Patanjali's Kimbho swiftly retreats over security scare, ripped on Twitter

Swadeshi" messaging app targeted at WhatsApp taken off from app stores hours after launch

Patanjali
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Patanjali says its systems and processes were temporarily stretched by demonetisation and the rollout of GST

Manavi KapurAlnoor Peermohamed New Delhi | Bengaluru
The fate of Patanjali’s “swadeshi” instant messaging app Kimbho was sealed in the span of just a few hours, thanks to viral messages being shared on Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the app that the Baba Ramdev-promoted company was trying to combat. 

Patanjali on Thursday launched Kimbho with the sole intent of checking the rise of messaging giant WhatsApp in India. However, after Kimbho’s various data vulnerabilities were exposed by the security expert and whistleblower who goes by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson on Twitter, the app made a quiet exit from Google’s Play Store. 

Jokes surrounding the app’s quick retreat spread like wildfire on rival platform WhatsApp. It was perhaps the quickest rise and fall in the popularity of a mobile application. 

First Published: May 31 2018 | 9:53 PM IST

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