CM Browser ( zh, s=猎豹安全浏览器) was a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

developed by

Cheetah Mobile Cheetah Mobile Inc () is a Chinese mobile Internet company headquartered in Beijing. , it has more than 634 million monthly active users. History Formation Chen Rui ( :zh:陳睿 current CEO of Bilibili) founded Cheetah Mobile. The company w ...

. The browser is based on

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hard ...

and supports both the

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the ...

and

Trident A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other mar ...

browser engine A browser engine ( also known as a layout engine or rendering engine) is a core software component of every major web browser. The primary job of a browser engine is to transform HTML documents and other resources of a web page into an interacti ...

s. Jinshan Network claims that CM Browser is the first secure dual-engine browser with a "browser

intrusion prevention system An intrusion detection system (IDS; also intrusion prevention system or IPS) is a device or software application that monitors a network or systems for malicious activity or policy violations. Any intrusion activity or violation is typically rep ...

". On June 3, 2013, CM Browser was released on Android and iOS.

Controversies

Version 1 of CM Browser used version 17 of

, which was much lower than the official version of Chromium. This prevented the use of the

Chrome Web Store Chrome Web Store is Google's online store for its Chrome web browser. As of 2019, Chrome Web Store hosts about 190,000 extensions and web apps. History Chrome Web Store was publicly unveiled in December 2010, and was opened on February 11, 20 ...

on CM Browser. On September 21, 2014, Jinshan was ordered to pay

Youku Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (), is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. Youku has its headquarters in the Sinosteel Plaza in Haid ...

¥300,000 for violating Chinese

competition law Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

s by allowing CM Browser to filter video ads on Youku's website. In the preceding trial, Youku claimed to suffer an

economic loss Economic loss is a term of art which refers to financial loss and damage suffered by a person which is seen only on a balance sheet and not as physical injury to person or property. There is a fundamental distinction between pure economic loss and ...

as a result of CM Browser's ad filtering, as the company earned revenue from ads and premium subscriptions that allowed users to skip ads. Jinshan stated that CM Browser's ad filtering feature was vendor-neutral and that users must opt-in to activate the feature. In November 2018, the

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

Consumer Protection Committee commissioned an evaluation of the

application permissions Permissions are a means of controlling and regulating access to specific system- and device-level functions by software. Typically, types of permissions cover functions that may have privacy implications, such as the ability to access a device's har ...

of 18 popular

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s, including CM Browser. The study found that CM Browser requested sensitive phone- and

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

-related permissions that allowed the browser to monitor the phone's outbound calls. A representative for CM Browser responded that the browser needed to determine whether a phone call is active in order to prevent interference when the browser is playing audio. The representative indicated that CM Browser would be updated to address the privacy concerns. In February 2020 all of Cheetah's applications have been pulled from the Play Store. Following that, Forbes exposed the company's practices of spying on its users based on a report published by Gabriel Cirlig, a security researcher. The report detailed how CM Browser was sending encrypted data to its Chinese servers exfiltrating the URLs visited by all its users and selling them to various third parties.

Ban in India

In June 2020, the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

banned CM Browser along with 58 other Chinese origin apps, citing data and privacy concerns. The border tensions in 2020 between India and China might have also played a role in the ban.

References

External links

* {{Web browsers Web browsers Windows web browsers IOS web browsers Android web browsers

Controversies

Ban in India

See also

Further reading

References

External links