India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has blacklisted quite a number of apps on Android’s Google Play Store that it terms as either Malware or Spyware. It is not entirely surprising that majority of these apps are well-known apps that come from Chinese companies. Although the Indian ministry has not released the criteria they used to label these apps as Malware or Spyware, some of these apps have been blacklisted before by other organizations as well.
If you are wondering what the big crime is, well these apps collect data from your smartphone and send it to remote servers. Some of the information collected is considered private, including your phone number, IMEI, location and which other apps you’re using.
Well, here are all the apps that have been blacklisted by India’s government:
- SHAREit – Transfer & Share
- Truecaller
- UC News (Only available in certain regions)
- UC Browser
- BeautyPlus – Easy Photo Editor
- NewsDog
- Viva Video
- Parallel Space
- Apus Browser
- YouCam Perfect – Seflie Photo Editor
- YouCam Makeup – Magic Selfie Makeovers
- Virus Cleaner – Antivirus, Booster
- CM Browser
- Mi Community – Xiaomi Forum
- DU Recorder – Screen Recorder, Video Editor, Live
- Vault-Hide SMS,Pics & Videos,App Lock,Cloud backup
- Mi Store (Only available on Xiaomi devices)
- CacheCleaner – DU Speed Booster (booster & cleaner)
- DU Battery Saver – Battery Charger & Battery Life
- DU Cleaner Memory cleaner & clean phone cache
- DU Privacy
- 360 Security
- DU Browser
- Clean Master – Space Cleaner & Antivirus
- Baidu Translate
- Baidu Map (Only available in certain regions)
Aside from, Baidu Translate and the other region-specific apps, all the other apps have more than 10 Million installs with some boasting of the possibility of 1 Billion installations. If you have been using any of the apps above, best start looking for alternatives.
