Popular YouTube app for Android, Vanced, has announced that it has been “discontinued”. This is as Google sent the Vanced owners a cease and desist letter—which has forced the developers to stop distributing and developing the app.
“We were asked to remove all references to ‘YouTube’, change the logo, and remove all links related to YouTube products,” says an admin from the Vanced team.
Vanced, according to Android user Raymond, is an app that has been around for a while. It’s a popular app for Android users as it adds many Premium features like background playback and ad-blocking. It even adds features YouTube didn’t like at all, like dislike counters. It was also even called YouTube Vanced, before removing the word “YouTube” recently, possibly an attempt to avert legal drama with Google.
According to the creators of Vanced, the application would be shut down in the coming days, with download links set to be removed. Currently, you can still see download links for the app on its website. However, Vanced stated that installed versions will work “just fine until they become outdated in 2 years or so”.
Vanced isn’t the only third-party YouTube application that Google has taken action against. Two popular Discord music bots—which were also apps that avoided ads—were forced to go offline last year after YouTube took action.
In a cheeky tweet, Vanced also linked its followers to an “alternative” to its app—YouTube Premium. However, its fans in the comments also commented that there are other free ad-blocking YouTube apps like Newpipe.
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