A couple days ago, Amazon announced the launch of a new browser, developed for its new tablet Kindle Fire.
The new browser, named Silk, is meant to revolutionize the way browsers work, and most importantly the speed at which browsers load pages.
Silk is not just a typical browser. A lot of the back-end functionalities have been moved away from the host device to the “cloud”, meaning that distant servers would do most of the work and send back finished information to the browser. The era of slow-loading pages, emptying cache and waiting for scripts to load before being able to enjoy the content of a page… may be coming to an end. I am certain everyone loves the idea.
If this project proves successful, we could see other web browsers being released, which could potentially change online behavior, including online search & display and e-commerce.
After reading online reactions, here are a few that stood out:
- If Amazon’s cloud ‘goes’ down, will all Silk browsers lose the ability to browse?
- Some people are concerned about Amazon knowing too much about people’s privacy. But so does your local Internet Provider!
- Some are concerned about the functionality that pre-loads the predicted ‘next page’, as it may disrupt your website analytics metrics if the user does not end up going on that page.
- Some people call it the “advertiser’s (Amazon) dream child”!
Either way, we look forward to trying out something new (always).
What do you think about Silk? Does it have what it takes to compete with the big players, in your opinion?