3 min readNew DelhiJun 4, 2020 04:14 PM IST
First published on: Jun 2, 2020 at 02:23 PM IST
Mitron app – TikTok’s India alternative – removed from Google Play store (Express photo Sneha Saha)
Mitron app — the popular Indian alternative for TikTok — has been removed from Google Play store earlier this week. The app had over 5 million downloads. Google has finally responded on the removal of Mitron app and said, “A number of recent app removals received particular attention in India and we wanted to clarify our actions. Earlier this week, we removed a video app for a number of technical policy violations. We have an established process of working with developers to help them fix issues and resubmit their apps. We’ve given this developer some guidance and once they’ve addressed the issue the app can go back up on Play.”
If you have the Mitron app already downloaded on your phone you will still able to use it but we suggest you don’t as the app comes with several vulnerabilities as we reported earlier. Mitron app has been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late. The app owner Shibank Agarwal, a student of IIT Roorkee, bought the source code of the app from a Pakistani coding company Qboxus and rebranded the app as Mitron and launched in India. Before officially launching the app in India Agarwal and his team ‘t even customise the coding or change the privacy policy.
Irfan Sheikh of Qboxus from Lahore confirmed to indianexpress.com that Agarwal did reach out to the company buy the source code of TicTic and launch as Mitron in India. He also accepted the fact that “Mitron app has privacy issues because the app developer has not uploaded the privacy policy.” Sheikh, however, said that the company does not encourage their buyers to just put it out there for public use as it as it is.
READ full report here | Mitron app is risky to use, says cyber security expert
Satyajit Sinha, cybersecurity researcher at Counterpoint told indianexpress.com: “It’s risky to use Mitron app given it doesn’t have any additional firewall or software security on top of the source code. The privacy policy is weak and that can put user data at risk in the long run.”
If you have Mitron app installed on your phone we highly recommend uninstalling the app right away and not use it. We checked the Mitron app and found there’s no way you can delete your account from the app. Users can either log out of the app or simply uninstall it. The settings menu is also missing on the app now.
We also recommend you to beware of all the clones of Mitron available on Google Play store. You must always check the developer first before installing an app on your smartphone.
Mitron app – TikTok’s India alternative – removed from Google Play store (Express photo Sneha Saha)
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