14 DAY TRIAL // If you're looking for the UC Browser in the Google Play Store, you should know that it's been temporarily removed by Google today for about a week due to policy breach.
First spotted by Gadgets 360 via Reddit, the application recently disappeared from the Google Play Store for Android, due to developer's "unhealthy" and "misleading" methods of increasing their install base and making them overall more successful.
It would appear that Google accused the UC Browser developers of adopting misleading and malicious advertising for their app. It's not the first time the Chinese-based Alibaba company is accused of practicing "bad habits."
The UC Browser was under government scanner in August 2017 for leaking personal and location data of its Indian users to a remote server in China. In May 2015 Alibaba was accused was accused by a Canadian technology research group of paying $1 billion for leaking sensitive user data.
Gadgets 360 reached out to Google and UC Browser, and found out that the popular web browser was removed from the Google Play store for seven days, beginning November 13, 2017, under the reason that a specific setting doesn't respect Google’s policy.
UC Browser still available as an APK
If you still want to install the UC Browser on your Android device, you can download it right now as an APK file. The developers provided a link to the APK file on their website, so all you have to do is click the download link and install it on your Android phone or tablet, but only if you trust the app.
UC Browser is currently one of the most downloaded apps on the Google Play Store in different countries, with more than 500 million downloads only during the month of October 2017, and it's been downloaded by more than 100 million users only in India.