Puffin browser review: Fast browser with cool features

With up to 10 million users, Puffin is one of the top browsers available for Android and iOS devices. The application offers several cool features, and it requires 28 megabytes of storage memory. The app developers claim that Puffin has a better benchmark score than the top browsers for Android and iPhone. Is the browser faster than Chrome, UCBrowser, or Firefox? Let’s find it out!

Puffin browser review

Puffin is available for installation on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Once you run it, Puffin prompts users to select the type of websites they prefer to access. If you like to surf websites developed for mobile users, choose the Mobile site option else select the desktop site option. The interface of the Puffin is similar to that of the mobile edition of Google Chrome. Below the address bar, the browser features a toolbar that displays shortcuts to the following five utilities:

Home: This option allows you to access the home window of Puffin.

Bookmarks: If you want to access some websites frequently, open this interface to bookmark your favorite sites.

History: The Puffin browser enables you to filter history by day, hour, and week. The window features a search box that lets you find a history item.

Downloads: To see the list of all active downloads and downloaded files, tap on this option.

Settings: To configure the browser as per your requirements, open the settings panel.

Puffin Settings

The settings panel provides the following options that you can configure:

Data saver: Puffin uses a smart algorithm to compress web pages and save bandwidth. According to its developers, Puffin can save up to 90% bandwidth.

The browser provides an option to reduce the resolution of images and lower the resolution of flash files.

Startup manager: Puffin lets you restore all tabs or open a new tab on startup.

Default search engine: The application allows users to set the following search engines as default:

1. Google.
2. Bing.
3. Yahoo.

Mouse: This interface will let you disable or enable the mouse pointer.

Themes: By default, the browser uses an eye-friendly light-colored theme. You can switch to the dark theme if you don’t like the light theme from this interface. You can also consider using the night mode apps to filter blue light.

Download location: Puffin saves downloaded files to a predefined location. You can change the location from this UI.

Other options that you’ll find on this interface are as follows:

• Turn on/off quick controls.
• Enable or disable text reflow, smart zoom, save password features.
• Free up storage memory by clearing the browser cache.
• Disable or enable visual effects.

The unique features of the Puffin browser

Smart tools: When you enter a character in the address bar, the browser displays options to cut, copy, and paste the text.

Gamepad: This feature comes in handy when you’re playing flash games.

Sharing: Puffin provides an option to share websites/pages on social networking services and messaging apps like Kik, apps like WhatsApp, etc.

Switching to other search providers is easy with the Puffin browser. You don’t have to open the settings interface to change the search engine. When you open a search result page, the browser displays tiny icons at the top of the search engine result page. Tap on the provider of your choice to use it.

Testing

Puffin is really fast. It is faster than UC Browser. When you type a search phrase in the address bar, Puffin loads the search result pages within a second. While testing the browser, my internet connection speed was 700 Kbps. I had reduced the speed deliberately to check whether the browser works great on slow networks or not. Along with the search pages, the browser opens other websites quickly.