After owning the first-generation iPhone in 2007, my next phone was a step back to the LG Voyager followed by the BlackBerry Storm 9530. The Storm was a mess, although to BlackBerry’s credit, they cleaned up the issues with the Storm 2. But by then, the Motorola Droid had been released, and it was my first Android phone. Over the next few years I remained an Android user, allowing me to own the Droid 4, with its amazing physical keyboard, the underrated HTC DROID DNA, and my personal all-time favorite smartphone, which was the HTC One (M8).
The Samsung Internet Browser used to be the first app I’d install on an Android phone
Whenever I bought a new Android phone after March 2017, the first app I installed was the Samsung Internet Browser. I only owned one Galaxy S series handset during that time period, but the app did not need to be downloaded on a Samsung phone, only one running Android. Not everyone is going to agree with my assessment, but for some time I have considered the Samsung Internet Browser to be the best browser app on the platform.
The Samsung Internet Browser has been praised for its ability to block many third-party trackers by default. It also uses less RAM than Chrome, and it is equipped with the Video Assistant. Unlike Chrome, which relies on the interface of the website showing a video, on Samsung Internet Browser, you can watch a video, and if you go to your home screen or open another app, the video will continue to play in the corner. On Chrome, its basic “Picture-in-Picture” mode is blocked by some sites like YouTube.
Why some say that Samsung’s mobile browser is better than Chrome
With Samsung Internet Browser, when you listen to streamed audio, or listen to the audio from a video, you can switch tabs or even turn off your screen and the audio will continue to play. With Chrome, the video is paused as soon as you turn off the screen. Samsung Internet Browser is basically giving you YouTube Premium’s big feature, the ability to continue audio even when you shut the app, for free.
Google doesn’t offer the Video Assistant because it makes some decent money from offering YouTube Premium. To make sure you have Video Assistant running on your Samsung Internet Browser, open the app and tap the three-line icon on the bottom right. Tap Settings > Useful features, and make sure that Video Assistant is toggled on.
A change is coming to the Samsung Internet Browser
The big news today is that with the latest update to the Galaxy S26 series, the Samsung Internet Browser app has received a new name. On devices running the stable version of One UI 8.5, the app is now known as Samsung Browser. In the Google Play Store it is still known as the Samsung Internet Browser so we can assume that this change will slowly be made more widespread on other Galaxy devices and the desktop computer version of the browser.
Interestingly, there are no other changes to the browser app aside for the new name. You can install the app from the Google Play Store by tapping on this link. Now I will admit to being a little odd. Until my eyes started going bad, I preferred viewing the desktop version of websites on my phone. I suspect that this has to do with the way sites like The New York Times looked when Steve Jobs introduced the OG iPhone in 2007. Jobs pointed out that the iPhone’s Safari browser rendered full desktop sites as mobile sites had yet to be created.
While most mobile browsers allow you to choose to view mobile sites or desktop versions, not all of them make it so easy to do. On the Samsung Internet Browser, tap the three-line icon on the bottom right. If you’re currently viewing the mobile version of a website, you’ll see an icon that says ‘Desktop site’ in order to switch to that view. If you’re looking at the desktop version of a website, tapping the three-line icon will show you an icon to tap to get to the app’s Mobile site.
