Chinese browsers are putting the heat on Internet Explorer

• Source: Global Times
• [00:36 September 08 2009]
• Comments

Finding a niche

Ding said the Chinese browsers are chipping away at Microsoft's dominance by finding unique niches and "adopting advanced techniques and updating their products continuously."

For instance, the 360 Secured Browser is known for its strong anti-virus software.

"Safety has become a top priority for people when choosing a browser," Qihoo360 President Qi Xiangdong told the Global Times. "The 360 Secured Browser uses its ‘isolation mode' to block any Trojan horse virus."

Maxthon, another domestic browser brand in China, also features its own technical triumphs popular with Chinese users, Ding said.

Maxthon's Online Favorites function that allows users to bookmark their favorite sites and access them from any computer and its automatic form filling function both make it popular, Ding said.

Chen Mingjie, CEO of Maxthon, told the Global Times that his company is negotiating with some Chinese online shopping websites, including taobao.com, "we have cooperated (deal not done yet) with some online shopping websites including taobao.com to help them safeguard their online transactions."

"We are also developing a new generation of browser called 3.x which will enable users to browse websites a dozen times more quickly than before," Chen added.

Numbers matter

The Tencent TT browser developed by Tencent, whose QQ software is the most popular free instant messaging computer program in China, is banking on its popularity to push the TT. QQ already has more than 300 million users at present.

"Its users are Tencent's most prominent advantages," Ding said. "If TT can combine QQ software with its Tencent TT browser, it may become a browser with the biggest amount of users in the future."

But older users, those born before the 1960s, still prefer the IE browser, because they have less interest in the newly developed browsers and it is the browser they are most familiar with, said Ding,

"Most of our users were born between the 1970s and the 1990s and we are trying to attract those born before the 1960s to use our Maxthon browser," said Chen.