Today, we have released the very first SAFE mobile browser

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 say that their mobile 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.

Overview

The SAFE Mobile Browser is a cross-platform mobile browser, built to provide mobile web browsing experience to the users on the SAFE Network.

Features

Fetch static websites from the SAFE Network (Please note apps that require authentication and include data operations - for example Patter - are not supported in this version)

Using bookmarks (sync with SAFE Desktop Browser)

Browsing sites and bookmarking

Once installed, the mobile browser can be used to browse websites hosted on Alpha-2 network.

Launching browser Fetching website from the SAFE Network

Working with bookmarks

To use the bookmarks feature in the mobile browser, we need to authenticate the app using SAFE mobile Authenticator app

Authenticate Adding bookmarks Removing bookmarks

Things to Note:

There is no search feature. Users will need to know the location/address of what they are looking for. Clicking on ‘Search’ currently will focus and direct the user to the browser ‘address bar’.

Make sure to whitelist/update your IP address on invite server before you start browsing.

Download and Install

Platform OS Version and Architecture Download QR Code Android 5.1+(armeabi-v7a, x86_64) AppCenter, GitHub ![QR Code iOS iOS 11+ (ARM64, x64) Register

Note: If a Blocked by Play Protect pops up during installation, just click install anyway

Pre-requisites:

Alpha network access (see below)

SAFE Authenticator for mobile For Android, you can get this from GitHub For iOS, when you register with AppCenter for the iOS browser app, you will also be registered to receive the SAFE Authenticator for Mobile app. You will then be able to download this app via AppCenter and authenticate onto the Alpha 2 network.



Alpha network access

It’s important to ensure you’ve registered your IP address in order to access the SAFE Network (Alpha-2). If you haven’t already then here’s how you do that:

Log in to the Forum on your normal browser (you’ll need to have Basic Trust Level 1).

Visit https://invite.maidsafe.net.

Click on the SAFE Network logo.

Select ‘Alpha 2’.

Update your registered IP (if it doesn’t match the Current IP listed)

Copy and paste the invitation token into the Invitation field on the Authenticator. this step is only required when creating an account to begin with.



Note

On Android devices, if you aren’t able to install the new SAFE mobile app even after uninstalling the older version please follow the given steps to clear the play store app’s cache. The steps may differ based on OS version, and device vendor.

Steps: Settings -> Apps -> Google Play Store -> storage -> clear cache and storage.

And then try installing again using APK you downloaded.

FAQS

We’ve pulled together some initial FAQs and we’ll continue to add to these as we gather user feedback.

Contribute or to give feedback

As an open-source project, we’re excited to accept contributions to the code from outside of our immediate team and we aim to make that as easy as possible. Details of how to contribute are all over on GitHub, or if you prefer, just add any feedback to this post and our team will pick it up.