The political
tensions between India and China have risen over the past few weeks due to
border-related issues, resulting in anti-China sentiment in the country. Amid
these issues, a new app called ‘Remove China Apps’ was launched earlier this
month by a Jaipur-based startup named OneTouchAppLabs.
As the name suggests, ‘Remove
China Apps’ essentially detects Chinese apps installed on the user’s
phone and provides them with simple steps to uninstall them from their
handsets. The rising popularity of this app is evident: it is ranked #2 on
the list of top free apps on Google Play Store, has a stellar 4.8-star
rating, and has already crossed a million downloads at the time of writing.
The app is currently available only on
Android and not for iOS. The ‘Remove China
Apps’ is 3.5MB in size and can be downloaded for free. The app gets a simple UI
where you can just tap the 'Scan Now' button post which the app shows you the
Chinese apps installed on your phone that
come from Chinese companies, which includes names like TikTok, ShareIt,
CamScanner and more. You can delete the apps by
tapping on the bin icon placed next to the apps’ name. If you
have no apps from Chinese companies on your phone, it says “You are awesome, No
China app found in your system".
You will also need to provide ‘Remove China Apps’ permission to uninstall apps. It can only delete Chinese apps that you have downloaded — it cannot delete the Chinese apps that came pre-installed on the phone as bloatware. But the developers are claiming that they will offer an option to remove Chinese bloatware in the next update.
The anti-China
movement gained after engineer turned reformer Sonam Wangchuk appealed to
Indians to boycott Chinese products stating “stop virtually financing the
current military bullying in Ladakh and the South China Sea.” According to the
reformer, "If we citizens are clever we should use our wallet power rather
than leaving it totally to our armies to respond with their bullets. The bullet
response is what China is looking for as it helps unite its angry citizens to
forgive the mistakes and forget the economic hardships caused by the regime’s
poor handling of COVID-19."
The
app ‘Remove China Apps’ itself is evidently made to take advantage of
such propaganda. The company behind the app sounds quite questionable. The
app is made by a company called OneTouch AppLabs, which claims to be based in
Jaipur, according to its website. However, a simple WHOIS search shows that the
website was registered just about a week ago. The company had two directors
registered, named Narendra Kumar Verma and Roopesh Sharma, and a paid up
capital of ₹1 lakh.
Let us know if you
are also installing this app and think if this is a good or bad move.
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