Qihoo’s new search engine emerged nearly one year ago.

China’s Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU), a software maker and web portal turned search engine, has reported its Q1 2013 financials this morning. The company hailed a record number of users across its services – a total of 457 million active users in March 2013 – but saw mixed financial numbers.

Revenues were up slightly quarter-on-quarter to $109.9 million (up 58.6 percent in the past year). Operating income fell to $6.8 million in Q1, nearly half that in the previous quarter (and down from $14.4 million a year ago). Operating expenses crept up yet again to hit $89.2 million in the first quarter, nearly double the expense of Q1 2012.

Qihoo, which launched its search engine last summer to capitalize on all the traffic from its web portal and Windows PC software, also revealed a bunch of updated numbers:

• Total monthly active users of Qihoo’s products and services reached a record 457 million in March 2013, compared to 411 million in March 2012.
• Monthly active users of Qihoo’s ‘360 Browser’ across PC and mobile reached a record 332 million in March 2013, compared to 273 million at same point last year. User penetration of these web browser apps in China hit 69.6 percent.
• Average daily unique visitors to Qihoo’s “personal start up page” (hao.360.cn) of paid links rose to 94 million. That web portal generated approximately 489 million clicks.
• Paying users of Qihoo 360’s web game platform were approximately 281,000 in Q1.

Qihoo’s report made no detailed mention of the progress of its search engine (said by CNZZ to be at 12 percent market share in China), nor made any reference to all the company’s iOS apps being banned by Apple. Those issues will surely come up in the conference call later.

Qihoo expects a stronger second quarter with revenues between $142 million and $144 million.

See the full earnings report on the Qihoo IR homepage.

China’s Qihoo 360 has a lot of enemies. I’m not just talking about Baidu, either; lots of net users dislike the company for its dirty tactics and China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) has printed publicly that the company has engaged in behaviors most people would call fraudulent. But a recent expose conducted by an independent investigator and printed in the National Business Daily– supposedly the result of months of investigation — suggests that Qihoo is doing an awful lot more than most of its users are even aware of.

The National Business Daily (hereafter: NBD) report presents a laundry list of accusations about Qihoo software, backing many of them up with illustrated screenshots demonstrating what’s going on behind the scenes. Among the many allegations: that Qihoo’s 360 Safe Browser contains a massive security flaw that messes with users Windows DLL files, that it can expose users’ passwords, that it tells users sketchy online payment sites are safe, and that it is making connections the user isn’t aware of even when it’s just loading a blank page. The report also contains more familiar charges like Qihoo products masquerading as official Microsoft patches, forcibly deleting competitor products as “unsafe”, etc.

Qihoo 360 has categorically denied all of the allegations contained in the report in a post on its official BBS forums. From Qihoo’s official translation of its response, provided to Tech in Asia by a Qihoo representative:

The article appears to be an “aggregation” of most of the past false allegations and claims made by our competitors and our foes. It takes those claims from sources such as an “anonymous individual”, a person who lost a lawsuit against us, and a former malware/virus creator, without any basic fact checking. It also completely ignores all the clarification and statements Qihoo 360 has made regarding these false claims, and even ignore [sic] high-profile court rulings in the past, in order to portrait [sic] a totally biased story against Qihoo 360. We are not surprised that someone hates us so much that it [sic] keeps record of all those [sic] garbage and is willing to recycle it in the public domain over and over again. It is not difficult to conclude that there has to be huge economic interest of our foes behind such [an] outrageous attack. We take it very seriously!

In its statement, Qihoo also says that it has filed a complaint against NBD with GAPP (a government organ that regulates the press) and that it plans to sue NBD in court, and will additionally sue “anyone who intentionally spreads such rumor for defamation.”

When asked to respond directly to specific allegations contained in the report, a representative from Qihoo refused, saying that previously published statements should serve as a sufficient response to any questions the report raises. Later, however, the company did publish a number of clarifications that directly address some of the report’s specific allegations.

