Yandex, the NASDAQ-listed Russian Internet search giant, intends to lauch its own browser later this year or in early 2013, the Russian business daily Vedomosti learned yesterday from industry sources.
In addition to the standard web version, the Yandex browser would be made available for mobile devices under iOS and Android operating systems.
The browser war is raging in Russia, with Google pushing its own product, Google Chrome. Yandex recently accused Google of illegitimately favoring Google as search engine by default, an accusation which the US firm denied.
Firefox browsers have been enrolled in the battle following Google’s $300-million-a-year worldwide agreement with Mozilla, under which the Firefox browser will offer Google search results by default. The agreement applies to Russia, where Firefox previously offered Yandex results by default.
On its side, Yandex has made a deal with Norway’s Opera, whose mobile browsers dominate the Russian market.
The Mail.ru Group – Yandex’s great rival for leadership on the Russian Internet – has developed its own browser, ‘Browser Internet,’ which draws its source code from Chromium, the open source web browser that also inspired Google Chrome developers. Last month, the Mail.ru group announced that Browser Internet users could take advantage of Web of Trust, a security add-on developed by the Finnish company WOT.
Update June 18, 2013: Yandex has released its browser for Android smartphones and the iPad. The browser has a combined address and search box and is powered by Turbo technology, which makes browsing over weak Internet connections much easier. All downloaded and uploaded data is compressed, so web surfing becomes faster and — for some users — cheaper. Yandex expects to launch versions for Android tablets and the iPhone this fall.
