UC Browser in order to verify their security fixes to these issues. The subsequent update published by Citizen Lab indicated that not all of the previously identified data leaks and privacy breaches had been fixed in UC Browser. C-DAC Hyderabad, India investigation After the release of the Citizen Lab report, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Hyderabad, India a scientific research unit within India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) GoI , began a technical investigation into the "several major privacy and security vulnerabilities that would seriously expose users of UC Browser to surveillance and other privacy violations" alleged in the report. C-DAC found that the browser (which was the second-most-used browser in India) had been sending user data to Chinese servers and that it retains control over a user's device DNS even after the browser is deleted. UC Browser is banned in India. Security In March 2019, analysts at the anti-malware firm Doctor Web publicly disclosed that UC Browser and UC Browser Mini for Android was downloading and installing extra modules from the company's own servers via an unprotected HTTP channel. This exposed browser users to arbitrary remote code execution if an attacker was able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack to deliver malicious module (but no cases of exploitation were publicly disclosed). Furthermore, this violates Google Play policies that forbid Google Play apps from downloading any executable code from any sources outside of Google Play. In June 2020, a new version of its UC browser was added to the Google Play store with updated settings that comply with the store's security guidelines. According to tests on Qualys, a cloud security firm, and High-Tech Bridge, an internet security firm, UC Browser contains Logjam, FREAK, and POODLE vulnerabilities. UC Browser also uses an outdated RC4 cipher cryptography with deprecated SSL 3 or even SSL 2 protocols, which have many security flaws. In May 2019, Indian security researcher Arif Khan reported that the URL address bars on the UC Browser and UC Browser Mini apps were susceptible to URL spoofing. iOS incognito mode data harvesting In June 2021, it was discovered that the app is recording user data, sending IP addresses to Alibaba servers. Market adoption UC Browser gained significant popularity in China, India, and Indonesia in 2012 through 2017 and still retains some popularity in China. In October 2012, UC Browser topped Opera in Google Play's free Android