Samsung Internet Browser

Description

When Samsung shipped the Galaxy S4 in April 2013, the phone came with a new default browser built in-house to replace the generic Android browser that came standard on Galaxy devices prior to it. Samsung labeled it Samsung Internet. Most reviewers at the time scarcely mentioned it. The company’s focus that year was on hardware — the aluminum-framed design, the 13 megapixel camera, the first Samsung device to carry an octa-core chip. The browser was just something that the phone needed to have.

Twelve years later, Samsung Internet has racked up more than a billion installs on the Google Play Store and it has about 3.5 percent of the global mobile browser market according to StatCounter data from late 2025. That number puts it third place among mobile browsers worldwide behind Chrome and Safari but ahead of everything else. For a browser that began as a factory default on one line of devices, the footprint is significant.

The browser is built on the Chromium open-source project and utilizes the Blink rendering engine — the same foundation that powers Chrome, Edge and Opera. On top of this Samsung adds its own feature layer, with version numbers that follow Samsung’s own release cycle, not Chromium’s. Updates come through the Google Play Store and Galaxy Store.

THE FEATURES

Samsung Internet’s interface is based around a bottom toolbar, which is fine for one-handed use on larger phones. The toolbar contains the address bar, tab manager and tools menu. Tabs are stacked together in a tab manager view, browser history for 90 days.

The extension support system makes Samsung Internet different from most other mobile browsers. Users install extensions — including ad blockers — from a catalog built into the browser instead of an external store. The selection of extensions available is smaller than what is available on Chrome for desktop, but the ad-blocking options are functional and have a wide usage. The browser also has Chrome extensions via the Chrome Web Store on its Windows beta.

The Video Assistant feature recognizes video content and displays playback controls that appear next to the video player. Users can drag videos into a pop-up window to keep watching while browsing other pages, and audio keeps playing when the user switches out of the tab altogether — an unusual behavior for a mobile browser that many users point to as a practical benefit they use on a daily basis.

Samsung DeX, the company’s desktop mode that kicks in when a Galaxy phone is connected to an external monitor, gets dedicated treatment. Samsung Internet reconfigures itself in DeX mode to look more like a desktop browser, with a full address bar, mouse pointer support and windowed browsing — pulling bookmarks and saved data from the phone without any separate setup.

PRIVACY AND SECURITY

The privacy toolkit built into Samsung Internet even goes beyond Chrome’s on Android. The Privacy Dashboard provides users with a running view of which sites tracked them during the week, which the browser blocked pop-ups and which the browser blocked automatic downloads. The dashboard displays these counts per site and per session, which makes tracker blocking something visible rather than assumed.

Smart Anti-Tracking, which is enabled by default, utilizes on-device machine learning technology to detect and block third-party tracking cookies, including from domains that use collusion methods to share data across domains and bypass standard blocking lists. The system also defaults new URLs to be using https instead of http if the site supports it.

Secret Mode is the private browsing option. Unlike Chrome’s Incognito Mode, Samsung Internet’s Secret Mode also adds a layer of access control: users can lock it behind a password, a fingerprint or iris recognition. History, cookies and cache are deleted when the user leaves Secret Mode. Bookmarks and saved pages created inside Secret Mode are stored separately in an encrypted space and are not visible during a normal browsing session. Files downloaded in Secret Mode are placed in a separate folder which is only accessible when Secret Mode is enabled.

SAMSUNG PASS AND SYNC

Samsung Pass is responsible for storing passwords and autofill. The system integrates with the browser’s login flow and uses biometric authentication — fingerprint or face — to fill credentials. Passwords stored using Samsung Pass are synced across signed-in Galaxy devices.

Sync through Samsung account covers bookmarks, history, open tabs and autofill data. Users can switch from a Galaxy phone to a tablet and resume the same browsing session or access bookmarks on a non-Samsung computer via a Chrome extension that Samsung offers on the Chrome Web Store.

GALAXY Artificial Intelligence and Browsing Assistance

Samsung continues to add Galaxy AI features to Samsung Internet throughout 2024 and 2025. The Browsing Assist feature operates in a sidebar and is capable of summarizing lengthy pages, translating content and surfacing context-aware information about what the user is currently reading. Video summaries allow users to obtain a digest for a YouTube video without having to watch it. These AI features require signing in using a Samsung account and follow the user across devices.

THE WINDOWS BETA

Samsung’s first attempt at bringing the browser to Windows, in November 2023, went quietly when the app vanished from the Microsoft Store in January 2024 without any explanation from the company. In October 2025 Samsung came back with a second beta of Windows, and it was available to users in the United States and South Korea. The Windows version is supported on Windows 10 (version 1809 and later) and Windows 11 (including ARM based devices).

The Windows beta inherits most of the mobile feature set: Smart Anti-Tracking, Privacy Dashboard, Secret Mode, Split View for side-by-side pages and Galaxy AI-powered Browsing Assist. It synchronizes bookmarks, history and Samsung Pass passwords with Samsung Internet for Android when the user logs in with the same Samsung account. Samsung plans to release the full version of Windows via the Microsoft Store when beta testing is complete, but Samsung has not set a timeline as to when that will be.

MARKET POSITION

Samsung Internet reached its peak of about 7 percent market share of mobile browsers in 2019, according to StatCounter. Since then the figure has fallen to around 3.5 percent as of late 2025. The decline follows a larger trend: Chrome has increased its dominance on Android during the same period, and some users who switch from Samsung hardware to other Android manufacturers bring Chrome habits with them.

The browser’s base is still almost entirely in the Galaxy ecosystem. Because Samsung sells more Android phones than any other manufacturer — the company had about 20 percent of the global smartphone market in 2024 — the pre-installed default position still ensures a large number of users. Samsung Internet’s task is retaining that audience once those users are given the option to switch.

The Windows expansion seems to indicate that Samsung is attempting to extend the browser beyond the phone and make it a connective layer across the company’s device lineup, and not just an app that happens to be included with the phone.