Amazon Fire TV and Firestick are among the most popular TV streaming services. The devices are not just about streaming Spotify and watching Netflix movies. They also provide a great way to surf the Internet straight from your TV. However, what’s most annoying about Fire TV and Firestick surfing experience is the limitation of their browsers. For instance, most web browsers are not compatible with the device’s Remote Control. The good news is that with the emergence of Amazon’s Silk browser and other new options such as the Puffin browser, you can now use your remote control to easily surf the web on your TV. Silk and Puffin are two of the best web browsers for Firestick today. We will do a Silk vs Puffin comparison in this article.
Both browsers are optimized for Firestick and Fire TV. You can count on them to give you a full internet experience just as you would have on a PC or mobile device. In this article, we compare Silk vs Puffin to determine which is the better option between the two.
Silk vs Puffin: Overview of the Silk Browser
Silk is Amazon’s proprietary browser. It’s the first client software delivery browser built with the cloud in mind. It’s not just a browser but a cloud software program as well. According to Amazon, you can run the Silk browser in both “on and off-cloud” modes. In the off-cloud mode, Silk functions just like any other browser.
Silk also uses Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) cloud technology to give you faster browsing speeds. When you search for a specific website, the browser passes the site’s URL to the cloud. It then finds all the parts of the website and renders the complete website in HTML, CSS, javascript, and images. All the data and resources come from Amazon’s cloud which gives the browser faster loading speeds.
The cloud-based website rendering also helps to reduce the cache of your Fire TV or Firestick browser. This is indeed a good thing given that Firestick and Fire TV have a limited amount of memory.
Silk is a fast and reliable browser from Amazon. But its major downside is its use of the cloud which raises some privacy concerns. Most people may not be comfortable with the idea of Amazon acting as a middleman between the user and their web traffic. When you use the cloud, Amazon will be able to see your traffic and everything you do online via their Silk browser.
Fortunately, you can easily turn off the cloud features and use Silk just like a normal browser. You can do this by going to Settings, Advanced, Cloud Features, and toggle the function to the Off position.
Silk vs Puffin: Silk Pros and Cons
Pros
- Faster performance than other web browsers because all the web page rendering is performed in the cloud.
- All access to hundreds of files and domains is handled by Amazon’s EC2 powerful resources in the cloud. This helps to free up your local device’s resources and bandwidth. In other words, using Amazon’s cloud doesn’t require a lot of resources from your Fire TV or Firestick when browsing the web.
- Reduced browser cache in your Fire TV or Firestick when pages are rendered in the cloud before they are delivered to your device’s browser.
- It makes it easy to compress large images and files.
- It consumes less bandwidth without compromising on performance.
- Silk gives you the opportunity to use Amazon’s powerful technology on your TV web surfing activities.
Cons
- Amazon’s cloud acts as a middleman between you and the Internet. This raises questions about privacy. When you use the Silk browser via the cloud, Amazon will be privy to all your online activities.
- There is also a security issue because you don’t interact with websites directly but via the Amazon cloud.
Silk vs Puffin: Overview of the Puffin Browser
This Silk vs Puffin comparison would be unjust if we don’t talk a little bit about the Puffin browser. The Puffin browser is developed by an American mobile technology company known as CloudMosa. The browser has been around for some time since it was first released in 2010. It basically uses cloud servers to process content for a wide range of devices. This includes PCs, mobile devices, and even Fire TV and Firestick.
The TV version of the Puffin browser has been developed specifically for Android TV boxes. It has a different design from its mobile app version. The TV version has a clean easy-to-use interface. It is also easy on your eyes, lightweight, and incredibly fast. The best thing about the Puffin browser is that, like Silk, it works perfectly with your Fire TV remote.
Another great plus for the Puffin TV browser is the fact that it comes with Adobe Flash Player. This means it can automatically play Adobe Flash content without the need to download Adobe Flash Player independently. This feature also makes it possible to use a virtual trackpad, on-screen keyboard, and gamepad.
The Puffin browser is also a great browser for Fire TV. This is because it comes with a built-in movable cursor. You are aware that Fire TV and Firestick don’t come with a clickable mouse, which means you cannot tap on the screen. Even if you bought one of those expensive touchscreen TVs, you’d still prefer using your remote rather than get up from your chair to touch the TV screen when you want to navigate to different sections.
The Puffin web browser gives you a handy cursor that you can use via your remote to navigate more easily. It is just like clicking on items on the screen using a mouse. You just need your Fire TV remote to control the cursor.
Besides the built-in cursor, Puffin browser has other useful features such as a recently viewed feature that gives you faster access to websites you have recently visited without the hassle of typing the URL all over again. Another useful and quite convenient feature is the easy bookmarking system that gives you fast access to your favorite websites.
Pros of Puffin Browser
- A practical Fire TV and Firestick browser designed for Android TVs. It eliminates the traditional web browser user interface to give you a fully immersive TV browsing experience.
- It has a simple and intuitive UI
- Extremely fast browsing speeds. It shifts the workload from your resource-limited device to its cloud servers. This is to ensure that web pages open fast on your TV.
- Puffin comes with support for Adobe Flash over the cloud to ensure that you enjoy all the features of websites with flash content.
- Easy and convenient navigation
- Ability to bookmark your favorite websites for easier access.
Silk vs Puffin Verdict
Have you used any of the two browsers on your Fire TV lately? Let us know your experience and recommendations in the comments below!
