Yandex launches its own browser targeting Russian market
How many browsers is enough? Between Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer, (not to mention, Baidu, Amazon, Maxthon, Dolphin, etc...) you'd think we'd have plenty ways to surf the web. Not according to Yandex. The Russian search company has just released its own branded browser built around a Webkit base using Chromium as a starting point. This isn't its first foray into the world of software though, it's been offering a customized version of Firefox for some time, with Yandex as the default search engine. The new entry into the crowded browser market also borrows threat scanning technology from Kaspersky and Opera's Turbo for quickly loading content on slow connections. Tigran Khudaverdyan, head of mobile services at the company, even suggested to Business Week that a mobile version was in the works. For now it's only available for OS X and Windows, however. Check out the PR after the break and hit up the source link to download it now.
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Yandex Launches Browser Leveraging Its Cloud Expertise
MOSCOW AND THE HAGUE, October 1, 2012, Yandex (NASDAQ: YNDX), the leading internet company in Russia operating the country's most popular search engine and most visited website, today announced the release of its own internet browser in Russia.
A pioneer in information retrieval technologies, Yandex has been delivering cutting-edge products and services finely tuned to the evolving needs of internet users in Russia and abroad for more than 15 years. Now the company is bringing its expertise to internet browsing.
"Cloud-based browsing is a next-generation answer to the challenges of the modern internet," said Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex. "To make the internet experience faster, easier and safer for everyone, we have built a cloud-based browser that integrates the best of our products and services and is open to other web developers."
In-depth knowledge of web page structure and user behaviour allowed Yandex to create a browser that facilitates an easy and safe internet navigation. The Yandex browser features a merged search and address bar, which can be used both to surf and to search the internet. The browser also gives its users a choice of search engines with which to power their search. Users do not need to change the settings - a new search provider can easily be picked at a click for each specific search.
The users of Yandex's browser can see locally relevant information, such as current traffic or weather conditions, in real time, right in the browser interface. Equipped with proprietary machine-learned automated translation technology, the browser considerably expands the browsing territory for those who speak only one language. The company's cloud-based safe browsing technology, together with Kaspersky Lab's security solution, enhances the browser's safety by warning the users about potentially malicious websites.
The Yandex browser uses the WebKit engine, popular with a large number of web developers. The browser's user interface is based on the open-source Chromium code. The Yandex browser platform has through a technological partnership with a key long term partner been expanded to incorporate Opera Software's Turbo technology, which allows to boost the browser's page loading capacity even with a slow connection. The Turbo mode will be included in the next browser release. In addition to the basic open-source components, the browser has also been augmented with out-of-the-box plug-ins, including the latest versions of Adobe FlashTM and a PDF reader.
The Yandex browser supports Windows and Mac OS and can be downloaded at browser.yandex.ru, browser.yandex.com.
