India has again blocked dozens of applications from China. This time there were 54 applications that were blocked, including the battle royale game Free Fire.
This blocking was carried out by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India. Some of the blocked applications include applications made by Chinese technology giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, and NetEase, as quoted from Livemint, Tuesday (15/2/2022).
Some of the blocked apps are rebranded or cloned versions of apps that India had blocked in 2020. As is well known, India has blocked apps from China several times last year, including TikTok, PUBG Mobile, Weibo, WeChat, and AliExpress.
Interestingly, Free Fire distributed by Garena, a company from Singapore, was also blocked. Perhaps because Tencent is one of the largest shareholders in its parent company, Sea.
Previously, several gamers in India had complained about Free Fire disappearing from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Apart from Free Fire, several other applications from China that were blocked in India include: Beauty Camera: Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera - Selfie Camera, Equalizer & Bass Booster, CamCard for SalesForce Ent, Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite, Viva Video Editor, Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Chess, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock, Dual Space Lite.
This is not the first time India has blocked apps from China after clashes at the border in mid-2020. On June 29, 2020, India blocked 59 apps and games from China due to national security issues.
After that, on September 2, 2020, it was the turn of 118 other applications that were blocked, followed by another 43 applications in November 2020.