Is Skyfire Faster Than Flash 10.1

Skyfire supports Flash video by transcoding it on the fly to HTML5, but it doesn’t support Flash for navigation or games, so Skyfire isn’t a panacea for Android users looking for a Flash fix. According to Adobe, Flash 10.1 will support text input, gestures, and multi-touch, so it stands to reason sites that use Flash for navigation, image galleries, or games will be supported as well. Still, Skyfire is available now, while Android users are still waiting for a firm release date for most of their devices.

Regardless of which side of the fence you’re on, Skyfire (though still in beta) just released version 2.1 of their browser. Where video is concerned, Skyfire 2.1 is outperforming outperforming Flash 10.1 on Froyo devices in battery life, video quality, and overall speed.

According to their website, “Skyfire plays Flash video by transcoding video files into HTML5 in the cloud and optimizing them for mobile delivery.” Additionally, Skyfire’s servers can get a sense of how fast your data connection is and encode video accordingly, reducing stuttering, lagging, hangups, and freezes (I often encounter these in the YouTube app).

Skyfire claims that its app renders video faster than Adobe’s Flash 10.1, and does so in a manner that is better on battery life and performance. I feel compelled to point out that Skyfire doesn’t display “true” Flash content; it detects Flash-based video, re-encodes it through HTML5, and then sends to mobile devices for “less buffering, less ’stuttering’” in playback. And to be fair, Flash 10.1 offers more than just video features, like games and tailor-made menu features, that Skyfire does not reach.

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