Release: SAFE Mobile Browser
‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’.
It’s been 50 years since Neil Armstrong uttered those infamous words when he landed on the moon with Buzz Aldrin. And by gosh, haven’t we seen a blaze of technical achievements since then. Well, we’re delighted to announce our very own Eagle lunar — the very first SAFE mobile browser has landed!
Until today, browsing websites on the SAFE Network was only possible through the desktop browser, which of course isn’t the only way we access the internet. We use mobile for most of our internet browsing with data showing that approximately 72% of adults claim their phone is the most important device for accessing the web. And this shouldn’t be any different on the SAFE Network. There are 5.11 billion unique mobile users in the world today, which is up 100 million, or 2%, in the past year alone. As the population expands, this number will only continue to grow as the developing world often take a mobile-first approach due to their lack of legacy infrastructure. And making the internet accessible to all is one of our core missions.
So what are we releasing?
While it’s a card in the Task Project Board, we haven’t really given much away as yet. This is the first of many releases, with the plan to implement basic setup and release the initial version, then start working on various iterative versions. This version however, is more like a POC as it lets you see some functionality. For example, it enables you to fetch static websites from the SAFE Network all from the ease of your mobile phone. It also allows you to bookmark your most visited or most favourite SAFE sites.
How do I try this out?
We hope you’re as excited as us to download the mobile browser and give it a test drive yourself. All the details can be found over on the forum, including compatible devices, installation instructions, handy visuals to show you how to browse the network as well as a full suite of FAQs. And as an open-source project, we’re excited to accept contributions to the code from outside of MaidSafe and we aim to make that as easy, and clean, as possible. Details of how to contribute are all over on GitHub, or if you prefer, just add any feedback to the forum and our team will pick it up.
So what’s next?
We’ve got a plan in place for the upcoming versions as we’re looking to add more standard browser features such as multi tabbing, browsing history and themes. With the advent of the Perpetual Web, it’s not far from our reach to be able to view the version history of your favourite site. So, once we have basic browser features implemented, our next step will be to support Perpetual Web features on the mobile browser.
With the upcoming changes in the APIs to support new data types and other features, we are also looking into better integration between .NET and JS API so that we can support web app authentication and data operations in web apps developed using our JS package.
We’re full steam ahead on the lead up to Beta with no signs of slowing down. The mobile browser is just one tool that enables the SAFE Network to be placed, not in the hands of big money corporations, or feed hungry surveillance capitalists, but who the internet was originally intended for — you.
