bring Flash video to Android devices by converting it to H.264 format on a server behind the scenes, then pushing that video long to the Android device.

Yeah, we know: the same trick would work on the iPhone and iPad too.

“Skyfire 2.0 was built for the way people use social media and the web today. People are now starting their Web experience by scanning their Facebook and Twitter news feeds,” said Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck, in a statement. “Our new browser allows you to open those links and view the videos that your friends have shared. To make that work, people need a browser that can handle the full internet.”

Skyfire is built on the WebKit framework, which is ironically the same technology powering Apple’s iPhone version of Safari and Android’s built-in Web browser—but that foundation brings things like pinch-to-zoom and touch-based scrolling. However, Skyfire enables users to have up to 8 browser tabs open at once, and in addition to offering a way to translate Flash video, the SkyBar’s “Explore” icon lets users pull up video, social networking buzz, photos, and other images based on what’s on the current Web page, and a “Share” icon enables users to easy push an article or video to their friends via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, or old-school email.

Skyfire 2 is available for direct download or from the Android market.

Showing 3 comments

Skyfire will bring Flash to Apple users at 11:39am 2nd November 2010 [...] content for the price of $2.99 in the App Store. The web browser has already proven effective – it’s been working with Android 2.2 devices for months. And now that Apple has eased its previously stringent application restrictions and [...]
thatgadgetgirl at 1:28pm 29th April 2010 Skyfire is brilliant! I am soo happy about this. I was using this browser on a Palm Treo Pro and was amazed when I finally could watch MegaVideo vids. I felt like a heel lending my N900 to my brother when I was given the Nexus One as a gift because flash was not supported. This has renewed my happiness despite all the bugs the Nexus One has.
Charles at 1:02pm 29th April 2010 I wonder why other mobile browsers didn't bother converting flash video like skyfire. . . makes one think about the current "war" going on.