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Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

wsj.com

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Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#41

Post by gsnedders »

vasilia wrote: post #32
greenbush wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you read the article. :) The article specifically talks about smartphones, not feature phones. It mentions how Chrome is an issue for cheaper smartphones with less storage: "The UC Browser app takes up 31 megabytes of space, compared with Chrome’s 125 megabytes". And aside from a smaller app size, UC also compresses data and blocks ads to reduce data requirements (data tends to be expensive in emerging…

There is Chromium based Yandex Browser Lite which requires only 1mb of storage size https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yandex.bro...

I'd assume it's either a proxy browser and not doing much locally or just using Android's WebView; even Opera/Presto towards its end couldn't fit in such a small binary despite targetting tiny devices.

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#42

Post by puranjay »

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website.

Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#43

Post by nine_k »

puranjay wrote: post #42

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website. Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

Have you tried Firefox Quantum? While not featherweight, it's less of a resource hog than it used to be, while being commendably fast.

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#44

Post by lmns »

puranjay wrote: post #42

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website. Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

No problem with Chrome here, but I've heard Samsung's browser runs a lot smoother.

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#45

Post by Sylos »

puranjay wrote: post #42

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website. Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

Have you actually tried Firefox? They've had a pretty big update recently, which also broke many extensions and ways of making advanced extensions, so some people do take that as reason to say that it's now "long way from its former glory", but if you've been a Chrome user up until now, it'd strike me as odd for you to think that, since it's still much more extensible than Chrome.

Well, unless you haven't seen the new update yet and are talking of the performance problems that it had prior to this update. In that case, you should try the new version.

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#46

Post by buovjaga »

nine_k wrote: post #43
puranjay wrote: post #42

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website. Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

Have you tried Firefox Quantum? While not featherweight, it's less of a resource hog than it used to be, while being commendably fast.

Minor note: the under-the-hood improvements of Quantum will be coming to the Firefox Android version 58. The current stable version only has the UI tweaks.

For the release schedule, see https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#47

Post by alwillis »

puranjay wrote: post #42

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website. Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

Checkout Brave—runs 3-6x faster on Android than Chrome due to blocking ads and fingerprinting: https://brave.com/

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#48

Post by baybal2 »

0xmohit wrote: post #26

There have been reports talking about security issues in UC Browser [0] for a while [1] now [2]. It was also removed from Google Play Store [3] (although temporarily). Kinda surprises me to see it as the 'dominant' browser. Maybe people are indifferent. [0] https://citizenlab.ca/2015/05/a-chatty-squirrel-privacy-and-... [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2016/08/a-tough-nut-to-crack-look-priv... [2] https://tech.blorge.com/20…

Have you ever seen popups abusing all possible browser API(best known for use of phone vibrator) promising to get rid you of the "virus" if you go and install that UC browser?

Yes, this is who they are

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#49

Post by olivermarks »

alwillis wrote: post #47
puranjay wrote: post #42

After a recent update, Chrome is nearly unusable on my spare 1 year old Moto G4 phone. There is a massive lag when I try to type in text on any website. Chrome's RAM hogging tendencies on desktop have also made me search for an alternative for my PC. Sadly, Firefox is long way from its former glory. Any suggestions?

Checkout Brave—runs 3-6x faster on Android than Chrome due to blocking ads and fingerprinting: https://brave.com/

I use Opera as my main browser on IOS desktop, along with Brave. Brave is my main android browser

Re: Alibaba’s UC Browser is dominating in Asian markets with lower-end smartphones

#50

Post by gketuma »

UC Browser is now holding the web back by not adopting new standards like css-grid and flexbox. No version of UC supports these standards and with the rise of UC globally, developers are hesitant to use these standards as millions of users especially in India and China are left out. I know there are ways to configure fallback, but still.
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