We all knew this was coming! Yes, Indian Government has finally banned the No. 1 game of 2019 and 2020 “PubG”. Though not just PubG but 117 other Chinese mobile applications are banned to get downloaded for the Play store in India. Even if there are 118 applications, people are highly in shock after the news of PubG getting banned as this was among the major applications for the streamers and the gamers.
Indian Government has in total banned almost 180 Chinese applications till now with 59 apps banned in the first round and 118 in the second. These apps were banned for security issues that Chinese communist party were breaching. It was sensed by various sources that Chinese Government is using these Chinese applications as a source to scrape certain critical data of the users.
Well what we think as the major reason for these applications being banned is, the border tensions arising between the Indian and Chinese army in Ladakh. As there were sought fresh uncertainties and tensions among the two nations at the Ladakh Border, out of retaliation The Indian Government took this major step of completely eliminating the digital presence of Chinese applications slowly from India.
A total of 118 Chinese applications were banned in this round by the Ministry of Information and Technology. It was stated by the Ministry that these apps are prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity, public order and defense of India. The Ministry of Technology received various complaints from certain sources regarding the misuse of these apps on Apple iOS and Google Play store. These complaints were intensive quoting that these applications were allegedly stealing and scraping user’s data in an unauthenticated way to various servers which had their location spotted outside India.
The major shocker was the PubG gaming application which had a total of 50 million active PubG players in India making it to be one of the most downloaded games in the history of Indian gaming. According to reports, PubG clocks almost a hefty number of 13 million users a day. Tencent’s PubG online gaming application is one of the world’s top consumed mobile gaming application with over 734 million+ downloads. It is a huge hit for the gamers and the streamers who were strongly addicted to this multiplayer combat game. It got popular in India in a very short span of time and was enjoyed by many gamers in the country. Though this will be a huge plus to its competitors like FreeFire and Call of Duty Mobile, now to reign its reach on the market. After this major news of PubG getting banned, social media and other platforms took no time to rush through interesting memes. Like,
Along with PubG, there were various other major Applications which got banned like Baidu express edition, TenCent watchlist, FaceU, Weiyun by TenCent, PubG mobile Lite and other 100+ Chinese applications. The full list of all the 118 apps banned are as follow –
