Yahoo! made an interesting announcement in Japan, where the country reigns as the top search engine. The company announced its very own Internet browser on Android, titled “Yahoo Browser,” which looks to be fully functional, to steal some of the fire from the built-in browser. Upon startup, Yahoo Browser features a speed dial much like the other alternative Opera. From the speed dial, users can reach their most visited websites along with websites they pre-chose.
On the main interface, the browser features a URL bar and a search box that searches directly to Yahoo!. Yahoo Browser also offers a semicircular menu like we have seen before, which appears when the user touches either side edge of the screen. Lastly, some smaller features include a widget on the device’s home screen, voice recognition, and a read it later feature that allows users to clip a webpage to go back and view later.
This might be Yahoo! Japan’s genius little way of trying to steal a few ad dollars from Google —specifically in Japan. Some of you might not know that Google makes its money from Android from searches made on the device when users click on ads in the Google homepage (if the default Google search engine is used). If users in Japan opt to use the Yahoo browser, which defaults to Yahoo search, they would click on Yahoo’s ads — rather than Google’s.
Of course, I do not think this alone will dramatically hurt Google, but it is definitely an interesting approach on Yahoo’s part. Yahoo also makes an Android app store available in Japan, a country where 60 percent of new phone purchases are Android. You can check a few more screenshots of the app after the break (via Asiajin).
(via The Next Web)
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