Rising: Qihoo 360 Software Blocking Competitors' Products
BiaNews, 3/23/11
Chinese anti-virus software developer Rising recently held an emergency press conference in Beijing and announced that it has received numerous complaints only two days after making its consumer-grade anti-virus products freely available. Users who had installed anti-virus software products such as Rising iKaka Online Security Assistant, Qihoo 360's 360 Safe Guard, Kingsoft's (3888.HK) Security Defender and Tencent's (0700.HK) QQ PC Manager, discovered that if they used 360 Safe Guard's "one key optimization" option, then they could not use anti-virus software from the other companies.
R&D general manager Liu Gang, after thorough analysis, concluded that 360 Safe Guard's "accelerated start-up" feature tricks users into tacitly agreeing to prevent other anti-virus software from loading in order to avoid triggering the anti-virus software's self-protection mechanism. Qihoo 360's software even creates a "backdoor" program during the installation process allowing it to disrupt competitors software. Rising VP Zhang Yumu said that he did not want users' computers to become a battlefield and he had already reported this matter to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
Qihoo 360 could not respond to allegations as the company is currently in a media blackout period in the run-up to its IPO.
Editor's Note: For more background on this topic, please see "Rising: No Compatibility Issues with Competitors Products" MD 3/23/11 issue.
Keywords: Liu Gang scandal Zhang Yumu IPO security software MIIT 360 Safe Guard anti-virus Rising Qihoo 360