Google suspends Remove China Apps

The tension in the borders of India and China is growing. At the same time, Boycott China movement has been trending online for a few days. Many Indian users decided to boycott China products and apps.

In this context, Remove China Apps has gained wide popularity. The app was developed by an Indian firm OneTouch AppLabs.

Within two weeks, it has been downloaded by 10 lakh users from Google Play Store.

However, Google removed the app from its Play Store citing that the app violated the policy rules.

Earlier also, Google removed the Mitron app – the TikTok alternative app from its Play Store, citing security and privacy issues.

Google also said that the app has been removed for its ‘spam and minimum functionality’ policy.

However, netizens are furious on the removal of Remove China Apps application. Several people expressed their views on Twitter saying that Google Play Store succumbed to the pressure of China.

Some others said that it is the right time to find an alternative to Google Play Store.

Most of the people urged Google to restore the app on the Play Store.

Remove China Apps application helps users delete all applications developed in China from their phone.

It shows only third-party apps installed on the mobilephone, but not the preinstalled applications by the Chinese smartphone manufacturers like Vivo, Xiaomi etc.

It scans the phone and shows the list of applications with China origin so that the users can decide whether to retain or remove that app from the phone.

The app developer tweeted about the removal of the application from the Google Play Store but did not specify the reason for it.

As per the report of TechCrunch, the Remove China Apps application has been removed for violating the Store’s Deceptive Behaviour Policy. As per this policy, any app can be banned if is making changes to the device settings of the users.

Remove China Apps is doing exactly the same, allowing the users to delete or disable third-party applications.

It scans the device to show the list of apps that are made by China. Hence, Google suspended the app.

However, a cybersecurity researcher at Counterpoint said that the app just recognizes the app developer’s country by looking through a database of apps. So, it is safe to use the app.

Image Credit: Alphama / CC BY-SA

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