Why India Banned 54 Chinese Apps Including Garena Free Fire, CuteU, and More : Here is the TRUTH

On February 14, the central government passed an ordinance banning 54 Chinese apps in the country, including popular Garena Free Fire, CuteU, Equalizer, Music Player, Tencent XRiver and many more. The decision was made citing security concerns. The reason was not very clear, but now FM Nirmala Sitharaman has revealed why these Chinese apps were banned by India. The finance minister said on Tuesday that Chinese apps were banned because they were “deleterious” in one way or another. Sitharaman informed reporters that the topic was discussed at the meeting of the Financial Stability Development Council (FSDC), which includes all financial sector regulators, according to a report by livemint.com.

According to the report shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), these Chinese apps were either the cloned version or had similar functionality, privacy issues and security threats as was the case in the 267 apps. previously blocked by government in 2020. Indian government initially blocked 59 apps on June 29, 2020, followed by 47 linked/cloned apps on August 10, 2020, then 118 apps were blocked on September 1, 2020 and later 43 apps were blocked on November 19, 2020.

Reportedly, these 54 apps obtained various critical permissions and collected sensitive user data. This collected real-time data is misused and transmitted to servers located in a hostile country.

Additionally, there are other serious concerns as some of these apps can perform spying and surveillance activities via camera/mic, access precise location (GPS) and perform malicious network activity similar to the apps previously blocked. Therefore, MeitY has issued interim instructions for blocking 54 Chinese apps in India.

See the full list of Chinese apps banned in India

1. Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD

2. Beauty Camera – Selfie Camera

3. Equalizer – Bass Booster & Volume Equalizer & Virtualizer

4. Music player – Music, MP3 player

5. Equalizer & Bass Booster – Equalize Music Volume

6. Music Plus – MP3 Player

7. Equalizer Pro – Volume Booster & Bass Booster

8. All format media video player

9. Music Player – Equalizer and MP3

10. Volume Amplifier – Speaker & Sound Amplifier

11. Music Player – MP3 Player

12.CamCard for SalesForce Ent

13. Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite

14. Rise of Kingdoms: Lost Crusade

15. APUS Security HD (Pad Version)

16. Support for Parallel Space Lite 32

17. Viva Video Editor – Snack Video Maker with Music

18. Beautiful Baidu Video

19. Tencent X River

20. Onmyoji Chess

21. Onmyoji Arena

22.AppLock

23. Dual Space Lite – Multiple Accounts and Clone App

24. Dual Space Pro – Multiple Accounts and App Cloner

25. DualSpace Lite – 32-bit support

26. Double space – 32 bit support

27. Double space – 64 bit support

28. Dual Space Pro – 32 bit support

29. Conquer Online – MMORPG Game

30. Online Conquest Ⅱ

31. Live Weather & Radar – Alerts

32. Notes – Color Notepad, Notebook

33. MP3 Cutter – Ringtone Maker & Audio Cutter

34. Voice recorder and voice changer

35. Barcode Scanner – QR Code Scan

36. Lica Cam – selfie camera app

37. Echoes of EVE

38.Astracraft

39. UU Game Booster Network Solution for High Ping

40. Extraordinary

41. Badlanders

42. Stick Fight: The Mobile Game

43. Twilight Pioneers

44. CuteU: match with the world

45. SmallWorld-Enjoy group chat and video chat

46. ​​CuteU Pro

47. FancyU – Video chat and dating

48. RealU: Go Live, Make Friends

49. MoonChat: enjoy video chats

50. RealU Lite – video to live!

51. Wink: Connect Now

52. FunChat Meet people around you

53. FancyU pro – Instant Meetup via video chat!

54. Garena Free Fire – Light up