Top alternatives to Chinese apps banned in India

Indian government's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), earlier in the week, invoked its power under section 69A of the Information Technology Act and with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009 and decided to ban 59 apps originating from China.

Among the total of 59 apps, only a few are popular among domestic users including TikTok, Mi Video call by Xiaomi, Helo, CamScanner, etc.

The government order went public in the late night of June 29 and now, most of the banned apps are off the Google Play and Apple App Store. DH lists some of the best alternatives that promise to offer secured user privacy and a safe platform to carry out activities.

Short video sharing platforms
The TikTok, Helo, Likee, Kwai and Bigo Live are similar in nature and offer the short-video sharing features. The best alternative for these apps are Chingari, Mitron, Roposo, and Dubsmash, among others.

Browsers
Some of the Chinese search-engine apps banned included UC Browser, CM Browser, DU Browser, and APUS Browser. Best alternatives for these include the ubiquitous Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Mozilla Firefox DuckDuckGo, Safari for Apple, and more.

Document scanner
Cam Scanner was one of the most popular app to scan copies, images and convert them PDFs and vice-versa. One of the best alternatives available in the market is the Notebloc, Adobe Scan, and Microsoft Office Lens.

It can be noted that Cam Scanner also used to offer storage after document conversion and now, it has been de-listed from both Apple and Google platforms, you can go for the Google Drive or iCloud service.

News aggregators
Most of Chinese news aggregator apps come pre-installed in mobile phones. Some include Newsdog, UC News, and QQ Newsfeed. All of them will be off the phone soon and as far as the alternative is concerned, you can go for the DailyHunt and InShorts.

Phone cleaner and other utility tools
These tools usually offer the service of clear cache memory, anti-virus and make the phone work faster and last longer in terms of battery life. Some of the banned Chinese utility apps include Clean Master- Cheetah Mobile, DU Cleaner, DU Battery Saver, Virus Cleaner, Cache Cleaner DU App Studio. These apps never needed a replacement and its better to have none as it saves lots of space in the phone, which itself makes the phone go light on RAM consumption and work faster.

Some of the best anti-virus app for mobiles include Kaspersky and Pune-based Quick Heal.

File transfer apps
China-based Xender and ShareIt apps are now gone off both the Google and Apple platforms. The best alternatives include Google's own Files Go and AirDrop for iPhone. They work perfectly on each other's ecosystem.

To send files and data on cross-platform, you can bet on 'Send Anywhere' app.

Messenger apps
Popular messenger app WeChat also got banned in India. The best alternative includes WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, among others.

Microblogging sites
Weibo is a popular social media platform similar to Twitter. But, it is localized to China and most of the Indian users on Weibo were mostly guest users looking for latest information on unreleased phones, which eventually come to India after the launch in China. If you want juicing info on unreleased iPhone or an Android mobile, Twitter has some of the best tipsters including Jon Prossor (Everything related to Apple), whereas Evan Blass and Roland Quandt can get you good stuff on soon-to-be-launched Android mobiles.

Video chatting apps
The Indian government has banned the popular Mi Video Call-Xiaomi. The best alternative for this is the Google Duo for Android and iPhone users with Google Account. For iPhone-to-iPhone, go for the FaceTime.

E-commerce apps
Shein and Club Factory were low-profile e-commerce sites for fashion apparel buyers, but they never came close to offer secure and good shopping experience compared to the local app Myntra.

Maps
Though Baidu Maps is banned by the Indian government, it never was popular among the citizens, as most of them bet on Google Maps for best user-experience even compared to Apple Maps.

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