The Puffin browser is one of the most popular options for mobile platforms Android and IOS.

The application was developed by CloudMosa in 2013.

Today it is used by over 20 million smartphone and tablet owners.

Let's consider how this browser differs from the rest and why it should be installed on your gadget.

Application Features - Differences BetweenWeb andPro

It should be noted that this program is a unique mobile browser, which was written without the already known engines from Chrome or IE. This approach allowed the developers to create a unique program for faster loading of web pages.

Another important feature is the ability to work with Adobe flash ... It's no secret that most other browsers and programs have long abandoned Flash and switched to simplified HTML5. Thus, users cannot watch movies and play games that work with Flash in browser mode.

Puffin solves this problem. With it, you can watch movies online without downloading additional utilities and cinema applications. Users can download paid or free paid version.

In most cases, Puffin browser performs much like a proxy server.

Our users "privacy is our top concern. Please refer to our privacy policy for more information.

Checking Puffin "s version?

Please go to "Settings". Find Puffin "s version at the bottom.

How to access Flash game or Flash video content?

Puffin browser now opens mobile web pages by default. However, most websites do not show Flash content in their mobile pages. To access Flash content, please click the main menu at the top right, and choose "Request Desktop site". Puffin will then reopen the same page in the desktop mode.

If you prefer to open new tabs in the desktop mode every time, please go to Settings and enable the "Always Desktop Site" option.

Full Flash Service Subscription

Puffin does not support Full Flash Service in Puffin Free anymore.

Please cancel the subscription from the Play Store if you haven "t done so yet.

Why do I see links from AliExpress in Puffin Browser?

Puffin collaborates with some e-commerce companies in various countries. AliExpress is one of our parters. The search suggestions shown in Puffin are just quick searches from their websites. We won "t send any information to AliExpress before you tap on any search suggestion.

Protecting our users "security is Puffin" s most important mission.

Why can't I download files to the SD card?

We optimized Puffin's download feature by fixing bugs and improving its speed and security.

However, the fix was not compatible with devices running Android 4 and 5.

Thus, we disabled the feature to directly download files to SD card.

User can still download files to the local storage and then move the files to SD cards.

Why do I see ads when viewing some websites in Puffin Browser Free?

To cover operational costs of maintaining Flash and loading resource-intensive websites on our cloud servers, ads may appear from time to time when viewing video content or playing games in the free version of Puffin.

For optimal Flash viewing experience, please upgrade to Puffin Browser Pro.

Puffin 6 and Android 4.0 are no longer supported.

To ensure your cyber safety and improve browsing experience, Puffin Browser has to use the newer APIs provided by Android and Google. We strongly recommend all users upgrade to the latest version.

Google has stopped offering patches for Android 4.0 anymore, and mobile app developers can no longer provide good services on this platform.

Thanks for using Puffin. If you have purchased Puffin, you can install Puffin on devices which supports newer Android versions with no additional cost.

Some websites do not behave properly when Ad Blocker is turned on.

Please note that turning on Ad Blocker may result in poor experiences on some websites.

Some examples include:

1. Websites may reject access when Ad Blocker is turned on.

2. Primary content (game or video) may not load correctly when an introductory ad video is blocked.

, UC Browser, Yandex Browser, Dolphin Browser, Firefox. And this is not the whole list of popular browsers. But they all have the task of being an ordinary browser for ordinary consumers. Of course, there are differences. Some browser is more convenient, and some less. But I want something fundamentally new. For example, a virtual mouse or virtual joystick is a browser built for Flash applications on websites. Looked for similar features in many browsers. And soon I found him.

This is Puffin Web Browser.

Screenshot from Play Store:

Screenshot from Play Store:

Of course, it may seem that the browser is expensive. But he has a free brother.

Screenshot from Play Store:

First, I recommend downloading it. It is better to read it first than to regret the money spent later. I do not mean that it is not worth the money, but some people may not like it.

There is also another free cousin: Puffin Academy.

Screenshot from Play Store:

But this browser only opens certain educational and scientific sites, for example, the NASA site.

Now let's move on to the Puffin Web Browser itself. I downloaded the paid version, and that's what we'll be talking about.

Immediately after the start of the download, we are greeted by a cute bird puffin, which means `` dead-end ''.

Then you find yourself in the menu. Against the background, a dead end. To change the background, click on the three dots in the lower right corner.

