Although various types of software can help people buy train tickets during the Spring Festival rush, travelers who use it for that purpose should be cautious about security, experts said.

Alongside being useful, the software has led to instances of unfair treatment, Zhu Jiansheng, deputy head of the China Academy of Railway Sciences' institution of commuting technology, said on Thursday in a report on ce.cn, a news website run by the Economic Daily newspaper.

Zhu said customers should be careful about using the software blindly.

The Ministry of Railways' ticketing website, 12306.cn, sold 2.85 million tickets on Wednesday, according to People's Daily.

Many types of software have been developed to help people buy tickets home. The Mirror Evening News, a newspaper in Beijing, reported on Thursday that the release of a plug-in for a Chinese browser caused servers at github.com, one of the largest code management websites, to break down.

- Jin Haixing

(China Daily 01/18/2013 page3)