Google launches Chrome for Android

Google has announced a version of its Chrome browser for Android smart phones and tablets, available immediately. Chrome for Android, which is a beta release, replaces the existing browser on Google's mobile operating system. However, it is available only for those running the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android - around one per cent of users at present, though that number is increasing.

In a blog post, Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president for Chrome and apps, wrote: "Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices."
Pichai said that Google had built Chrome for Android "from the ground up" with mobile in mind. He said: "We reimagined tabs so they fit just as naturally on a small-screen phone as they do on a larger screen tablet. You can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you're holding a deck of cards in the palm of your hands, each one a new window to the web."

He emphasised the speed of Chrome for Android as well as a single sign-in feature that allows users to log-in and sync bookmarks between mobile and desktop versions of Chrome. The mobile browser will also automatically load any tabs that you had open on the desktop version of Chrome.
That move is likely to encourage more Android users to adopt Chrome on their desktop and laptop computers. At the end of last year Chrome overtook Firefox to become the second most popular web browser.

Adobe confirms: no Flash for Chrome on Android

Google issued a beta release of Chrome for Android earlier. The browser provides support for modern Web standards and includes a number of compelling features that aren't available in the Android's default browser. One noteworthy Chrome desktop feature that isn't included in the mobile port, however, is the integrated Flash runtime.

Adobe has issued a statement confirming that Chrome for Android does not support Flash content. The company also indicated that it does not plan to work with Google to add Flash support to the new mobile browser. Adobe will, however, continue supporting Flash in the current default Android browser.
"Today Google introduced Chrome for Android Beta. As we announced last November, Adobe is no longer developing Flash Player for mobile browsers, and thus Chrome for Android Beta does not support Flash content," wrote Adobe's Flash Platform product manager Bill Howard.

Adobe struggled for years to make the Flash player plugin viable on mobile devices. Though it was able to make Flash work reasonably well on Android phones, results were mixed on other systems. Due to Apple's unwillingness to allow the Flash plugin on iOS and the difficulty that Adobe faced bringing the Flash player to new devices, the plugin never achieved the same ubiquity on phones that it has historically enjoyed on the desktop.
These setbacks caused Adobe to abandon its mobile Flash player strategy last year. The company announced that it would phase out development of its mobile Flash player plugin and not support it on new platforms. Adobe instead focused its mobile Flash efforts on developing tools for deploying Flash content as native mobile applications. It also strengthened its commitment to native Web standards and acknowledged HTML5 as the way forward for building rich mobile Web experiences.

When Google eventually moves to replace the default Android browser with Chrome in future versions of the Android platform, devices that run the operating system will likely no longer be able to play Flash content in the browser.