17-yr-old from Rajouri develops 'Dodo Drop'- an alternative to Chinese banned app Shareit

A 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' as an alternative to banned Chinese file-sharing apps. The app developed by Ashfaq Mehmood enables users to share images, audios, videos and texts between two devices without Internet access.

Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' app is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app and he started to developed it soon after the government banned the many Chinese apps in the country. He said it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on Saturday, August 1. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use, he said.

READ | Sebi extends deadline to apply for 147 senior level posts till Oct 31 amid COVID-19

"The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files. Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said while speaking to ANI.

READ |  CM Yediyurappa's daughter tests positive for COVID-19, son under home quarantine

The youngster further said that the newly launched app is user friendly and the transfers are fully encrypted and secure. He aims to develop many more global-standard apps for India drawing inspiration from PM's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' initiative.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

READ | Jamie Lever's mother Sujatha Lever makes a rare appearance with her in a new photo

Centre govt bans Chinese apps in India

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps in July, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included apps like SHAREit Lite, Helo Lite, Tiktok Lite, Lite, BIGO LIVE and VFY Lite.

In June the Centre had banned  59 apps in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country. Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies. 

READ | What happened to Connie Culp's husband Thomas Culp? Where is he now?

(With inputs from ANI)