Mercury Browser has been one of the top alternatives to Apple's Safari browser on iOS for a while, and now the developers have finally ported it to Android. It might not be sewn into the fabric of your Google account like Chrome is, but Mercury Browser has a slick interface and plenty of advanced features.

Mercury sticks to a minimalist aesthetic, but there are a ton of options just below the surface. The navigation bar at the bottom has a popup for settings like user agent, private browsing mode, and font size. There's also a dedicated button down there for access to the included plugins. The list isn't as extensive as the iOS version quite yet (no LastPass, sadly), but you still have Google Translate, Dropbox, WiFi file transfer, and more. One plugin builds a cool stripped-down "reader" version of the page like Pocket or Instapaper. If that navigation bar is in the way, you can switch to full screen mode by just holding the device in landscape.

Page loading is fast and rendering seems spot-on. Zooming and scrolling are a bit more responsive than Chrome Beta on Android, but it's not worlds different. The tab switching screen offers big previews, which is cool. However, you can just switch tabs with a quick two-finger flick.

The developer seems to take browser privacy pretty seriously. In addition to private browsing mode, you can also password protect the entire app and clear cookies/history in one tap. That way no one can see what you're up to. I'm not going to speculate about what you could use this browser for, but I'm sure you'll find a worthy use. Mercury Browser is free.