Xiaomi bans all apps from rival

It may be a new year, but here’s a familiar story: Chinese internet security giant Qihoo 360 is having a spat with a competitor. This time, it’s Xiaomi that finds itself in the crosshairs after removing all of Qihoo’s apps from its app store.

Xiaomi says it delisted the apps after discovering some shocking behavior: according to the company a Qihoo program called “Leidian OS” was secretly rooting users’ phones, messing with MIUI’s system, preventing MIUI updates, stealing traffic from Xiaomi apps, and installing apps without permission. The program has also caused some users’ phones to crash entirely.

Qihoo, of course, doesn’t see things that way. It says that Leidian OS just performs some system optimizations on MIUI, and is thus a better third-party OS for Xiaomi phones. On Sunday, Qihoo fired back at Xiaomi with an open letter accusing Xiaomi of bloating its phones with too many pre-installed apps, and of thwarting consumer choice by blocking access to what Qihoo says is a “lighter, faster, safer, and more energy-efficient” mobile operating system. Xiaomi, Qihoo says, is just afraid of the threat Leidian OS poses to MIUI.

Nobody wins

The spat has gotten a ton of attention among China’s internet industry watchers, attracting thousands of comments, and sentiment seems to be split. On this Sina Tech article, for example, the most popular comment is critical of Qihoo, comparing what Leidian OS does to removing the locks on your house and moving into it without permission while assuring you that it’s fine because the property rights are still yours. But another very popular comment defends Qihoo for offering a free anti-virus solution that actually works, and throughout the threads there are plenty of comments critical of both Xiaomi and Qihoo.

What Leidian OS actually is may depend on your perspective (and perhaps which company you work for). But it’s worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time Qihoo apps have run afoul of app store operators over privacy concerns. Xiaomi has delisted Qihoo apps once before, and Apple pulled them off the app store for an entire year (as well as delisting them for a few days on a separate occasion).

Since Xiaomi phones are Androids that can install apk files from anywhere and access third-party app stores, Xiaomi’s block won’t actually prevent users who want them from installing Qihoo 360 apps – including Leidian OS – on their phones. But it will make the process of doing so slightly more cumbersome for those who don’t already have a third-party app store installed.