Welcome to the 323rd edition of Android Apps Weekly! Here are the big headlines from the last week:Twitch announced a watch parties feature a while back during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The streaming service made the feature officially available to all creators starting this week. The feature is fairly easy to understand. A Twitch creator watches a movie from Amazon Prime Video and the creator’s followers can watch along, comment, and hang out together. Hit the link to learn more details.
- HBO is cleaning up its streaming service selections. The company is shutting down HBO Go and going with only the standard HBO and HBO Max from now on. Basically, HBO Go was the app you used if you had a TV subscription with HBO. After this change, you’ll just use HBO Max instead. HBO Now then becomes just HBO and the company is down to just two Android Apps apps. Hit the link to learn more about all the changes.
- A security firm uncovered a ring of Google Chrome spyware extensions. The extensions almost all promote security measures against malicious websites so the most affected folks are ones shopping for that kind of extension. The extensions used their access to steal customer information when they logged into various sites. The ring covered over 100 extensions downloaded a total of 32 million times. That’s not a good look for Google.
- An upcoming Zoom update is adding encryption for everybody, including free users. Previously, the company made encryption a premium-only feature and people didn’t like it too much. Zoom did a 180-degree turn and made the feature free for all. Free users have to verify their identities and go through some other hoops to get the feature, but at least it’s coming to the free version.
- Telegram scored a major win this week. Russia long tried to ban the app and prevent its citizens from using it. The country officially gave up this week and Telegram is now 100% legal again. The app has been highly useful for transmitting COVID-19 information between its users and the privacy is certainly welcome as well. Hit the link to learn more.
GameClub
Price: Free / $4.99 per month
GameClub is a new game service. It works like most other game services. You subscribe for $4.99 per month and get access to a bunch of games. Each game is entirely free to play with no in-app purchases or advertising. Plus, they are all playable offline. We browsed through the list and didn’t see a ton of recognizable titles, but we did see some old favorites like Avalon: Sword and Shield, Frozen Synapse, Mikey Shorts, and Mikey Hooks. We expect the collection to grow as time continues. There is a 30-day free trial to try it out and then it’s $4.99 per month after that. Frankly, the price undercuts a lot of other services, but the game selection is a bit smaller.
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