1. APUS Launcher Pro- Theme, Live Wallpapers, Smart
2. APUS Launcher -Theme, Call Show, Wallpaper, HideApps
3. APUS Security -Antivirus, Phone security, Cleaner
4. APUS Turbo Cleaner 2020- Junk Cleaner, Anti-Virus
5. APUS Flashlight-Free & Bright
6. Cut Cut – Cut Out & Photo Background Editor
7. Baidu
8. Baidu Express Edition
9. FaceU – Inspire your Beauty
10. ShareSave by Xiaomi: Latest gadgets, amazing deals
11. CamCard – Business Card Reader
12. CamCard Business
13. CamCard for Salesforce
14. CamOCR
15. InNote
16. VooV Meeting – Tencent Video Conferencing
17. Super Clean – Master of Cleaner, Phone Booster
18. WeChat reading
19. Government WeChat
20. Small Q brush
21. Tencent Weiyun
22. Pitu
23. WeChat Work
24. Cyber Hunter
25. Cyber Hunter Lite
26. Knives Out-No rules, just fight!
27. Super Mecha Champions
28. LifeAfter
29. Dawn of Isles
30. Ludo World-Ludo Superstar
31. Chess Rush
32. PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map: Livik
33. PUBG MOBILE LITE
34. Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade
35. Art of Conquest: Dark Horizon
36. Dank Tanks
37. Warpath
38. Game of Sultans
39. Gallery Vault – Hide Pictures And Videos
40. Smart AppLock (App Protect)
41. Message Lock (SMS Lock)-Gallery Vault Developer Team
42. Hide App-Hide Application Icon
43. AppLock
44. AppLock Lite
45. Dual Space – Multiple Accounts & App Cloner
46. ZAKZAK Pro – Live chat & video chat online
47. ZAKZAK LIVE: live-streaming & video chat app
48. Music – Mp3 Player
49. Music Player – Audio Player & 10 Bands Equalizer
50. HD Camera Selfie Beauty Camera
51. Cleaner – Phone Booster
52. Web Browser & Fast Explorer
53. Video Player All Format for Android
54. Photo Gallery HD & Editor
55. Photo Gallery & Album
56. Music Player – Bass Booster – Free Download
57. HD Camera – Beauty Cam with Filters & Panorama
58. HD Camera Pro & Selfie Camera
59. Music Player – MP3 Player & 10 Bands Equalizer
60. Gallery HD
61. Web Browser – Fast, Privacy & Light Web Explorer
62. Web Browser – Secure Explorer
63. Music player – Audio Player
64. Video Player – All Format HD Video Player
65. Lamour Love All Over The World
66. Amour- video chat & call all over the world.
67. MV Master – Make Your Status Video & Community
68. MV Master – Best Video Maker & Photo Video Editor
69. APUS Message Center-Intelligent management
70. LivU Meet new people & Video chat with strangers
71. Carrom Friends : Carrom Board & Pool Game-
72. Ludo All Star- Play Online Ludo Game & Board Games
73. Bike Racing : Moto Traffic Rider Bike Racing Games
74. Rangers Of Oblivion : Online Action MMO RPG Game
75. Z Camera – Photo Editor, Beauty Selfie, Collage
76. GO SMS Pro – Messenger, Free Themes, Emoji
77. U-Dictionary: Oxford Dictionary Free Now Translate
78. Ulike – Define your selfie in trendy style
79. Tantan – Date For Real
80. MICO Chat: New Friends Banaen aur Live Chat karen
81. Kitty Live – Live Streaming & Video Live Chat
82. Malay Social Dating App to Date & Meet Singles
83. Alipay
84. AlipayHK
85. Mobile Taobao
86. Youku
87. Road of Kings- Endless Glory
88. Sina News
89. Netease News
90. Penguin FM
91. Murderous Pursuits
92. Tencent Watchlist (Tencent Technology
93. Learn Chinese AI-Super Chinese
94. HUYA LIVE – Game Live Stream
95. Little Q Album
96. Fighting Landlords – Free and happy Fighting Landlords
97. Hi Meitu
98. Mobile Legends: Pocket
99. VPN for TikTok
100. VPN for TikTok
101. Penguin E-sports Live assistant
102. Buy Cars-offer everything you need, special offers and low prices
103. iPick
104. Beauty Camera Plus – Sweet Camera & Face Selfie
105. Parallel Space Lite – Dual App
106. Chief Almighty: First Thunder BC
107. MARVEL Super War NetEase Games
108. AFK Arena
109. Creative Destruction NetEase Games
110. Crusaders of Light NetEase Games
111. Mafia City Yotta Games
112. Onmyoji NetEase Games
113. Ride Out Heroes NetEase Games
114. Yimeng Jianghu-Chu Liuxiang has been fully upgraded
115. Legend: Rising Empire NetEase Games
116. Arena of Valor: 5v5 Arena Games
117. Soul Hunters
118. Rules of Survival
In the first round, the ministry of India took major steps to ban some of the widely used applications of the nation – Tiktok by ByteDance, ShareIT, Xender, UC Bowser by AliBaba and Tencent’s WeChat application.
This move will safeguard the interests of millions of internet and mobile users in India and also provide a safe environment for the users on Internet from getting their user data scraped. Even some of the Chinese smartphone companies might be in danger now with the mood Ministry of Technology in India is in to take more stricter actions.
The Ministry in its statement quotes “The Compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements are fragile and hostile to the national security and defense of India. It is a matter of deep and immediate concern which requires strict and emergency measures”.
The ICCCC (Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre) under the ministry of Home affairs also gave leads to the Ministry of technology regarding these controversial applications who might be under various technological malpractices. Even in the public domain, there has been strong concerns arising against these applications who harms India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of the citizens of India.
