Google pulls down UC Browser from Play Store

Google has apparently removed UC Browser from the Play Store. This was reported earlier when some user couldn't find the mobile browser in Google Play Store.

While the Alibaba-owned mobile browser has vanished from Play Store, other UCWeb applications including UC Browser Mini and UC News are still visible in search. UC Browser is one of the most popular mobile browsers around with 500 million downloads in last month and more than 100 million users alone in India after its name.

Despite the popularity, the UC Browser had been accused of transferring personal data of Indian users to a particular server in China. However, the report came months ago and it couldn't be possibly the reason why Google has taken such a step.

Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii has also posted the text of an email that he received from UC Union (UCWeb's affiliate network). The email clearly implies that there is a tiff going on between Google and UCWeb.

The UC Union email warns partners to abandon "all misleading/malicious advertising" ways that are used to lure new users.

Twitter user Mike Ross, who is said to be an employee UC Browser, tweeted that the browser is "temporarily removed" from the Play Store for 30 days since it has been using "misleading" and "unhealthy" to increase the number of downloads.

As mentioned earlier, this is not the first time UC Browser is facing something like this. Back in August, things got pretty bad for the mobile browser as it was under the radar for alleged data theft. Reports started coming up stating that it could face a possible ban in the country. While that was not the case, it still got a bad name due to the allegations.

The reason behind UC Browser being so popular is that it works better when it comes to Indian demographic. It loads pages faster and saves a lot of traffic for you. Moreover, the homepage of UC Browser lists most popular websites and apps, so they can be navigated with just one tap.

The good news is that you can still sideload the UC Browser through its APK file. However, doing that can put your device in potential danger.

Well, after a lot of controversy, last night UC Browser released this following statement, "We were informed by Google Play about temporary removal of UC Browser from the Play Store for 7 days, beginning 13 Nov 2017, under the reason that a certain setting of UC Browser is not in line with Google's policy. We have conducted an urgent internal investigation and fixed the problem."