Yandex Browser ( Russian: Яндекс.Браузер) is a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the ...

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 the Russian technology corporation

Yandex Yandex LLC (russian: link=no, Яндекс, p=ˈjandəks) is a Russian multinational technology company providing Internet-related products and services, including an Internet search engine, information services, e-commerce, transportation, map ...

that uses the

Blink Blinking is a bodily function; it is a semi-autonomic rapid closing of the eyelid. A single blink is determined by the forceful closing of the eyelid or inactivation of the levator palpebrae superioris and the activation of the palpebral portio ...

web 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 interact ...

and is based on the

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 ...

open source project. The browser checks webpage security with the Yandex security system and checks downloaded files with Kaspersky Anti-Virus. The browser also uses

Opera Software Opera is a Norwegian multinational technology company and subsidiary of Kunlun that specializes in web browser development, fintech, as well as services such as Opera News and YoYo Games. The company's total user base, including users of it ...

's Turbo technology to speed web browsing on slow connections. The browser is available for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

, Android and iOS. Yandex is facing web search competition in Russia from

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the List of most visited websites, most-visi ...

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, ...

, Russia's most popular web browser, uses Google Search as its default search engine. In June 2012,

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current an ...

, the world's third most popular web browser, signed a deal to replace its default search engine

Yandex Search Yandex Search () is a search engine. It is owned by Yandex, based in Russia. In January 2015, Yandex Search generated 51.2% of all of the search traffic in Russia according to . About The search technology provides local search (Internet), loca ...

with Google Search. As Yandex Browser's "Smartbox" uses Yandex Search as its default search engine, the browser will help Yandex compete for Russian search market share. The browser is the second most popular desktop web browser (the third as a mobile browser) in Russia at 21.5%, while it is less popular in most other countries, e.g. in Ukraine fourth at 4.45% and globally has less share are than Internet Explorer (which is sixth at 1.65%).

Distinguishing features

Distinguishing features of the Yandex Browser include the following: * Different "new tab" screen with a Windows 8-style interface and specialized widgets for popular services (e.g., the gmail widget shows number of unread messages). * Integrated keyboard layout switcher in omnibox: e.g., if a user often uses gmail.com and starts typing "пьф" ("gma" with Russian keyboard layout) and presses Enter, the user will then be taken to gmail.com and not to the search page for "пьф" (as is the case in Chrome, for example). * On Android it provides ability to install chrome extensions on a mobile browser. * Supports browser extensions from the

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

add-ons website.

Security

DNS spoofing protection

Protect active security technology scans files and website for viruses, blocks fraudulent webpages, protects passwords and bank card details, and keeps online payments safe from theft.

DNSCrypt

Yandex Browser was the first browser to implement

DNSCrypt DNSCrypt is a network protocol that authenticates and encrypts Domain Name System (DNS) traffic between the user's computer and recursive name servers. It was originally designed by Frank Denis and Yecheng Fu. Although multiple free and ope ...

technology, which encrypts

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned t ...

(DNS) traffic. For example, it protects from a trojan

DNSChanger DNSChanger is a DNS hijacking Trojan. The work of an Estonian company known as Rove Digital, the malware-infected computers by modifying a computer's DNS entries to point toward its own rogue name servers, which then injected its own advertising ...

, a tracking Internet provider, or hackers. This option must be enabled in the browser settings.

Protecting Wi-Fi

When connecting to open

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

networks or to the points that use a weak WEP-defense, Yandex Browser automatically encrypts traffic between it and the HTTP sites.

Privacy concerns

According to Douglas J. Leith, a computer science professor at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, Yandex Browser not only sends a hashed hardware identifier to Yandex, but also every letter typed in the address bar and every URL visited by the user.

Company background

Yandex was created by Ilya Segalovich and Arkady Volozh while working for Arcadia in 1993. It was named Yandex as an abbreviation for Yet Another Indexer. They named it Яndex, using Я as a shortened version of Ya. Yandex was unveiled on September 23, 1997. At that point it had indexed the entirety of the Russian internet. The following year, Yandex began showing advertisements. Their first advertisement said, "Ваша киска купила бы Cisco," meaning, "Your kitty would buy Cisco." In the year 2000, Yandex was registered as a company. Volozh became the CEO. In 2001, Yandex started to place advertisements directly into pages themselves. 2500 advertisers joined. A year later, the company became profitable. That same year, Yandex.Images and Yandex.Market started. Later that year, Yandex.money (a payment system) started jointly with the PayCash group. In 2003, Yandex started issuing dividends. That year, they issued $100,000 of dividends. Yandex also changed their advertisement system to a

pay-per-click Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click is usually ...

model. In 2004, Yandex.maps started. They had detailed maps of

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, and

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...

. It could not be used to search for addresses, just establishments. That year, Yandex created a separate search engine for blogs, that no longer exists.

Market share

According to analytics, Yandex Browser reached 2.3% market share in Russia two months after its release. As of June 2022, Yandex Browser held 16.47% market share in Russia.

References

External links

* {{Rich web applications Yandex software 2012 software Android web browsers C++ software Cross-platform web browsers Freeware History of the Internet iOS web browsers Linux web browsers MacOS web browsers Software based on WebKit Windows web browsers