Samsung Mobile Browser in preparation, will be based on Webkit tech

There’s a new rumor flying around in the tech world, one which could see Samsung taking their TouchWiz skin for Android even further away from stock Android as intended by Google. Apparently, Samsung is working on a brand new web browser in-house based on the open-source WebKit technology, like Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari (and even Nokia’s browser for Symbian).

Now, there isn’t any word on whether Samsung intends to put this new browser as the default browser on all their Android devices over the stock Android browser, but that could be a possible scenario. Up until now, Samsung simply made one change in the Android browser – add their own version of hardware acceleration to it even during the Gingerbread days making it operate very smoothly (when Android itself had no hardware acceleration for apps), but that’s all the changes I would be willing to see instead of a full-fledged custom browser, with browsers like Google’s Chrome already quite great.

It could simply be that Samsung is trying to build a browser for their other platforms like the upcoming Tizen or even their feature phones, just like Nokia employs its own custom browser on their devices (except the Windows Phone ones). Still, with the need of Android manufacturers to differentiate the software running on their devices, a custom browser for Android isn’t too far-fetched and could happen.

Stay tuned for more info on this and take it with a few pinches of salt for now.