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UC Browser Mobile App Disappears From Google Play Store (medianama.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the what's-happening? dept.
UC Browser, a popular mobile web browser owned by China's Alibaba Group, has mysteriously disappeared from the Google Play Store. The app was pulled from the Google Play Store on November 12, according to data from app analytics firm App Annie. Several users began inquiring about the app's whereabouts earlier this week on Reddit. It was not immediately clear why UC Browser had been pulled from Android's marquee app store. According to Twitter user Mike Ross, who claims to be a developer at Alibaba Group, Google pulled UC Browser from its store due to "misleading" and "unhealthy" promotional tactics used by the company to increase the install count of its app. UC Browser is still available to download on Apple's App Store, Amazon's Android store, and through company's official website. UC Browser Mini, a light version of the company's browser is notably still listed on Google Play. Though UC Browser is not a household name in the Western markets, the Alibaba's app is incredibly popular in markets such as India. It has been among the top six most downloaded apps from Google Play in India for the last two years, venture capitalist Mary Meeker noted in her yearly internet report in May this year. As of July, UC Browser had been installed more than 100 million times worldwide from Google Play Store.
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UC Browser Mobile App Disappears From Google Play Store More

UC Browser Mobile App Disappears From Google Play Store

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  • Didn't someone allege a while back that this browser was spying on its users? More than most other browsers, I mean.

    • Google has removed and returned apps from the play store in the past with no explanation. We would like to think they did this for the safety of their user community, but there could be many other reasons.

      https://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/ifontexpert-fonts-harmful-app-removed-t3386443 [xda-developers.com]

      U.C. Browser was just WebKit, and not technically interesting. Firefox Focus is a far better option.

      • Google has removed and returned apps from the play store in the past with no explanation. We would like to think they did this for the safety of their user community, but there could be many other reasons.

        It was probably Google looking out the user community, but it'd be prudent not to rule out the minuscule chance it is a leverage maneuver to get its own browser back into mainland China.

      • Pity! It is (was) the only browser I know that performs text-reflow after pinch-to-zoom. (The only other browser that did something similar was the old & retired Android 4 ICS browser) ... and I am never in the mood to put on my glasses to read news sites. Oh well...

  • Good riddance (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Its caching was out of control and its ad-blocking wasnt as good as an extension. There wasnt an option to turn off JavaScript and it could only hold 20 tabs.

  • Monopoly? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Gee, it's kind of hard to justify this when you're constantly trying to push your own browser down SWITCH TO CHROME A BETTER BROWSER. GOOGLE RECOMMENDS USING CHROME [I WANT IT] [GOOGLE, YOU COMPLETE ME] everyone's throats.

    If my memory serves me correctly this company called Micro-Soft or something was in dutch for pulling shenanigans like this, and paid a hefty fine.

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