After many speculations and 50+ Chinese apps were flagged off, the Indian government has banned 59 Chinese apps, not all but quite popular ones.
As anti-China sentiment hit its peak and the call for boycott of Chinese products erupted loudly on social media and through TV debates, the Indian government has, so far, banned 59 Chinese apps. Many apps have already been blocked by ISPs from the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, which have been kept in compliance with the Indian government.
While the list of banned apps includes names like TeakTalk, which is highly popular in India, the list also includes names such as Sheen, but Ali Express, Bangwood, and some other Chinese e-commerce sites are not on the list. File sharing apps like ShareIt & Xender are banned, social media and IM apps like WeChat, Weibo etc. are also banned. Banning apps is easy enough, at least for now, but it is now almost impossible to ban Chinese hardware, especially Chinese smartphones. And it is becoming clear that sales are going on because there is no reasonable option left for people to choose. However, the anti-China sentiment created by Chinese aggression in the past helped the government ban some apps, as some of them are known to collect and send users’ data to data centers in China. Here is the complete list of banned Chinese apps.
1. TikTok
2. ShareIt
3. Kwai
4. UC Browser
5. Baidu map
6. Shein
7. Clash of Kings
8. DU battery saver
9. Helo
10. Likee
11. YouCam makeup
12. Mi Community
13. CM Browers
14. Virus Cleaner
15. APUS Browser
16. ROMWE
17. Club Factory
18. Newsdog
19. Beauty Plus
20. WeChat
21. UC News
22. QQ Mail
23. Weibo
24. Xender
25. QQ Music
26. QQ Newsfeed
27. Bigo Live
28. SelfieCity
29. Mail Master
30. Parallel Space
31. Mi Video Call – Xiaomi
32. WeSync
33. ES File Explorer
34. Viva Video – QU Video Inc
35. Meitu
36. Vigo Video
37. New Video Status
38. DU Recorder
39. Vault-Hide
40. Cache Cleaner DU App studio
41. DU Cleaner
42. DU Browser
43. Hago Play With New Friends
44. Cam Scanner
45. Clean Master – Cheetah Mobile
46. Wonder Camera
47. Photo Wonder
48. QQ Player
49. We Meet
50. Sweet Selfie
51. Baidu Translate
52. Vmate
53. QQ International
54. QQ Security Center
55. QQ Launcher
56. U Video
57. V fly Status Video
58. Mobile Legends
59. DU Privacy
Some people are going crazy on this issue. While it is possible to use the options for many of these apps and some of the options are really great and better, security in terms of privacy as well as a better user experience is lacking due to pornographic ads. We will only talk about options for popular apps so far as there are many apps on the list that are useless and do not require replacement. We will mostly talk about Android apps because Android userbase is very big in India.
