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Phoenix Browser Review: Features, Usage, and Competition
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Phoenix is a fast and intuitive web browser designed explicitly for mobile devices, and supports both Android and iOS. Developed by CloudView technology in 2016, Phoenix is best known for simplifying watching and downloading videos online.
Whether or not Phoenix can be your next default browser will be answered today — read our guide till the end to know everything about its features, disadvantages, privacy policies, and more.
Phoenix browser: Features
Phoenix supports video downloads in multiple formats and from multiple sites.
Say you want to know which videos are downloadable on a site — you don’t have to click on them individually to check.
Phoenix has a smart video detection feature that automatically points out downloadable videos and leads you to them. However, this feature doesn’t work on YouTube owing to Google Play’s privacy policy.
The browser also has a “data saver” feature that the developers claim will compress web pages before they are displayed on your device, in order to reduce the amount of mobile data used while browsing the web.
Another benefit of using Phoenix is its built-in video player. No more hopping onto your gallery to play a video you’ve downloaded — play the video directly on the browser and lock the screen to avoid disturbances.
Using the video player you can control playback speed, and it also supports a picture-in-picture mode to play videos outside the browser over other apps.
The Phoenix browser comes with an incognito mode, which allows you to browse the web privately without saving your browsing history, cookies, or cache.
Phoenix’s interface is a treat to the eyes. Its web view is built on Chromium, just like Chrome and Edge. This means that when you load a new site, all the elements of that site are displayed without breaking the site design.
The browser also lets you take custom screenshots of the web page. You can take a custom-sized picture by dragging your mouse and then annotating the picture right after. Unlike other browsers, you won’t have to go back to the gallery for the edits.
Phoenix ships with a built-in ad blocker that keeps away ads, pop-ups, and annoying notifications. The ad blocker also keeps track of the number and type of ads it has blocked, and the amount of mobile data saved, as well as other details.
Talking of built-in apps, the browser also has a fully functional file manager that you can use to view all kinds of files including PDF and Word documents, Excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations, and a lot more.
The app also has some PDF tools that’ll help convert images, Word files, and PowerPoint presentations into PDF documents.
Phoenix browser: Privacy
When it comes to privacy, Phoenix pretty much covers the basics. For starters, it has an incognito mode that you can use to prevent the browser from logging your data and search history.
Its builtin ad blocker will also help boost your privacy by discarding any tracking scripts, cookies, and other data-gathering elements on web pages. This can substantially limit the amount of information websites and advertisers can collect about your browsing habits.
You can also use Phoenix to clean junk files from your mobile, as well as all kinds of browsing data, such as cached images and videos, along with cookies and browsing history, and more. As an added bonus, it can also help free up space by helping find and remove videos, large files, and WhatsApp data.
Phoenix browser: Ease of use
Phoenix browser has a clean interface, with a search bar in the middle of the interface and pinned websites below it. At the bottom, you get buttons to launch the file manager, switch tabs, and more.
Its file manager is also pretty intuitive to use. It gives easy access to the downloaded files, as well as the PDF tools. There’s also a find function to help find files.
You also get buttons to quickly access all audio files, video files, documents, images, and more, and can easily clean browsing data, and more with a single tap.
The ad blocker is enabled by default, which is a plus. That said, you do get the option to disable it for specific websites using its icon next to the address bar.
Phoenix browser: Competitors
Phoenix is one of the few mobile browsers that has interesting features such as a very helpful video downloader, and a fully functional file manager.
It also ships with a built-in ad blocker, much like Opera and Brave.
On the downside though, unlike its popular peers, be it Chrome, Edge, or Safari, Phoenix is ad-supported, and will occasionally display full-screen ads.
Also, when it comes to other browsers like Avast, Opera, Mullvad, or even Firefox, Phoenix gets a lower rank in terms of user privacy. All these browsers offer extra privacy in some way or the other, such as with a built-in VPN. However, all that Phoenix has to offer for free is an ad blocker.
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Phoenix browser: Final verdict
Phoenix is a pretty decent browser. Sure, it doesn’t drop jaws in any parameter, be it privacy or features, but it does a little bit of everything, which makes it the perfect solution for those looking to replace their default mobile web browser.
The built-in ad blocker, combined with the “data saver” functionality, is a boon for those who want to save mobile data. Its activated-by-default nature will also appeal to privacy conscious users.
Phoenix’s download manager is ideal for those who regularly download videos on their mobile. In the same vein, the file manager and its productivity features also make it an interesting option for those looking for such functionality.
If you care for any of these features, and can live with its shortcomings, you should take Phoenix for a spin.
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