If you buy an Amazon Fire tablet, you may be surprised to find that you have access to a web browser, the Silk web browser.
Silk is Amazon’s native web browser. It does everything a web browser needs, including bookmarks, fast web browsing, and a modern interface.
However, it’s also deeply integrated with Amazon products and services, just like pretty much everything else on the Amazon Fire tablet itself.
In this article we will explore all the inner workings of the Silk browser. If you’re new to the Amazon Fire tablet, you’ll know what to expect from the web browsing experience.
To launch the Amazon Fire tablet browser, simply look at the apps on your tablet until you see the silk browser .
Touch this icon to launch the browser. Like most browsers, you’ll see tabs at the top, a URL field below, and a search field above eight quick access links.
These include:
- Markers
- History
- Shopping
- News
- Four most recently accessed websites
You will see a link to page setup at the bottom of this page. If you select it, you will see a menu where you can enable or disable the search field above the quick links on the page.
This is a useful customization as you can always use the URL field at the top as a web search field, so the second search field on the page is somewhat redundant.
You’ll find mostly the same options if you tap the three dots at the top right of the browser (for the right menu) or the three lines at the top of the top left corner (for the left menu).
The menu on the right has a grid configuration with icons for each area you can explore.
Instant Recommendations
The first thing you may notice is a big button Begin at the bottom of the menu without much description.
If you touch Begin you will see an option to enable Instant Recommendations.
This feature monitors information about the web pages you visit so that Silk Browser can provide recommendations. These recommendations include other relevant articles on the web related to the topic you are reading about or related searches.
There are obviously some privacy concerns associated with this, as your browsing information needs to be passed to Amazon’s servers so that Amazon can develop suggestions for you.
If this doesn’t bother you, go ahead and select Enable . If you prefer not to send all of your web browsing activity more than necessary, select To close .
Markers
Select the Bookmarks icon in the menu to visit your list of bookmarks, which you can organize into subfolders if you like.
If this is your first time using Silk Browser and you open bookmarks, you will see the option to import your bookmarks from Chrome.
This requires a few steps that you’ll need to do on another computer or mobile device.
You’ll need to open Chrome somewhere else and install the Silk Bookmarks browser extension.
- Open the Silk Bookmarks extension
- Sign in with your Amazon credentials
- Close and then open the extension again and select to import
Finally, open the Silk browser on your tablet and go back to the bookmarks page. Select the three dots at the top right to open the menu and select Import from Chrome .
This process transfers all the bookmarks from your Chrome browser to the cloud through the Silk extension, and then to your Silk browser on your tablet.
It’s a bit of a complicated process, but at least it saves you the time of having to rebuild your entire bookmark library.
Of course, to save any site you’re visiting with your Silk browser, select the bookmark icon in the URL field.
You will see two options when you do this:
- add bookmark : This will be saved to your bookmark library.
- Pin to My Favorites : This will pin an icon for this site to the Quick Links section of the new tab page
In the menu on the right you will also see the reading list . If you tap on this, you will see two options:
- Save to reading list – Add the URL to your list of articles you want to read later.
- view reading list : See your list of articles you want to read.
If you select view reading list , you will see all the pages you have added. They are color coded so you know which ones you have already read.
If not read, the title will be orange.
As you read each title, they will turn black.
As you read them, you can delete them individually or simply select the trash can in the top right corner to clean them all.
The Reading List is a handy feature for saving things you want to quickly read later, but don’t really want to clutter up your browser’s bookmarks list.
Save bookmarks for things you want to revisit often and use your Reading List for things you’d like to read later and then move on.
Your Amazon listings and shopping link
Of course, since the Amazon Fire tablet is an Amazon product and the Silk browser is an Amazon app, it should come as no surprise that there are also Amazon-specific links in the menu to the right.
The first of them is Your Lists . This just takes you directly to your wish lists in your Amazon account.
You will also see a link to Shopping which will take you directly to Amazon. Because where else would you want to shop besides Amazon, right?
You will also see the following links in the right menu of the Silk browser.
- News – visit a selected page from a long list of news sources (which you can customize)
- downloads : see all your downloaded files
- new private tab : It is analogous to the βIncognitoβ tab in Chrome.
- desktop site : force websites to display the desktop version of the site
- To print : print to one page on your printer
- dark/light theme : switch the browser between dark mode or light mode
If you select the menu icon on the left, you’ll notice all of the exact same options that were available in the menu on the right.
There is one exception. This is where you’ll find Setting .
The main settings menu is where you’ll find all the things you can customize about the Silk browser.
These include:
- Payment methods – Save cards in your browser for one-click payments while you shop
- passwords – Enable automatic password saving and automatic login for websites
- Addresses – Save addresses in the browser that you can use to autofill web forms
- Accessibility – Adjust browser text size and zoom if you have difficulty reading small text
- Silk Home – Customize your Home, Amazon, and News tabs
One important area is the ability to customize the News tab. You can customize the type of articles and breaking news you see by managing your news sources and providers.
On the sources page, you will see a list of all available news sources. You can select Block to remove all those you don’t want to include.
The menu Privacy is where you can enable do not track either Use secure DNS for added privacy and security.
If you choose to use secure DNS, you will need to have a provider available and enable this option in the Silk browser.
The menu of Advanced configuration This is where you can change the default search engine that the Silk browser will use.
choose Search Engine in the Advanced Settings menu, and then select the search engine you want as your default.
Reading and sharing view
One more feature available in the Silk browser is Reading View.
This is a full screen view intended to remove all distractions and allow you to fully focus on the article you are reading.
If you have Reading View enabled in Settings (it’s on by default), you’ll see Show in Reading View at the bottom of the browser page.
Just tap this to enter reading mode.
When you do this, you will see the screen completely change and the article will be reformatted more like a standard magazine article format.
Some people love this feature, so they can really focus on what they’re reading. Other people find the view redundant and unnecessary.
If you wish, you can disable it in your browser settings.
Another useful feature that is embedded in the browser is the Share icon in the right browser menu. With this, you can share the page with others via Facebook, Twitter, email, or even to another device via Bluetooth.
It’s a convenient feature that allows you to quickly share pages even on sites that don’t have social sharing icons built into the page.
Silk web browser has some pros and cons. It’s a fast and efficient browser, and it works just as well as any other browser you’ve used in the past.
Since it’s built in as a default app with the Amazon Fire tablet, you can be sure it will stay up to date along with all the other major apps. However, it lacks many of the conveniences of other major browsers.
There are no extensions or plugins, so you’re really stuck with what you have. And since it’s built by Amazon, you’ll have to deal with all the links and other features that are meant to encourage you to use Amazon services.
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