Link Bubble is a mobile Web browser that lets users escape the tyranny of ridiculously slow load times and dropped wireless signals that are very common in Costa Rica, particularly among subscribers of the former telecommunications monopoly Kolbi/ICE.

Users of smartphones and tablets powered by the Android mobile operating system, which is very popular in Costa Rica, have a lot of choice in terms of Web browsers. There’s Google Chrome, Dolphin, Firefox, and Opera, to name a few. Some of these mobile browsers have clear advantages over others. For example: Whereas Opera is often preferred by users who don’t mind seeing a simplified version of the Web as long as they can count on speed and lowered data consumption, the mobile version of Chrome is fantastic when it comes to keeping your mobile and desktop devices synchronized in Costa Rica. The problem with all these browsers is that they do not act as a background service; they keep users plugged to the Internet and waiting for pages to load, which could be a long and frustrating experience for Kolbi subscribers.

Link Bubble acts as a background service on Android-powered devices. This means that readers of The Costa Rica Star can call up our uniform resource locators (URLs), news.cr or news.co.cr, and move on to use other apps on your smartphone as our page loads with news in the background. Users can see the status of the page loading on the left of their screens; it appears as a blank page that gradually fills with content.

There are two flavors of Link Bubble: The free version requires users to choose an app for Link Bubble to intercept URLs from. In Costa Rica, it stands to reason that most users would choose Facebook as that designated app. For example, readers of The Costa Rica Star who get their news from our Facebook Timeline can click on a story they want to read and wait for Link Bubble to load it as they scroll down and review more updates or check their news feeds to see what their friends are up to.

The paid version of Link Bubble costs about $5, and it allows users to open multiple links from all apps. This mobile browser also keeps a tally of how much time it saves you, which is ideal if you use your smartphone for productivity.