Many leaks have confirmed that Samsung is gearing up to launch its first Android Go smartphone in the near future. The device even underwent many certifications, confirming its imminent launch and possible Galaxy J2 Core branding. Even before the budget smartphone hits the market, its firmware made its way online in our database.
It appears Samsung’s Android Go smartphone will come with a ‘Go’ version of its browser app Samsung Internet. An APK of the same can be found in the firmware files, giving us a glimpse of what it brings to the table. As to be expected, the Go variant lacks many of the features found in the regular Samsung Internet app.
Lacks many useful features
Android Police says the Go version uses Android WebView to display web pages, which doesn’t inspire much confidence in its performance. While the interface looks similar to the regular version, it lacks almost all the features that attract users to Samsung’s browser in the first place. Extensions (such as an blocker), night mode, and even Samsung Cloud Sync are missing from the app. The upside, if you can call it so, of removing all these features is that Samsung was able to bring down the size of the app from around 80 MB to just 17 MB.
You can download the APK from here if you want to give it a try. It fails to install on the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S9 or Galaxy Note 8 for sure, so we are not sure about the minimum compatibility requirements. Our guess is that it probably requires Android 8.1 Oreo, which is not yet available on any Samsung smartphone (we're currently travelling to New York for the Note 9 launch, so we are unable to test the app on the Galaxy Tab S4, which runs Android 8.1).