It is clear that Qihoo’s management considers this report and other “attacks” to be related to its competitors. In a public statement yesterday, Qihoo CEO Zhou Hongyi told reporters that the report and others like it were related to Qihoo’s decision to enter the search engine field. Zhou said that the NBD report was an attempt to “smear” Qihoo. “I think that the essence of this is that 360 decided to take on the big players in China,” he said, “as long as we keep doing search, these kind of smear attacks will continue.”

Qihoo representatives declined to produce any evidence backing up the implication that its competitors are somehow behind the NBD report. A Qihoo representative did link me to this article, which suggests that several of the sources in the NBD report are being paid by Tencent to publish attacks about Qihoo. However, the article contains no evidence to support these claims, and its author is an anonymous Tianya user identified only as shengsheng72011.

After an extended exchange of emails with Tech in Asia, a Qihoo representative implied that Qihoo does have evidence its competitors are behind the NBD piece, but declined to share any, writing: “Sorry mister, the evidences are for the court proceedings.”

Although it obviously doesn’t contain any evidence of a connection to Qihoo competitors, the NBD report does admit that the independent investigator making these claims is biased — he told the NBD he is openly opposed to Qihoo 360, which he considers a “cancer” that should be “cut out” from the internet. His fundamental beef with the company comes from what he interprets to be its frequent violation of the principle of least privilege. Least privilege is a widely accepted computer programming concept that says that any given program should only be automatically given access to what it needs to access to function. Qihoo, the investigator says, breaks this principle frequently.

(You can think about “least privilege” sort of like a repair man: if he shows up to your house and you aren’t home to let him in, he’ll generally just come back later instead of breaking in on his own. Software that ignores the principle of least privilege is more like a repair man who just walks into your house and starts making repairs whether you’re home and aware of his visit or not. The investigator who spoke with the NBD put it even more bluntly: Qihoo is like a residential manager who, when he gets reports of a dog barking, just breaks into the house and shoots the dog. In other words, the investigator is saying Qihoo’s software does way too much in the background without making it clear what is happening and asking the users’ permission.)

Of course, the principle of least privilege is not a law, and even if Qihoo’s software is violating it, there isn’t necessarily anything illegal about that. It does, however, raise privacy concerns for some users. Qihoo representatives refused to respond to a direct query about whether or not the company’s software violates the principle of least privilege.

As with most things relating to Qihoo these days, the NBD report has spiraled into a pretty ugly he-said she-said mess. We’re a bit tired of that story here at Tech in Asia, so in the coming weeks, we’ll be conducting our own investigation into Qihoo’s applications to try to assess what, if anything, they are doing wrong.

If you have expertise in web security and would like to assist in our investigation, please get it touch with us: editors(at)techinasia(dot)com.

One of China’s top web companies, Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU), has been hit with a significant double blow. First, it was given an official warning about unfair competition with its desktop products; then, in an unrelated move, Apple has banned every single Qihoo app from its iOS App Store. The apps might reappear in a few days, but it’s not the first time this has happened to Qihoo.

As reported by Bloomberg today, Qihoo’s management was summoned to the Beijing Industrial and Commercial Administration Bureau and given “an executive warning that its use of anti-virus software in internet browsers was considered unfair competition.” Qihoo makes China’s top web browser in the form of ‘360 Safe Browser’ and the company first made its name with anti-virus apps for PCs.

Chinese netizens have long raised concerns about Qihoo’s practices with its desktop apps, notably the way that installing one of its apps often leads to a user being forced or coerced into installing others. Last year, researchers uncovered nine dastardly tricks that Qihoo’s web browser was using to exploit its users, including blocking the installation of some rival browser apps on Windows.

Aside from the Bureau’s warning, no punishment was meted out.

Qihoo slapped by Apple – again

But the bigger blow for Qihoo is that all of its iPhone and iPad apps have been removed by Apple from the iTunes App Store. This is not the first time. Almost 12 months ago, all Qihoo’s iOS apps were pulled from the store, only to be reinstated a few days later. We’ve reached out to Qihoo to comment on this, and will update if we hear back.

On that last occasion, Qihoo told us that the Apple ban was caused by “unusually high numbers of positive/negative feedback by unknown sources” which triggered an automatic temporary removal by Apple.

