Google, Sougou, QQ, Baidu... which Pinyin IME do you use?

[Manuel]

Up until today Sogou Pinyin had been my pinyin input method of choice, mainly because it's what every Chinese person I know uses. Literally. However, today I remembered that Tencent also make their own flavour of pinyin input method, called QQ Pinyin, so I decided to give it a try, and I have to say I am very impressed: it's got the best of Google Pinyin (clean interface, no ads) and also the best of Sogou Pinyin (handwriting input, screen capture, up-to-date database).

Google Pinyin, never really worked for me because the candidate window and the status bar use the same window class name, which means that there is no neat way to tell them apart programmatically (I use AutoHotkey to do a bunch of tricks). Furthermore, I've always been under the assumption that Sogou would have the richest database, with the latest terms and expressions, since it's what everyone seems to use in China.

But I am converted now. QQ has been my favourite IM application for a long time and for me Tencent have done it again with QQ Pinyin.

I have only used about half of the input methods listed on this poll, and the only reason I know about the others is that there's a list on Wikipedia here. Some of these input methods are cross-platform but I only use Windows so I don't know what the options are for Mac and Linux friends.

I am very curious what everybody else is using

[Hofmann]

I've switched around a bit. First Sogou, then I got sick of the crapware and switched to QQ, but I missed Sogou's ability to type some Pinyin, press Tab, then some strokes to narrow it down quickly, so I switched back to Sogou. I also like its ability to get vocabulary on demand from the cloud. I haven't checked out very many IME's so if there are any others that have these functions without the unnecessary stuff that would be nice.

[Koxinga]

I use ibus-pinyin (I'm a Linux user). I don't really like it, but it's the best option out there currently. I wish they would just improve their traditional character support.

I used Google Pinyin back when I was a Windows user, and I still use it on my phone.

[m000gle]

On my Windows installations, I've been using Sogou Pinyin for as long as I can remember.  There's a reason why, as another poster already explained, almost every Chinese person we know seems to use it.  It works quite well.  The crapware can also be avoided by NOT installing any add-ons and NOT installing the Soguo web browser they attempt to bundle with the program.

 

As with Koxinga, though, I'm on Linux most of the time and default to ibus-pinyin.  It's not as good as the third-party options available on Windows, but it gets the job done and has come a long way in recent years.

[Manuel]

In spite of my initial post, I am converted back to Sogou. I encountered some issues with QQ Pinyin that made Sogou a more suitable tool, so I've re-cast my vote in favour of the latter. I agree that Google PInyin has the cleanest interface but Sogou, having the largest user base of all Chinese input methods, provides the richest and most up-to-date vocabulary, which mitigates the inconvenience of the occasional pop-up.

[roddy]

While I'm sure Sogou has more users, Google is already collecting and processing incredible quantities of Chinese text - if that's feeding into their IME I'm not sure they'd have that much more of an advantage.

[Manuel]

My uninformed guess is that, since both Sogou and Google build their dictionaries by collecting data directly from the users (good but also scary), having the larger user base can only be a good thing. However, there are other factors such as how cleverly collected data is used--quality over quantity. In the end I end up checking out other IMEs from time to time to keep up with development, and stick with whichever one hit the spot at that particular time.

[roddy]

Who are the two poor people still using Microsoft's IME? Either it must be greatly improved, or you should rise up against your IT departments. 

 

To be honest I don't do a lot of typing new words anyway. What kind of stuff do you find Google misses? New personalities, movies, Internet slang? Chinese certainly has plenty of neologisms these days. 

[imron]

Google is already collecting and processing incredible quantities of Chinese text - if that's feeding into their IME I'm not sure they'd have that much more of an advantage.

That strikes me as a big if.  I feel that from a business perspective the IME is more a focus of Sogou than it is for Google, and is under more active development.  Google has a lot of products that they develop and then leave (or let rot).

 

That being said, showing popup ads like Sogou does is completely unacceptable for me.  Any product that has such intrusive advertising is not welcome on my computer.

[Manuel]

From what I recall Sogou was able to correctly predict what I was trying to type more often than Google Pinyin. Sogou appears to take into account more than just past input statistics, for example, if on Valentine's Day the character 花 comes up a lot, it may start to appear before 话 within minutes on that particular day, which may not be the case on a normal day. Google Pinyin may already be designed to do that too, but with a smaller user base it might be slower to react. To me Google Pinyin has always felt more rigid, while Sogou feels as though an actual human were reading my pinyin and then typing out the Chinese characters (which may be the case if you type certain words ).

 

In addition, Google Pinyin is at best an indirect revenue stream for Google. Users may subconsciously remember that other Google services exist when they see the Google Pinyin candidates pop-up, or perhaps Google analyze your input and then tailor Google-Ads accordingly (which in my opinion is better than desktop ad pop-ups). The problem is, of course, that the majority of people who would be happy to use Google Pinyin don't have consistent access to the other services in their country, most notably Google's flagship product, and naturally they turn to other apparently more reliable alternatives, which inevitably pushes Google Pinyin into Google's back burner.

[Shelley]

Just wanted to bump this thread, what are people using these days?

 

Just started to do more typing of characters because of the new thread here http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/48078-experimenting-with-a-beginner-level-writing-thread/

 

I am finding the MS IME painful, for one thing its very small, my eyes are not what they use to be and it is tiring straining to see what the characters are.

 

I have got used to GoKeyboard on my android tablet and now finding the MS IME boring. It was okay for very small amounts of input but it just not up to the job now.

[Shelley]

Well I looked about on the internet and have ended up with Google's IME, looks good so far.

[Takeshi]

Indeed every Chinese person seems to use Sougou, but I really have no idea why. I mean, I guess it has a better dictionary and stuff, but advertisements etc are really unacceptable for me. I'm especially surprised to find it popular here too. My pinyin method of choice is Google's, but I honestly don't really mind MS pinyin. (Maybe I don't understand the greatness?) Pinyin isn't my main input method though, I normally use 倉頡

[Angelina]

I voted for 搜狗 because I used to be using it and liked it, but I am now mostly using Apple. Since I am also using Cyrillic I have to say it's extremely easy to switch between different writing systems. Any news for open source? Ibus-pinyin from #3?

[imron]

but I really have no idea why

Because originally it didn't have ads, and it was significantly better than any other pinyin based IME on the market.  Then it got a huge marketshare and brand awareness among Chinese that it was the best IME, and by the time they introduced ads they already had the mindshare and people stuck with what they know.

[roddy]

Another factor is that if you're on a Chinese office PC, the chances are Sougou's ads are some of the less obtrusive ones. In fact, you probably never see them as they're hidden behind the ads from all the various download accelerators, video streamers and proprietary browsers that have been installed. 

[Takeshi]

Ahh, I see.

 

Never seen a Chinese office PC either so, dunno about that either.

[DonCachopo]

Hi.

Does anyone where can I find (if possible) a traslation of the options of Google IME?

 

Thanks

 

Edit:

http://scattered-notes.blogspot.com.es/2007/04/translation-of-google-chinese-input.html

 

Maybe a updated one would be better