Alibaba’s UC Browser
UC Browser
“Both UCWeb and the parent, Alibaba group should make wholehearted efforts to allay all fears and apprehensions of their customers and rectify, if required, and strengthen the security features of all their applications.”
History
UCWeb, owned by the Alibaba group since 2014, is the mobile internet company that created UC Browser. It was launched as a J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) application in Apr 2004. The popular web browser is now available for almost all the major mobile and computer platforms including Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Java ME, Symbian and Microsoft Windows
User base
Alibaba owned UC browser has found world wide acceptance with an active user base of nearly 420 million users worldwide. This is about 20% of the global market share. This was around 2.3% more than the market share of Safari owned by the tech giant, Apple in 2016. Google’s Chrome is the most popular web browser with over two billion active installs on both desktop and mobile combined (2016).
(Update: as per the latest market share data as of Nov 2017 UC Browser has lost some ground. The new market share stands as – Chrome (55.0%), Safari (14.8%), UC Browser (8.0%), IE (3.9%), Opera (3.8%), source - StatCounter)
Market share in India
Till June 2017, UC Browser was the most popular browser in India with 41.8% market share. However, since July17 onwards Chrome has surged ahead and as of Nov17 has a market share of 42.8%. UC has over 100 million monthly active users in India.
Data leak
With immense popularity, issues regarding privacy and data leak have been coming up since 2015. Lab tests done on UC Browser revealed vulnerabilities and security flaws. Snowden leaks also showed that certain user sensitive data was getting leaked and was being used by intelligence agencies to track users.
The browser has also come under the scanner of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The matter is under investigation and pertains to leaking of mobile data of Indian users to servers in China as well as retaining control over a user's device DNS even after the browser is deleted.
Amid all these allegations and investigations, UC Browser was removed from Google Play store for almost a week beginning 13 Nov 2017 allegedly due to adopting "misleading" and "unhealthy" methods of increasing installs.
However, the browser is back on play store after just a week. Alibaba Mobile Business Group has come out with a statement that they have rectified the glitch in the setting which was not in line with Google Play store’s policies.
India operations
UCWeb plans to expand its India operations and increase the local language content on the platform. It has about 30 people in its India team and Alibaba had announced in Jan17 plans to invest INR 2 billion to build UCWeb in India and Indonesia over the next two years.
People’s view
Providing users with a light weight and blazing fast browser with loads of additional features as well as digital content in local languages has made UC Browser so popular. However, the features and great quality content should not be at the cost of security and privacy breach. Both UCWeb and the parent, Alibaba group should make wholehearted efforts to allay all fears and apprehensions of their customers and rectify, if required, and strengthen the security features of all their applications.
Download updated version of UC Browser from Google play store: UC Browser download link
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