Wirelessly manage your Android from your favorite browser

Android, touchscreen keyboards may not sometimes the ideal surface for getting things done. A physical keyboard and computer are sometimes faster for many tasks, but there are a number of things they can’t do that a mobile or a tablet can do. So this problem can be solved by an “Airdroid”.

Airdroid is a fast, free app that’s lets you wirelessly manage and control the Android devices such as phone and tablet from a web browser.  It is designed with the vision to bridge the gap between the Android device and web browser, on desktop computer on Windows, Mac/iOS or Linux. Airdroid for Android replaces your USB cable with your web browser. It actually functions as a web server, allowing your Android device and your computer to communicate over the network.

Fig 1. Airdroid with the Android and Desktop

Requirements to run Android:

• Airdroid should be compatible with most Android devices running Android 2.1 or later (4.0 is not supported yet).
• Web Desktop should be compatible with most modern web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox etc.
• Android device and the computer should be in the same WiFi network to connect.

Now, to start with Airdroid app, you need to first download and install it on your Android devices. The set up will take about five seconds. Airdroid is available from the Android market. Launch the Airdroid app once it’s installed and then tap Start to start the Airdroid server. Then open your favorite web browser, input the address and give a dynamic password to login in phone and give the same address and dynamic password to login to Airdroid Web Desktop. Dynamic password is generated each time the Airdroid app is started and will be displayed on the homescreen if no predefined Password is set. But if you want to set a predefined password then you can do this by doing the changes in the settings, i.e. enabling the predefined password and set the password as it is by default disabled. But Dynamic passwords are better for security purposes. Remember the requirement that both Android device and computer should be in the same WiFi network to connect.

Once you have connected, you’ll see Airdroid’s homescreen, which contain all your   contents of your Android device. And now, you're ready to do a pretty amazing number of things. 

This App has following access:-

• Files:- You can transfer files between your Aindroid device and your computer.  Now it also has the drag and drop support. You can cut, copy, paste, search, rename or delete files on the SD card
• SMS:-If you hate typing messages on your Android device, Airdroid will let you send, receive and view messages from the browser based interface.
• Apps:- You can install, uninstall, backup, search and do batch processing on your Android device through the web browser and the computer.
• Photos:-You also can delete, preview, upload, download, set as wallpaper and photos slide show from your desktop.
• Clipboard:- You can share the clipboard text between desktop and Android device.
• Contacts:- You can also manage your phone contacts i.e. you can search, group, create, delete your contacts and also can delete the call logs.
• Music & Ringtones:- You can play, search, upload, download, delete and customize ringtones for your phone calls, notifications and alarms.
• Videos:-Mobile devices are great for videos shooting but for viewing those clips, the big screen of your desktop is best.
• Real-time Android screen:-With some devices you can even control your Android's screen, take screenshots, or make a screencast.
• Multiple virtual desktops:- Airdroid is designed for multitasking. You can move apps between desktops to better organize with your work.
• More features:-Photo match for most of the devices, various widgets like calendar, weather, url transfer etc.

 Airdroid also comes with some in-built features. They are as follows:-

• Device status:-It also shows the real-time ROM, SD card, Battery, CPU and RAM status report. And it also gives you a pictorial representation with charts to demonstrate the available/used/total resources, and one-tap memory boost.
• Tasks manager:-It kills or uninstall the running apps, batch operation are also supported.
• Apps manager:-It also uninstall, share or check details of user and systems apps.
• Files:-It also control, cut, copy, rename, send/share, delete, sort and create visible or hidden folders and files.

It is remarkably a comprehensive app, operates securely and it’s free to download. So have fun with Airdroid.