Click on "Customize wallpaper image".

Choose a photo or picture in the gallery.

And to restore the photo of the dead end, again click on the three dots in the lower right corner. Only now you need to select "Restore wallpaper".

The background is restored! Now let's get back to the menu.

The first tab displays frequently visited sites.

Nothing out of the ordinary here. Let's move on to the second tab. It's more interesting here. This is where your bookmarks are stored, or rather your favorite pages.

It's easy to create a new favorite page. Click on the plus, enter the link and name.

Click "Ok" and quickly go to the site. Loading in this browser is really fast. Faster than other browsers I've tested. I barely managed to capture the loading bar.

Remember when I first talked about the virtual mouse and joystick? So how do you use it? Simply and easily. Click on the mouse icon.

Appears Touchpad and a cursor. To be clear, this panel works like a laptop panel. In general, the browser has analog control, but perhaps it is more convenient for someone to control this way on the page.

And the stripe on the right simulates a mouse wheel. True, you can't pinch it.

Now about the joystick. It is also called by clicking on the corresponding icon.

It can be controlled by the page: up, down, left, right.

Now let's rummage around the menu a little. And immediately into the settings. And there are really a lot of them, unlike many other browsers. There are some very useful ones. For example, "Tell sites not to follow me."

The first step is to set up the home page.

If you are tired of the black color in the menu and other places, you can easily choose another one. Few browsers can boast of this. Click on "Color Theme".

There are not two or three flowers here, but fifteen!

In general, you can change colors from time to time.

If you suddenly urgently need to find out the version of your browser, then it is at the very bottom of the settings.

You can clean absolutely everything. Clear cache, cookie data, history, form data and saved passwords. Everything is fast and extremely simple. It's easy to find anything in this browser. Considering that there is a lot of "something" here. You can, for example, turn on the display of the network speed.

There is also network diagnostics.

All tabs in the menu can be swapped. I have never seen such a feature before.

Found a problem? Have a wish for the developers? It's very easy to send feedback. Straight from the menu.

I don't know why, but you can write a review for free versions from this browser. Although the browser is translated into Russian, you will have to leave your review in English.

And now about the thing that I see for the first time. What if you need to quickly and constantly visit the same page right from the desktop of your device? Nothing complicated! Of course, if you start searching by name, you will most likely switch to the scientific poke method. And when you find it, everything will be simple. The tab on the menu is called "Add To". Exactly!

Then enter the website address and you're done! You now have something like a website widget on your desktop. By clicking on it, you will be taken to the page in the Puffin Web Browser.

Now comes the fun part. Online Games and applications! But before you sit comfortably on the couch in anticipation of what was previously possible only on a computer and laptop, you have to download the Adobe Flash Player for Android. So that's it! Although, I think it will not be a big problem.

Gentlemen, we continue our traditional rubric, in which we ridicule or not ridicule developers who spend a huge amount of time and money building browsers for iOS that no one uses. So, according to the numerous requests of our readers, I want to discuss the program, which is called the euphonious word Puffin.

After examining the translation of this word in the dictionary, I came to the conclusion that this word is translated into Russian as “dead end”. You will immediately think that using this browser is a direct path to a dead end, but it was not there. The browser is so named after a very cute and interesting puffin bird, which you can read about in my other review on animal sites. And if Skyfire only positions itself as a master of working with Flash animation, Puffin not only deals with positioning, he works great with it.

On first launch, on top, we see the already familiar lines for entering the website address and search query... In the center, for some reason, there is a single icon with settings (and not the settings you thought about). In the future, there will be not only one icon, the most visited pages will also be displayed there. Below there are navigation icons between sites, bookmarks, tab management and a button, which we will call "the button for turning on nishtyaks." If we gesture “to the left” in the central area, then we will move on to the bookmark icons, made in the chic Metro style. Since the first thing I noticed was the Settings button, I decided to press it. I was immediately offered to set my own wallpaper, delete current or restore deleted sites.

I was not at a loss and immediately changed the background image with the bird to my favorite photo, which is on the screensaver of all my devices.

The developers say that their the brainchild is just crazy in terms of page load... And, you know, they are really right. I use pretty slow mobile internet, and the browsers I've worked with in the past were loading sites at about the same slow speed. Puffin does them noticeably. The only thing is that other browsers load sites smoothly, evenly, and this one seems to be in a hurry to please you, so it loads the page in pieces, unevenly, thus the page elements flicker unpleasantly, which is annoying at first. Scrolling through the page is as fast as Opera, content is displayed in full screen mode when scrolling down, like in Skyfire.

