The Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended a ban on 54 Chinese mobile applications, including the popular game Garena Free Fire, citing that these applications pose a threat to national security as per TOI.
The game has gained a lot of popularity in past few years. According to App Annie ‘State of Mobile’ 2021 report the top game in India in terms of consumer spending was Free Fire and also number of downloads after Ludo King.
Tencent’s Xriver, NetEase’s Onmyoji Arena are the other apps which are banned by the government. In total, the government has banned 300 apps so far.
These apps seem to be either the cloned version or of similar functionality, which is concerning the privacy issue and security threats similar to previously blocked apps by the government in 2020.
On 29 June 2020, the government had initially blocked 59 apps followed by 47 related/cloning apps on 10 August 2020 and 118 apps were blocked on 1 September 2020 with in two months 43 apps were blocked on 19 November 2020.
Garena FreeFire is one of the popular gaming apps in India with over 184,700 ratings on App Store and over 105,501,450 on Google Play. The game seems already missing from the Google Play Store.
Here is the full list of 54 blocked Chinese apps is provided below:
1. Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD
2. Beauty Camera – Selfie Camera
3. Equalizer – Bass Booster & Volume EQ & Virtualizer
4. Music Player- Music.Mp3 Player
5. Equalizer & Bass Booster – Music Volume EQ
6. Music Plus – MP3 Player
7. Equalizer Pro – Volume Booster & Bass Booster
8. Video Player Media All Format
9. Music Player – Equalizer & MP3
10. Volume Booster – Loud Speaker & Sound Booster
11. Music Player – MP3 Player
12. CamCard for SalesForce Ent
13. Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite
14. Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade
15. IS/APUS Security HD (Pad Version)
16. Parallel Space Lite 32 Support
17. Viva Video Editor – Snack Video Maker with Music
18. Nice video baidu
19. Tencent Xriver
20. Onmyoji Chess
21. Onmyoji Arena
22. AppLock
23. Dual Space Lite – Multiple Accounts & Clone App
24. Dual Space Pro – Multiple Accounts & App Cloner
25. DualSpace Lite – 32Bit Support
26. Dual Space – 32Bit Support
27. Dual Space – 64Bit Support
28. Dual Space Pro – 32Bit Support
29. Conquer Online – MMORPG Game
30. Conquer Online Il
31. Live Weather & Radar – Alerts
32. Notes- Color Notepad, Notebook
33. MP3 Cutter – Ringtone Maker & Audio Cutter
34. Voice Recorder & Voice Changer
35. Barcode Scanner – QR Code Scan
36. Lica Cam – selfie camera app
37. EVE Echoes
38. Astracraft
39. UU Game Booster-network solution for high ping
40. Extraordinary Ones
41. Badlanders
42. Stick Fight: The Game Mobile
43. Twilight Pioneers
44. CuteU: Match With The World
45. Small World-Enjoy groupchat and video chat
46. CuteU Pro
47. FancvU – Video Chat and Meetup
48. Real: Go Live. Make Friends
49. MoonChat: Enjoy Video Chats
50. Real Lite -video to live!
51. Wink: Connect Now
52. FunChat Meet People Around You
53. FancyU pro – Instant Meetup through Video chat!
54. Garena Free Fire – Illuminate