These kinds of vanishings happen in the iTunes App Store from time-to-time, often caused by Apple’s auto-detection systems suspecting that something untoward might be going on, such as an attempt to manipulate app rankings.

Aside from its apps, Qihoo runs China’s second-largest search engine, which arrived on the scene with a bang last summer. Qihoo’s rivalry with China’s top search company, Baidu, is ramping up across numerous categories, causing Baidu shares to suffer in the latter part of 2012. Baidu itself is pushing back, putting more resources in its own web browsers (both desktop and mobile), and building up anti-virus apps of its own.

(Sources: Bloomberg; via TheNextWeb)

China’s 12306 ticket purchase site (run by China’s Railway Ministry), is the only official way to buy train tickets online in China. But with Spring Festival coming and traffic to 12306 spiking, it looks like someone is trying to hijack some of that traffic by tricking users looking for the real 12306 onto a site that pushes Qihoo’s 360 browser.

The trick works like this: 12306 is located at 12306.cn, but somebody purchased 12306.com and has set it to redirect to piao.jiaoman.cc, a very polished looking site that directs users to download the 360 Browser and use its ticket-purchasing plugin.

Neither 12306.com nor jiaoman.cc are officially registered to Qihoo, but the company will certainly benefit from this free advertising. A Qihoo representative told Tech in Asia:

The site you are referring to has nothing to do with Qihoo. Someone tries to use the popularity of 12306 and Qihoo’s name to make some money on embedded advertising on the site.

It appears that whoever registered 12306.com was trying to cover his or her tracks, because the whois contact information for the domain is clearly fake:

renxiansheng
12306
97653790@qq.com
CN guang dong guang zhou shi buxingjie001hao 112233

Additionally, the contact phone numbers listed for both 12306.com and jiaoman.cc don’t actually exist; calling either of them results in an automated response that says ‘the number you have dialed does not exist.’

It’s unclear who registered these domains and is operating the site. It contains several embedded Baidu ads, so someone may be hoping to profit from them while remaining undercover lest the police come calling.

Regardless of who is responsible for the site, though, it’s clearly tricking customers. As one weibo user wrote:

When you type in 12306.com you see ads for [Qihoo] 360 and [its ticket-buying plugin]; I thought that Qihoo and the Railway Ministry had set up a partnership; half a day later I finally realized I should have typed 12306.cn, not .com! It’s really confusing, you [the Railway Ministry] couldn’t just have registered .com to make it easier for everyone? [...] It’s lucky that Qihoo isn’t evil, buying a domain name this good and only advertising their browser with it. Who knows how much money could have been stolen if someone had used [this domain] to make a counterfeit version of the 12306.cn site instead!

Indeed, remaking 12306.com as a fraudulent ticket purchase site would be a goldmine, although likely also a lightning rod for police attention once it was discovered. Whether what’s there instead is really an ad for Qihoo or some other strange thing is going on isn’t clear. But “Brenda” (the weibo user above) does have a point: why didn’t the Railway Ministry just register the 12306.com name itself? After all, it spent $52 million on the damn site; the Ministry couldn’t spare another $10 for the dot com domain, too?

Fang Zhouzi, via mybetter.cn

The folks at Qihoo 360 sure know how to sling some mud. And “science cop” anti-fraud and anti-counterfeit crusader Fang Zhouzi is no stranger to a mudfight either, come to think of it. So perhaps this is a match made in heaven: Qihoo 360 and Fang Zhouzi are going at it in the latest in Qihoo’s ongoing series of public slugfests.

The issue began when Fang updated his weibo account claiming that Qihoo’s 360 Browser is unsafe and collects personal data from users. In response, Sima Nana (a rather nationalist commentator and another famed skeptic) declared on weibo that he had uninstalled the 360 browser. Both men have quite sizeable followings, and the incident was apparently big enough that Qihoo felt it necessary to comment. In a statement published on the company’s weibo, Qihoo suggests that both Fang and Sima are bought-and-paid-for puppets of Baidu (which, readers will recall, Qihoo is currently engaged in a battle with for a share of China’s search market).

