Webview browser in Kindle Fire

Question

Is the webview browser used in Kindle Fire the same as in ordinary Android webview? If not, what are the differences? Specifically, I'm interested in performance issues or quirks you have to be aware of when adapting web apps for Kindle Fire. Amazon won't send any Kindle Fires to Sweden, so I can't test it myself - yet.

Answer 1

Although Kindle Fire uses Amazon Silk as its web browser for normal web browsing, the WebView control on Kindle Fire is the regular WebView control on generic android.

In fact, the UserAgent strings on a Kindle Fire 7” HD device, Kindle Fire 7” HD emulator and a generic Android device (all running Android 4.0.3) should all match and read:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; LOCALE; MODEL) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, Like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/534.30

LOCALE and MODEL will vary for different devices and user settings. The different device ids should correspond to the android.os.Build.MODEL android system property; The list for Kindle Fire model ids can be found here: https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/fire/specifications.html

So there should be no difference in that regard between testing your app on a Kindle Fire device and the Kindle Fire emulator.

Answer 2

There does seem to be a difference in the way the Kindle Fire and iPad Kindle app handle websites accessed through apps versus through links in ebooks. On the iPad Kindle reader, links in Kindle books all go through webkit. The browser address line and other typical browser functions are absent. On a Kindle Fire, websites accessed through apps use webview--no browser URL address window, etc. However, links in ebooks appear to activate Silk, the default browser. You get the full browser experience: URL,etc. Not sure if there is a way to change that. I prefer the webkit/webview method, which gives more continuity with the ebook. It's also easier to get back to the book, whereas with Silk on the KF, you must find the back button.