Phoenix OS - Android for x86 Desktop PC with Stardust Browser

While everybody is talking about Remix OS, there is another free Chinese Android distribution for a desktop PC based on Android-x86 called Phoenix OS. It is still in the beta stage, although it should run on most of 64-bit x86-compatible machines. Just write the downloaded ZIP file to a USB drive using USBMaker and boot a PC from it. There is also an ARM version of Phoenix OS and a 32-bit version should be available soon.

Phoenix OS is based on Android Lollipop 5.1.1 and Linux kernel 4.0.9 with support for OpenGL ES 3.0. It runs Android packages (APK) and it has a few of them pre-installed, like Stardust Browser based on Chromium 45 and WPS Office. The rest you can download from Google Play Store, F-Droid, Mobogenie or Aptoide.

Here are some screenshots from Phoenix OS 1.0 Beta:

Desktop

Settings

Main Menu 

Stardust Browser scores 495 points in HTML5 Test

Stardust Browser scores 18035 points in Octane Benchmark

My Computer

Notifications Center

WPS Office

Terminal Emulator

Keep in mind that Phoenix OS is made in China, so be careful with providing your sensitive data. The support forum is in Chinese, but there is a dedicated subreddit in English.

Download Phoenix OS 1.0 beta from EU server

Liebao (Cheetah) Browser

A Chinese company KingSoft (known best for its free Microsoft Office alternative) has released a good looking web browser Liebao (Cheetah in Chinese). The latest version is 4.3 and it is based on Chromium 29 and Blink engine, with compatibility mode based on Trident engine from IE. Cheetah Browser runs in Chinese by default, but deleting the file: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\Liebao\x.x.x.x\Locales\zh-CN.pak enables English language. The browser chrome was designed by Rigo, a partner of Lenovo and Microsoft.

Have a look at the promo video:

Here is the screenshot of themes gallery:

The new tab page:

The main menu with tools:

Cheetah Browser scores 494 points in HTML5 Test. You can download this browser directly from here (exe file, open at your own risk).

How to use Google Drive as a free web hosting

Do you know that you can host your website for free using Google Drive? There are 4 simple steps you should follow in order to do that:

1. Go to your Google Drive and create a new folder.
2. Make this folder public, by selecting it on the list and clicking the Share button. Then choose Public on the web and click Save.
3. Upload your HTML, CSS, JS files and images to this folder. You can create subfolders too. The file named index.html will become the default page. Note: Google Drive doesn't support PHP, JSP or ASP scripts yet!
4. Look at the address bar and copy the folder ID, which comes at the end of the URL:
   
   https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BzEbtMoF6IXbaVN2Qmx1em9qS0k
   
   Then go to GDriv.es, paste the folder ID there and choose your own short name. After submitting the form, your website will be available under your alias:
   
   http://gdriv.es/<alias>
   
   For example:
   
   http://gdriv.es/cros

The above example is the Cr OS Linux website.