Cốc Cốc browser is a freewareweb browser focused on the Vietnamese market, developed by Vietnamese company Cốc Cốc and based on Chromium open source code, which is the same platform used by Google Chrome, Opera, and Comodo Dragon. Cốc Cốc is available for the Windows, Windows Phone and macOS operating systems and supports both English and Vietnamese. Cốc Cốc also has a search engine called :vi:Cốc Cốc |Cốc Cốc Search Engine
Overview
Cốc Cốc is among the five most popular browsers in Vietnam, according to data from StatCounter. A majority of the features found in Cốc Cốc, as well as its quality and stability, are similar to Google Chrome's. Significantly, Cốc Cốc also contains functionality that is useful to Vietnamese users: automatic typing aid, faster downloads, ability to bypass DNS blocking and to download audio and video from popular sites, and integrated English-Vietnamese dictionary and spell-checking. Another included feature, less common in popular browsers, is the support for the BitTorrent protocol via the download user interface. According to Vn Review, a software technical review website, these tailored features add more value that put Cốc Cốc on the map and differentiate Cốc Cốc from other Chromium-based browsers.
History
The first version of the browser was presented under the brandname Cờ Rôm+ on 4 December 2012. At that time, the interface of Cốc Cốc was similar to that of Google Chrome, but the browser had already integrated two features: the ability to download files to multiple streams and storage of media content The browser was officially submitted five months later 14 May 2013. with two new features introduced: automatic typing aid and bypassing DNS blocking. To date, the developer group has published 6 additional features. Two months after official release, the number of Cốc Cốc users in Vietnam surpassed Opera and later outperformed Safari and Internet Explorer. On 2 April 2014, Cờ Rôm+ was officially re-branded as the Cốc Cốc browser, with a new browser icon design released, to unify the company's brands under that name: Cốc Cốc Search Engine, Cốc Cốc browser and Nhà Nhà mobile app. In October 2017, Cốc Cốc has reached to the new record of number of users with more than 22 million people and ranked as the second popular browser in Vietnam after Google Chrome.
Features
Cốc Cốc has a mechanism to perform reverse domain name resolution, allowing the bypassing of blocked websites on DNS. This feature debuted on 14 May 2013, in the first official release of the browser
Cốc Cốc is equipped with a system that automatically analyzes to add lingual tone to Vietnamese text. It allows the user to enter Vietnamese text without need of applications like Unikey and Vietkey. When users type any text without tone, Cốc Cốc will suggest the most likely variants of tone arrangements, once processed on the Cốc Cốc server. Developers say that the addition of text tone suggestions increases typing speed by up to 50% among regular users and 20% among advanced users.
To further support the Vietnamese language, Cốc Cốc automatically detects spelling mistakes, underlining and suggesting corrections with 94% accuracy. According to some experiments, Cốc Cốc outperforms Google Chrome's spell-checker in 97 cases out of 100. The developer group estimates that this feature saves users up to 4–10 days per year to type and review documents.
Cốc Cốc incorporates an English-Vietnamese dictionary, assisting English learners or international newspaper subscribers from elementary to the advanced level. When users double click into any English word, a small box will appear on site, showing meaning and pronunciation of the word.
Cốc Cốc is able to find media content on most streaming websites and save it to the computer for viewing or listening offline, by one click on an icon on toolbar. Except for several premium websites, all popular streaming websites, for example, YouTube and Dailymotion, are downloadable on the browser.
Files are downloaded in multiple streams, which under certain conditions can accelerate download speeds by up to eight times, depending on the bandwidth of the Internet connections and the speed at which the server sends files. At present, an option to increase or decrease the downloading speed is not provided.
Unlike Google Chrome and most other browsers based on Chromium, which removes and cancels all pending downloads when the browser is closed, Cốc Cốc is able to save and resume partial downloads.
Market share
According to data published by comScorein September 2014 and StatCounter in November 2014, use of Cốc Cốc surpassed Firefox and with a share of 18.25% became the second most used browser in Vietnam after Google Chrome, at 49.59%. Previously, according to data published by StatCounter in February 2014, Cốc Cốc had overtaken Internet Explorer and Firefox to become one of the top browsers in Vietnam"
User feedback and issues
DNS bypassing feature gets huge traction from the community. Users feedback on this feature as the most practical one regarding unstable access to Facebook in Vietnam, since it is much faster and more convenient than conventional addition of software like Hotspot Shield or Ultrasurf, which usually brings some side effects like Internet connection slowdown or third party advertising.
Tone-addition system for Vietnamese text shares the database of :vi: Cốc Cốc |Cốc Cốc Search Engine, another of product of the company Cốc Cốc, which is known as the largest database of websites in Vietnamese. The system analyzes language used on websites to suggest the most likely variants of tones for any Vietnamese text inserted in the browser. This dynamic principle allows frequent update of newly coined terms in order not to be outdated on the Internet. However this feature seems unable to change users' typing habit. The feature is optional and users can opt out, either only on some specific websites or completely on browser.
Users highly welcome free and high speed media download. However finding and downloading media content from every websites is somewhat controversial regarding copyright issues that might raise in the future. The counter argument is that, since many add-ons for Firefox with similar function are still considered lawful, there is no solid reason to oppose this feature.
Using multi thread download similar to Internet Download Manager, the browser is supposed to download at just the same speed as Internet Download Manager, however there are reports of cases where it failed to perform up to expectation, because the actual acceleration depends on the bandwidth of the Internet, and the speed at which the server sends files.