Now Fang Zhouzi has responded to Qihoo’s statement with one of his own:

In twelve years I have exposed many academics, business frauds, criticized many companies and people, all out of a sense of conscience and public interest. I have not once done this for money. This instance criticizing the 360 Browser is not an exception; I did not accept money for this from Baidu, Tencent, Jinshan, or any other company or person.

Fang also says he will be suing Qihoo 360 in court for “serious damage” to his reputation. If he does, I suspect Qihoo 360 will lose — something tells me that if it had any actual evidence Fang had taken money from Baidu, it’d be shouting it from the rooftops.

Either way, it should be interesting to watch this latest battle unfold. Fang’s is far from the first allegation that Qihoo’s products are unsafe and mine user data, so here’s hoping that this latest battle will finally unearth either a smoking gun or a reputable refutation.

[via Techweb]

The newest web browser stats from CNZZ show a surprising development: Apple’s Safari web browser – which is preinstalled on all its Macs and is also available for Windows – has a greater desktop browsing market share than either Chrome or Firefox in China. It makes Safari into China’s fourth most popular web browser with 2.79 percent of all observed usage on the web.

In contrast, in the latest CNZZ stats for August 2012, Chrome is sixth with 2.41 percent share, while Firefox languishes in eighth with a mere 1.42 percent. Indeed, despite all the campus outreach in China that Mozilla, makers of Firefox, has told us about, Firefox has lost market share in the country in the past year (see stats below).

Safari’s progress shows that Chinese consumers might be using their beloved, shiny Macbooks in OS X, rather than sticking a pirated copy of Windows XP on Parallels – as so many people do. Or – gasp! – some folks are actually using Safari for Windows. Here’s August 2012 contrasted with the same point last year:

Of course, China still loves Internet Explorer (IE). And yes, that’s IE6, the decades-old virus-magnet, that’s the most popular version. It seems Microsoft’s decision to push browser auto-updates can’t kill it off. China still has epidemic-level usage of IE6. Even Microsoft wants rid of it, as infected PCs can become malware botnets. Microsoft’s own ‘death to IE6’ website (not the official name) says that China has 21.3 percent of all the world’s users of the old browser. That’s still way too high, as all other nation’s have updated and moved on.

As for the other rivals, the anti-virus vendor Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU), which recently burst into the search engine market in China, is in a very strong second place. Its web browser is a key part of its traffic-channeling strategy, and its 360 Safe Browser now uses the company’s own 360 Search by default. That’s gotta be a painful switcheroo for Baidu and Google. The only other desktop browser ahead of Safari is Sogou (run by Sohu (NASDAQ:SOHU)), which has a search engine of its own as well.

China’s search engine war continues. As Baidu opts to stay silent in this battle, the new entrant to the search market, Qihoo’s (NYSE:QIHU) 360 Search, has been making improvements. Here’s the latest: Qihoo has implemented a “like” button on its ‘360 Safe Browser for PCs, aiming to direct its users’ recommendations from within its browser to provide a more accurate search in its search engine.

According to QQ Tech, Qihoo’s “Like Project” aims to encourage users to recommend interesting websites, and in return this allows the new 360 Search to provide, the company claims, quality search to users. At the same time, it helps to promote and increase the website’s page ranking.

Qihoo 360 president Qi Xiangdong commented (translations are mine):

Users these days project a more passive voice in the way search engines work […] The “Like-Project” is implemented to give a fair and subjective search ranking.

As to the mechanics behind how a traditional search engine ranks its results, Qihoo 360 finds it less reliable as some websites are always placed at the bottom of the search result. Now as it involves the users’ recommendations, they believe that it’s a better way to provide higher quality search results. Or it might just be a cheap gimmick.

360’s CEO Zhou Hongyi earlier explained (translations are mine):

[…] As the search engine market develops, users’ experience and recommendation is an important fundamental factor towards growth. There are still plenty of possibilities that we can explore with our browser and search engine.

Personally, I reckon it’s good to see the inclusion of the users’ experience in trying to improve the search results. It will be also interesting to see the response on this new feature from rivals like Baidu. Stay tuned.

