What a new year to start, but just like any familiar story: Qihoo 360, a Chinese internet security company, is having a spat with a new rival. Its rival Xiaomi removes all Qihoo's apps from the app store.
Xiaomi admits it deleted all Qihoo apps after it discovered a shocking behavior. As per the mobile phone giant, a Qihoo program known as "Leidian OS" was secretly digging into customers' phones, installing apps without permission, preventing MiUI updates, messing with MIUI's system, and stealing traffic from Xiaomi apps. The OS also tended to crash users' phone entirely.
Qihoo certainly don't see things this way. It comments that the Leidian OS will just execute system optimization on MIUI, and makes a good third-party OS for Xiaomi phones. Last Sunday, Qihoo wrote an open letter to Xiaomi that it bloated all its phones with so many pre-installed apps. It prevented making a customer to select Qihoo apps, which were considered energy-efficient, safer, faster and lighter mobile OS. It claimed that Xiaomi was just afraid of the effects of the Leidian OS.
The arguments between the two companies attracted several of China's internet industry watchers, making them comment, and derive split sentiments. As written in Sina Tech article, one popular comment that is critical to Qihoo, compares Leidian OS to removing the locks of your house, and moving into it without permission. However, it assures that the property remains safe as all rights are still yours. Another comment defends Qihoo that it offers free and reliable anti-virus software. There are so many critics and comments written for both Qihoo and Xiaomi.
How you use Leidian OS will actually depend on how you use it and what company you work for. However this is not the first time that Qihoo apps were questioned in terms of performance. Xiaomi had once deleted the apps previously, while Apple had it for an entire year.
Xiaomi phones run Android and can install apk files as well as access third-party app stores. Xiaomi's block however can't stop users from accessing Qihoo 360 apps whenever they want to, including the Leidian OS on their smartphones. The process can also turn unmanageable if the user's phone does not have a third-party app store installed.