What I don't understand is distorted fonts... For example, for such an esthete as Bobs, at the sight of a page with such fonts, his eyes will flow out instantly, to be honest, I also suffer a little, but for the sake of writing a review I will transfer it and not that. Compare the text downloaded with Puffin (above) and Safari. The difference is immediately visible:


I noted that the pages are loaded faster, but spoils the picture that the browser's reaction to your actions is somehow slowed down... When you click on the link, the touch animation first appears (fortunately, it is removed in the settings) and only after 1-2 seconds the browser starts loading the next page. By the way, when you quickly scroll through the page with big amount elements almost always see hell like this:

The blocks are constantly being rearranged to the chosen approximation and the content jerks unpleasantly. For many, these little things are unworthy of attention, but picky users see this as a problem of colossal proportions.

Let's talk about "Nishtyakov power button"... When you click on it, a window appears in which, in addition to standard actions like installing home page, switching to full screen mode, adding a bookmark or setting, there are some rather unusual elements:

1. Turn on the keyboard... The function is very dubious, because when you go to the input fields, the keyboard starts automatically, and in any other cases it is not needed.

2. Enabling the touchpad with a mouse... The fact is that it is not always possible to get to the link with your finger. In this case, you can turn on the mouse perfectly and navigation on the site will become much more convenient. No miss, so to speak.

3. Joystick activation... Yes, just a joystick. Personally, I have not really figured out what it is for, but something tells me that it is for online or flash games. I think avid gamers will appreciate it.

Concerning Flash animations then Adobe Flash fully supported... You can watch videos, play games and download the rest of the content, and at good connection speeds everything will work very smoothly, even on smartphones with outdated specifications.

The video can be watched both on the site and with the help of a special, badly made tool. The point is that there is no volume control and scrolling of the video file. There is only a click to pause.

The Puffin browser will help us get our iPad to support Flash. As you know, there are no perfect things. One of the annoying moments when using iPad - built-in browser does not support Flash... IOS decided to give preference to HTML5, and regarding Flash, it was decided that this unstable and vulnerable technology would be better left aside. It is difficult to argue with the fact that flash technology requires a lot of resources. Even on desktop computers, a flash animation running in a browser or a website made on this technology seriously slows down the work, and often just crashes, which Apple could not allow on its tablet.

Nevertheless, the world has not yet abandoned Flash and this technology is sometimes necessary (in fact, sometimes it happens very often), which means that workarounds must be found in order to view browsers using this technology on the iPad. One of these is the use of Puffin browser.

The browser itself is very attractive, appearance(background) can be customized using your photos from the image library. It is convenient, pleasant, smooth and fast to work. Adding bookmarks is also convenient, unlike Safari, where this moment is implemented, to put it mildly, is not obvious.

Settings in Puffin a little, but all you need to eat. You can clear cache, clear browsing history, delete cookies, block pop-ups. Also in the settings you can enable or disable Flash support.

If we talk about surfing in general, then the smoothness of Safari is certainly better. In general, everything seems to be fine, but in reality the standard iPad browser Puffin loses in smoothness.

But he can play Flash. This means you can run movies in a browser window or play browser games. If you download a movie viewing on some site, then at first you will have brakes while the file is being loaded, but then everything works without the slightest criticism, especially in full screen mode. But rewinding works with tangible brakes.

The situation is similar in gaming applications. If the game is simple and the graphics are primitive, then there are no problems. But it is better not to run resource-intensive applications so as not to get upset. It must also be understood that they are simply not designed for touch screen and also take into account that while you are wading through the brakes of the browser, the battery charge will rapidly decrease.

Puffin is good if you urgently need to view a page using a tablet using Flash technology here and now. But in principle, the restriction on its use was not invented for nothing, and this application clearly demonstrates this fact. Today he can safely be considered the best browser with Flash support. But using it as the default application is uncomfortable.

Where to download Puffin Browser for iPad for free

Download link https://itunes.apple.com/ru/app/puffin-web-browser-free/id472937654?mt=8. The application size is 11.9 MB. The app is free.

Requirements: Requires iOS 5.0 or later.