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Amazon roll out Internet app for users in India

Amazon have rolled out a "lite" 2MB browser to consumers in India to let them browse the Internet for free.

The app is designed to help it's users stay "up-to-date with news, cricket and entertainment". It's been developed to help Internet users in more rural parts of India stay connected to the web; similar intentions to Facebook's Internet.org project, which was rejected in India by telecom regulators who decided it didn't meet guidelines for "non-discriminatory access".

The launch comes at a time when Amazon are apparently in competition with Walmart to acquire India's biggest e-commerce company Flipkart - a move that would put them even more heavily in front of many of India's 391,000,000 estimated web users.

At 2MB the browser is indeed "lite", compared to Chrome at 21MB according to appFigures. TechCrunch pointed out that it's an interesting strategy to create a new browser, seemingly developed in India, rather than just create a lite version of Silk, Amazon's existing browser.

It's pretty likely that the Internet app is going to heavily push people towards Amazon products - but is commercially incetivised Internet (and cricket scores) better than no Internet at all? 

Lisa
by Lisa

Lisa has been planning, designing and building websites for companies of all sizes for over 18 years. Nowadays you'll mainly find her wireframing and then designing complex sites over at 18a to make sure they flow well to give the user the best possible experience whilst providing great ROI for the client. She also teaches SEO (search engine optimisation).

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