[Source: QQ Tech, Image]

Qihoo 360 (NYSE:QIHU) is following up on its pretty popular 360 Browser HD for iPad by launching a brand-new version for the small-screen: the 360 Browser for iPhone. It features stand-out blue tabs, a ‘new tab’ homepage, a sliding panel UI trick for quick access to favourites and web history, and a built-in Flipboard clone for reading news.

That Flipboard-like aspect is a neat idea, allowing users to catch up on news and gossip in the browser but without suffering the usually lousy mobile layout of most websites. And perhaps Chinese people love web portals – explaining the ongoing success of AOL-like sites in the country, just like Qihoo’s own efforts – the new 360 Browser for iPhone also incorporates preset reading categories such as fashion, sports, entertainment, and “beautiful girls.”

To access all that extra content, just flick to one side on the new tab homepage, and it’s all laid out there, with extra categories available to add:

The tabs themselves are scrollable, which will need to be done if more than two are open. The only issue is that the ‘x’ for closing each tab is way too close to the button for opening a new one, making mis-hits very likely.

The black toolbar at the bottom (pictured above) is collapsable to give you effective fullscreen reading.

All in all – despite it perhaps sounding stuffed with feature-bloat – it’s an impressive and quick browser that’s worth trying out for Chinese web users. There’s already an Android version of this which has much of the same feature-set and UI cues. With Safari browser on iOS having little to recommend it, there’s plenty of choice in the market so that users can find a web browser that suits them.

Qihoo’s desktop browser recently surpassed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in terms of usage in China, though some would say that it used some shady and low-down tactics in doing so. The more locked-down nature of iOS should prevent the company, however, in engaging in malpratice on people’s mobiles.

The 360 Browser for iPhone app hasn’t yet hit the iTunes Store, so in the meantime it’s usable only by people who have jaibroken their iPhones. The ‘.ipa’ file, which is a 7MB download, and more info can be found on this 360 BBS page.

Yesterday we noticed that all Qihoo 360 (NYSE:QIHU) apps for iPhone and iPad had been removed from Apple’s iTunes App Store, which caused a great deal of speculation online about what was going on. But this morning, a Qihoo representative tells PO that it was something of a mix-up, and that all the apps – such as its 360 Browser for iPad, and 360 Mobile Defender (pictured above) – will be back in Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) store in due course.

Speaking via email, a Qihoo rep in its Beijing HQ tells us:

We have made direct contact with related person in Apple’s U.S. office on Monday. We learned that because one or two of our products in iTunes were given unusually high numbers of positive/negative feedback by unknown sources, Apple’s internal system flashed the red light and triggered the removal.

Since all of our iOS apps are under one iTunes account, according to Apple’s rules it removed all products under that account temporarily even though there is only one or two products in question. After detailed discussion and clarification, Apple already started the process to bring all our iOS products back to iTunes. Normally it will take 48 to 72 hours to complete the process.

After the apparent ban of all of Qihoo’s iOS apps, much speculation on Twitter and Weibo amongst Chinese geeks was that this was punishment from Apple for infringing the App Store’s terms and conditions with regards user privacy. But Qihoo denies those claims:

The incident has nothing to do with users’ privacy. We don’t believe this event will in anyway impact our mobile strategy going forward.

Since all current users of the apps still have them in their iOS devices – they were not zapped remotely, as we have seen occur in other app controversies, especially on Android – many will have not even noticed this kerfuffle. Undoubtedly it’ll be a huge relief to Qihoo, operating in the world’s most competitive tech market where a dozen competitors would’ve loved such an opportunity to make gains.

And so Chinese netizens will once again be able to install and update Qihoo’s iOS apps from iTunes before the weekend. [UPDATE Feb. 9th - Now all its iOS apps are back, with the Qihoo CEO saying that they were not modified in any way in order to be re-approved].

[UPDATE Feb. 7th - Qihoo has told us that its iOS apps are now in the process of being re-approved and re-added by Apple, and that it was all an innocent mix-up. Read the update here].

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has apparently banned all iOS apps by the major Chinese web company Qihoo 360 (NYSE:QIHU) in a major embarrassment to the anti-virus and social media company. It is not known what has caused this severe penalty – or if it’s a mistake – but Qihoo apps such as its 360 Mobile Defender, and its 360 Browser for iPad, have vanished from all nations’ iTunes App Stores (pictured below).

