Baba Ramdev's Kimbho App Re-Launches And Fails Horribly, Is Finally Taken Down All Over Again
At the close of March, Baba Ramdev¡¯s Patanjali empire released ¡®Kimbho¡¯ an instant messenger they believed would compete with WhatsApp. It was taken down then due to a plethora of issues, only to be relaunched yesterday¡¡and taken down again.
At the close of March, Baba Ramdev¡¯s Patanjali empire released ¡®Kimbho¡¯ an instant messenger they believed would compete with WhatsApp.
It was taken down then due to a plethora of issues, only to be relaunched yesterday... and taken down again.
When Kimbho launched March 30, it was a hot mess of vulnerabilities and plagiarism. Eagle-eyed app enthusiasts spotted that the app was a carbon copy of a previously existing app named ¡®Bolo¡¯. And by copy we mean the developers (such as they would call themselves) didn¡¯t even bother to change the text in popup alerts and SMS verifications.
On top of that, now infamous white hat hacker Robert Baptiste was beside himself about how vulnerable the app was to various forms of attacks. He called it ¡°a joke¡± seeing as he could penetrate the app¡¯s non-existent security so easily he could access every user¡¯s messages.
As such, after racking up over 50,000 downloads, Kimbho was taken down from Google¡¯s Play Store within a day. At the time however Patanjali claimed the app was taken offline because it was so popular that its servers crashed (yeah, sure thing guys). The company¡¯s owner Acharya Balkrishna meanwhile seemed to accept the app had flaws, declaring, ¡°We pledge not to launch the app until a team of expert hackers and security specialists plug all the security and privacy loopholes.¡±
Supposedly, everything was fixed with the app, given that Patanjali put out a new beta version of the app on Google Play yesterday. Of course, users were still complaining that the UI was terrible, and it was impossible to actually sign up to use the app, among other things. So, down again the app has gone, within a day once more. Nothing has changed either, given that Patanjali isn¡¯t really taking responsibility for their shoddy app. The only difference this time around is that instead of a ¡°server crash¡±, they¡¯re blaming the takedown on Google apparently being a big meanie.
#?????? ??????? @KimbhoApp ?????? ???????? ?? ???????? ?? ????? ?? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ??? ??? ??? #?????? ?? ???????? ???? ???????? ?????#Patanjali #kimbho App has fallen victim of conspiracy of foreign companies #MNCs
¡ª Tijarawala SK (@tijarawala) August 16, 2018
We regret the inconveniences.
It will be back soon @ANI pic.twitter.com/b4FdHhIAHb
"Patanjali Kimbho Aap has fallen victim of conspiracy of foreign companies #MNCs. We regret the inconveniences. It will be back soon." That's what Patanjali Ayurved spokesperson SK Tijarawala is saying in the tweet above.
Yep. We¡¯ve reached conspiracy theory territory. At this point, it¡¯s like listening to a four-year-old explain to you how they didn¡¯t draw on the wall with crayon, but it was a ghost that did it.
Either way, Kimbho re-re-launches August 27, so i guess third time¡¯s the charm eh boys?
