[Update: Mi Browser 13.0 internal beta recruitment] You may see less MIUI ads in Xiaomi's upcoming Mi browser update

This story is being continuously updated…. New updates are being added at the bottom…..

Original story (published on June 14, 2019) follows:

Due to the customizability, some Android OEMs often replace the essential apps with their in-house developed versions. Apart from dialer or messaging apps (which can be tightly integrated with the OEM skin), note taking apps or browsers are the newest candidates in this weird practice.

Xiaomi’s take on creating these apps is correlated with their alternate ecosystem in China. Google is virtually non-existent there, so the OEM fills the void with their own set of apps and online services.

Part of this app ecosystem is ads, and lately Xiaomi is drawing a lot of criticisms due to that. Readers may have found the incidents themselves, where the stock MIUI browser app sends ad-infested push notifications.

Looks like the situation will change soon, as Xiaomi China team is now recruiting volunteers for evaluating a revamped version of the stock MIUI browser app.

The Mi Browser app recently caught the attraction of media due to the presence of a handful serious vulnerabilities. Like most of their in-house apps, the MIUI browser (codename: com.android.browser, same as AOSP browser) is updated through the integrated system app updater, instead of Google Play store.

When a user queried regarding the presence of ads inside the Mi Browser, they were assured that the team had considered the matter with utmost priority.

The Product Director of Xiaomi cum MIUI Experience General Manager posted an open letter via his Weibo profile a few days ago, where he discussed about the future roadmap of the advertisement policy of the Chinese OEM.

Alvin Tse, the head of Pocophone Global, has also hinted about a similar restructuring regarding ads in one of his tweets:

Do you think Xiaomi will come up a cleaner set of apps with less ads in the future, possibly with the release of MIUI 11? Comment below.

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IST 05:11 pm: Xiaomi has officially announced that it is now recruiting beta testers to test Mi Browser version 13.0. This new update brings several new features and improvements including a new search homepage and multi-window management. Here are the highlights for Mi Browser 13.0:

– New search homepage: add bookmarks and frequently visited modules;
– New multi-window page: add recently closed module;
– Brand new web video player: supports double speed, double-click to pause, screen lock, etc.;
– The bookmark page is optimized to simplify the operation process.

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