The 360 Mobile Defender website gives the link to its app in iTunes – here – but it is now dead (see it in Google Cache). Same goes for its iPad-only web browser; another casualty is the company’s group-messaging app, Kouxin (pictured up top). In effect, Qihoo has been erased from Apple’s iOS store.

Apple has a strict policing system on its app store, so unless this is an error, then Qihoo must’ve been found to have violated the terms and conditions of Apple store, which are designed to safeguard users’ on their mobile devices.

Anecdotally, many geeky Chinese netizens have feared for their privacy when using Qihoo products on either mobile or desktop – and the same goes for the Tencent (HKG:0700) products – but both firms’ apps still remain popular with people in general.

A Qihoo representative, talking to PO via email, would comment only that…

We are seeking clarification from Apple and still waiting for Apple’s reply. Until then, we should have no further comment.

Recently we looked at nine very dubious tactics used by Qihoo to push its 360 Safe Browser for PC onto users, to the point that it’s now reportedly more popular than Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Internet Explorer in China.

Qihoo started out as an anti-virus vendor, but has since expanded to the point that it generates most of its revenue from advertising, and spreads its brand using its numerous apps for iOS, Android, and Symbian.

The company is offering its iOS apps as standalone downloads as ‘.ipa’ files – as it has always done – so that is now its only method of getting onto iPhones and iPads – provided those users have jail-broken their Apple devices.

[Hat-tip to Twitter user @ShangshangLin for spotting this]

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been wanting people in China to quit using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) for quite some time – but it didn’t want things to pan out like this. Now a rival web browser, made by Qihoo (NYSE:QIHU) and called the 360 Safe Browser, has far surpassed the market share of IE as a whole, and is now reportedly used for 57 percent of all web surfing in the country.

But New York-based Digital Due Diligence (DDD) has evidence which suggests that Qihoo has used some seriously evil tactics to rope in users to its 360 Safe Browser. And it believes that these Machiavellian maneuvers – a total of nine are identified – have helped it to prevail in such a short time – just three years.

Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that Qihoo’s main business is, supposedly, anti-virus software. But with most of those anti-virus products being free, Qihoo generates nearly all of its revenue from its links portal hao.360.cn and general ad clicks. It’s an area that has provoked attacks by the short-sellers Citron who say that such old-fashioned links sites are unsustainable. But, on the contrary, Qihoo seems to be doing well out of it, serving as a sort of AOL to inexperienced web users at a time when millions of Chinese people get online for the first time each day.

And so its 360 Safe Browser is an integral part of all that, driving ad clicks on its portal as well as being, in Qihoo’s mentality, an integral part of its anti-virus platform.

But its tactics in forcing the 360 browser upon people are unacceptable, and render it something closer to malware or spyware. It looks to be exploiting the country’s not-too-savvy web users, infringing on their privacy, and even hijacking their choice of browsers. Here’s the list that DDD compiled explaining how Qihoo’s browser rose to the top:

1. An almost identical icon to IE except that it’s green (pictured above).

2. In the setup process, asking users to make it the default browser for links in other apps, such as in IMs.

3. Using its 360 Anti-Virus product to fire up pop-ups reminding people that the 360 browser is safer than IE.

4. Yet more pop-ups pestering people to set 360 Safe Browser as their default.

5. Using 360 Anti-Virus to block other browsers from becoming default, as pictured here blocking the Sohu-made Sogou Explorer:



6. 360 Anti-Virus scans give lower scores to users who don’t have the 360 browser installed, and then recommends that they install it.

7. Installing the 360 browser covertly in some anti-virus software bundles. Since most people just click ‘next’ during the set-up process, it gets foisted upon unwary people.

8. 360 Safe Browser is deliberately difficult and confusing to uninstall. The ‘Change to IE9’ option in the uninstall dialog box actually just reinstalls the 360 browser and makes it the default. That’s some super-sized shysterism.

9. After uninstallation, there are instances of some users finding it hard to get on the internet again and finding that their web settings have been changed.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Qihoo following the lead of Tencent (HKG:0700) and Sohu (NASDAQ:SOHU) in launching its own search engine, and tying its 360 browser to that as well. It’s something those other two are doing already.

