New method allows you to bring back AOSP Browser on KitKat, no root required

If you own a modern Android device, odds are your default browser is Chrome, though you may elect to use something else as your primary portal to the web. Long gone are the days when the AOSP browser was king, and most of us are more than glad to leave it behind in favor of the much more modern, feature-heavy Chrome experience.

Still, there are some situations where the traditional default browser performed better, particularly on less powerful Android devices with limited amounts of RAM. While Chrome sometimes is a bit choppy on these devices, the stock browser performed smoothly and had the added bonus of excellent pie controls. Find yourself wishing your modern, KitKat-powered device could run the stock browser? While the CM team were the ones that updated the browser to work with KitKat, XDA forum member LitoNi shared it with the world.

The good news here is that root isn’t required to get the stock browser to work. The bad news is that installing it isn’t as easy as running a simple APK. Instead, you’ll start by installing the BrowserProviderProxy.apk to the /system/apps/folder. The installation will say it failed but after rebooting you’ll be able to get it working by following the instructions found over at the XDA forum.

For those hoping to use the AOSP Browser with Flash, the bad news is that no version of Flash player has been able to work with this on KitKat. While it’s possibles some kind of fix will be discovered, we wouldn’t count on it.

Anyone out there still prefer AOSP Browser over Chrome? Conversely, do you feel that the old Android browser is best left in the past?