[App Fridays] Flynx the lightweight browser that packs a punch

Tapping on a link and waiting for a web page to load on our smartphones is one of the most agonizing and frustrating experiences for almost everyone these days. Slow internet connections and unstable networks also add to our misery. The time that elapses between tapping on a link and the entire web page loading could be used to perform something more useful. Flynx is a mobile app that aims to address this pain point of users.

 What is it about?

Flynx is a lightweight floating browser that loads web pages in the background and enhances the user’s productivity by giving him or her more time to work on something else in the meantime. The app intercepts any type of link; you can tap on it from almost all applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ etc, and it opens the link in a very simple, intuitive and uninterrupted manner.

A user can open a link from any Android application using Flynx and continue using the app that they were currently in without wasting time waiting for an entire browser to open, followed by the loading of the webpage.

Flynx makes this possible using a small bubble with a progress loader, which can be moved around on the screen boundary without the need for switching the current application. The bubble shows the progress of the page load along with the number of tabs opened.

When the page loads completely the user can click on the bubble to browse through the web pages. The entire web page loads in such a manner that you can continue using the previous application without any hindrance. The bubble along with a count of the number of tabs sits sportingly at the edge of the screen. And when opened it opens the entire web page without switching/closing your current app!

Features

Some of the basic browser options have been provided:

Reloading the page

Sharing a link

Copying a link

Closing current/All tab(s)

One can also drag a particular bubble at the bottom of the screen and place it over a cross bubble at the bottom to close a particular tab. Facebook Messenger provides a similar feature where individual or all chat heads can be closed by dragging them down to a circle on the bottom of the screen.

The beta version of the app supports up to 4 parallel links simultaneously. Each webpage can be further opened into article mode by tapping on the eye icon. The article mode is designed to remove unnecessary distractions making it clutter free and provide relief to the reader’s eyes. It has all the basic reader options to re-size the text size as well as switch to night mode, thereby enhancing the user's reading experience based on their preferences.

Pros and Cons:

I used the app for about a week and found it really useful and time saving. The user interface is smooth and it provides a really unique reading experience. I also really liked the reading mode and the settings that came along with it.

Considering that I generally have about 10 tabs running simultaneously on my phone most times, the only thing I did not like was the fact that the number of tabs were limited to only 4 in the beta launch. Hopefully, the official release will be able to accommodate a higher number of tabs.

The team behind it

The team comprises of a group of hard core techies who have worked for nearly a year at prominent firms like Amazon, Samsung and Kuliza after graduating from DA­IICT Gandhinagar. After gaining the necessary experience and exposure in software development, business development and startup skills from these renowned firms, they decided to start up on their own and began experimenting and tinkering with many ideas, finally settling for Flynx.

All the team members have taken a leap of faith and have left their respective jobs to work full time on ' Flynx'. It took the team nearly 3 months to finish the development of the initial beta version of the app and launch it on Google play store. Soon after the launch, it got widespread attention because of the nature of the problem it addresses.

Team:

Brijesh Patel

Brijesh has worked with Amazon as a Software Development Engineer for their e­commerce platform Amazon.com and its Indian counterpart Amazon.in. He is an Open­ Source enthusiast and was part of Google Summer of Code programme in 2012. He also contributed to KDE Open­ Source project for 2 years during college. He handles product architecture and development at Flynx.

Unique Jain

­ Unique served as Software Developer at Samsung Research Institute. He gained invaluable experience in Android development while working under Samsung. He loves gadgets and follows technology very closely. He is also a photography enthusiast. He handles design and product development at Flynx.

Smit Patel

­

Smit has worked at Kuliza Technologies for nearly 11 months. During this time, he seasoned his web development and server technology skills. He contributed to Calligra, ­a KDE project for 2 years. He is also an Open Source enthusiast and was part of Google Summer of Code. He handles the application backend and web development at Flynx.

Arunangshu Bhakta

Arunangshu is a startup enthusiast with nearly a year of experience working at a startup, Kuliza Technologies. While working at Kuliza, he understood the workings of a startup in and out. Besides that he also gained knowledge in web and mobile development. He handles the business development and marketing operations at Flynx.

Recently, they participated at StartUpDash event at Pune organized by TLabs (a Times Group venture fund) in association with 10000 Startups by NASSCOM and won the event.

Currently, they are also in talks with a few angel investors to raise money for supporting their marketing and business operations.

YS verdict

With more than 12,000 downloads within just 50+ days of release , with an average rating of 4.4/5 stars on the Google Play Store, they have had a weekly retention rate of 75% and daily page views of over 16000 this week. This app is a definite must have for all those who want a better browsing and reading experience on their phone.

Check out their website and download the app here though the playstore.

Do let us know what you think about the app.

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