And so it looks like web standards – as well as ethics and basic respect for users – are still distant concepts on the web scene among some major tech firms in China.

Hit the source link below for all the nine screenshots that provide proof of those malicious tactics.

[Source: Digital Due Diligence]

A Hangzhou-based start-up has snagged the fantastically gimmicky name WeiboCall – incorporating the word for China’s popular microblogging platform – to stick onto its free, multi-platform voice-call service. By its very nature as a VoIP service, it’s yet another potential Skype competitor.

The WeiboCall service has apps for iPhone and Android (pictured above), and accompanying extensions for Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and 360 Browser that make the PC-to-mobile voice calling possible.

WeiboCall, as its name suggests, supports signing-up using your Sina Weibo ID, to save users remembering another bunch of account details. To use the service, you can install the mobile app and/or browser extension, register your phone number with WeiboCall, and you might well see that some of your friends and contacts have done the same. Or not.

The start-up behind the service is Aoshiba, which is Chinese despite the Japanese-sounding name. Its founder, Chen Jin-sheng, says that he’s mindful of Chinese mobile users having restrictive GPRS or 3G data packages, and so has come up with some nifty and thrifty audio compression algorithms to get it down to – he claims – a mere 4kb per second.

There are numerous Chinese-made alternatives to this. The Chinese web and social media giant Tencent already has its own FaceTime-like service called Weishi, which I reviewed earlier this summer. And although that is more beautifully designed, it has no desktop client.

Take a look at the WeiboCall website, and hit the downloads section if you want to try it out. For some reason, the company has not yet sorted out Apple or Android developer accounts, so it just provides ‘.ipa’ and ‘.apk’ files as a direct download. On iPhone, that means you’ll need to be jailbroken in order to install the iOS app.

[Source: 36kr - article in Chinese]

Desktop and mobile web browser apps in China are increasingly becoming freebies, like tea-bags at hotels, from companies desperate to be remembered amongst a crowd of competitors. And so Qihoo 360 has launched a mobile browser for Android this week, in a bid to keep ahead of major rivals such as Tencent.

The 360 Browser for Android (pictured above) has three separate versions: for smartphones, 7-inch tablets, and 10-inch ones as well.

The company already has a popular Windows browser, which is based on Microsoft’s IE7. Thankfully 360’s mobile efforts are made to much more recent web standards, and score 94 out of 100 in the Acid 3 test.

Trying out the new 360 for Android on my own Nexus S, I found it quick – faster to launch than Firefox, though slower than the stock browser – and pleasingly clutter-free, with a Chrome-esque candy-blue colour scheme throughout. Curiously, 360 has gone for a Windows Phone 7 style of button in its new mobile browsers, which is at least a change from aping Mobile Safari. There’s also cloud syncing for bookmarks, and limited back-up options too.

The international version of China-made UC Browser - a big hit around the world.

One of the best things about 360 for Android is the gestures, which require only a preset squiggle or movement to perform a common action, such as switching between pages.

Who are the main mobile browser challengers in China? There are desktop and now mobile offerings from Baidu, Sogou, QQ Browser, Maxthon, and Firefox. One of the most popular mobile browsers in China right now is UC Browser (pictured right); Statcounter says that it has about 50 percent of the mobile browser market share right now (see the graph at bottom). It’s from a small indie start-up that’s now under major attack from China’s giant portals. UC is having success around the world, and recently launched in Indonesia as well.

In this market, web browsers are as much complimentary as complementary: they’re about being seen to be at the service of users. In the past, the same was true of Chinese input method editor apps, which offer better Chinese-language typing abilities than most native OSes. The ultimate purpose, of course, is to get users on board with your brand. And so your browser fan might also make use of your search engine – the motive behind Tencent directing QQ Browser to Soso search – or buy your anti-virus products – which is Qihoo’s real bread-and-butter product.

If you’d like to give the Android phone or tablet version a try – or the iPad variant – head over to the 360 mobile browser homepage. Also, here’s a graph showing market share amongst mobile browsers in China. UC Browser, in orange, is clearly way ahead: