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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

#101

Post by mintplant »

na85 wrote: post #93
mintplant wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox for Android does background playback too, and even provides media controls (exposing play/pause etc through the standard system API). Some sites may need the Video Background Play Fix [0] add-on. For popping out YouTube videos I use NewPipe, a FOSS Android YouTube client [1]. [0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-backgro... [1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/

Interesting. I've only ever tried YouTube but on my Oneplus, as soon as Firefox loses focus, playback stops.

YouTube should work with the add-on I linked installed.

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

#102

Post by cageface »

fencepost wrote: post #56
fny wrote: post #15

UC Browser apparently has more mobile usage that Firefox in the US. In 2017, they've clocked in at 1.22% vs Firefox's 0.59%. Years ago, (~2004) I used to use a desktop version years to get around firewalls at my high school. Nowadays I wonder how the Chinese government uses the traffic data to take the temperature of the US. [0]: http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/united...

That's really sad, because Firefox on Android is actually really great and the fact that you can run addons (e.g. uBlock Origin) makes it even better. In years past Firefox would occasionally crash on me, but I'm not sure it's ever even done that on my current phone, which is closing in on 9 months old. I'm not exactly treating it kindly either, I currently have 93 "tabs" open and though it doesn't keep those in memo…

I really want to use Firefox on my Pixel 2 but the scrolling still feels really chunky compared to Chrome. I hope there's still room for improvement there. I've been really happy with the newer Firefox builds on my MBP.

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

#103

Post by EKLM-ZK88 »

cwyers wrote: post #94
saagarjha wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re being disingenuous: people don’t use iPhones or Galaxies because they’re expensive. Browsers are free and it doesn’t cost money to change them.

And the people who author mobile Chrome all use iPhones or Galaxies or Pixels. It's about the dogfooding -- the people who write UC Browser use it on the same phones, mobile networks and websites that the users of UC Browser use, so it's written with their needs in mind.

I guess that's what i dont understand, what are the needs of the people in this market and what about chrome or firefox fails to meet that need? It doesn't have flexbox support, and i would imagine that would break a ton of modern websites. It isn't like these markets have their own version of html/css, everyone's on the same web, so why go for a browser with worse support for modern standards?

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

#104

Post by saagarjha »

cwyers wrote: post #94
saagarjha wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re being disingenuous: people don’t use iPhones or Galaxies because they’re expensive. Browsers are free and it doesn’t cost money to change them.

And the people who author mobile Chrome all use iPhones or Galaxies or Pixels. It's about the dogfooding -- the people who write UC Browser use it on the same phones, mobile networks and websites that the users of UC Browser use, so it's written with their needs in mind.

Which is a roundabout way of saying mobile Chrome doesn’t work well on lower end devices, which is why many users switch to it. This is the reason why I (and a distant parent, I’d assume) was looking for.

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

#105

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jnordwick wrote: post #99
yegle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qihoo 360 actually does have a lot of contribution to security, for one: they upstreamed a lot of patches to AOSP: https://source.android.com/s/results/?q=%22Qihoo+360%22

Why is this being voted down? Is there something I'm not aware of?

I don't know (nor did I downvote). Qihoo 360 has a bad reputation, Zhong Hongyi is a Trump-like character. But if you aren't into the China tech scene, you've probably never heard of them before.

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

#106

Post by lurenjia »

EKLM-ZK88 wrote: post #103
cwyers wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the people who author mobile Chrome all use iPhones or Galaxies or Pixels. It's about the dogfooding -- the people who write UC Browser use it on the same phones, mobile networks and websites that the users of UC Browser use, so it's written with their needs in mind.

I guess that's what i dont understand, what are the needs of the people in this market and what about chrome or firefox fails to meet that need? It doesn't have flexbox support, and i would imagine that would break a ton of modern websites. It isn't like these markets have their own version of html/css, everyone's on the same web, so why go for a browser with worse support for modern standards?

Users don't know/care about flexbox at all. It's developers concern.

Also UC has much more features and builtin contents than chrome. Maybe UC can provide better user experience to new internet users that think typing urls on phones to see news and videos weird. Not everyone likes minimalism.

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

#107

Post by addicted »

EKLM-ZK88 wrote: post #63
gketuma wrote: post #50

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.

Why do these markets use these browsers and not chrome or firefox, or even the built in browsers on their phones?

They mention why in the article. Data compression in markets where data is slow and expensive. As well as a small storage footprint leading to more space on their phones for other stuff (which possibly also means a lower memory footprint so it may work better as well).

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

#108

Post by addicted »

lurenjia wrote: post #106
EKLM-ZK88 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that's what i dont understand, what are the needs of the people in this market and what about chrome or firefox fails to meet that need? It doesn't have flexbox support, and i would imagine that would break a ton of modern websites. It isn't like these markets have their own version of html/css, everyone's on the same web, so why go for a browser with worse support for modern standards?

Users don't know/care about flexbox at all. It's developers concern. Also UC has much more features and builtin contents than chrome. Maybe UC can provide better user experience to new internet users that think typing urls on phones to see news and videos weird. Not everyone likes minimalism.

Your last sentence is very important.

At least Chinese markets (and possibly Indian and others as well)do not seem to have the disdain for feature loading American markets do.

Weibo is one of the most popular apps in the markwt (if not most) and it’s practically an operating system of its own. I suspect it would have gotten nowhere in US markets because people would have complained about it being not focused and having a bad UI.

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

#109

Post by tfcata »

yegle wrote: post #64
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that Qihoo 360 used to do a lot of "security" work for IE. Given how shady Qihoo 360 was, Alibaba is definitely an improvement!

Qihoo 360 actually does have a lot of contribution to security, for one: they upstreamed a lot of patches to AOSP: https://source.android.com/s/results/?q=%22Qihoo+360%22

The founder is the very first guy in China who used malware technique to prevent his own IE search enhancement plugin, 3721, circa 2004, from being uninstalled. It was a pain in the ass to uninstall this thing because it hooks so deeply in the system. Now it's sarcastic that this guy is running a security business.

The most recent case is that they broadcast the footages captured on the so called security cameras on a website that it positioned to be something like Twitch but with daily life content. So you really got to see inside other people's house! Supposedly this needs to be enabled by the user as an option, but I'm not sure why so many people enabled it. They have stopped this 'service', without admitting that it's wrong.

My hands shake out of anger when I'm typing this.

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

#110

Post by jeremiep »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #85
gketuma wrote: post #50

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.

Sounds more to me like other mobile browsers are holding the web back by not paying more attention to the needs of the many. Users don't care about standards, just that things work.

And how are things ever going to work without standards?

Standards aren't meant for end-users, they're meant for the engineers building the freaking software end-users are using.

Imagine every electrical device in your home having its own distinct power cable. Every device requiring a different voltage (110V is a standard, who needs that?) and plug type. You'd be spending a lot more (as the end user) in converters and adapters and whatnot; the only end result is that you pay much more for much less.

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