TikTok now offers its Android app for download outside of Google Play

TikTok is now offering US downloads of the Android version of the app on its own website, the company announced last night. With the change, Android users in the United States now have an easy way to download or update the app for the first time since Google removed it from Google Play last month in response to a US ban on the app. You can download both TikTok and TikTok Lite, a version of the app designed to work with slower internet connections. Once that’s done, you can install or update the app just by opening the file and approving its installation. The process is quick — I was able to update to the most recent version of TikTok on my Pixel 6 in about as much time as it takes to get an app from Google Play. [Media: https://twitter.com/TikTokPolicy/status/1888048200486949249] Like Apple, Google requires app makers to follow certain rules to be listed on the Play Store — rules TikTok isn’t necessarily bound to when offering the download on its own. A TikTok help page claims that, nevertheless, the app “remains safe and secure.” It says that TikTok’s source code is still examined by Oracle and the “Independent Security Inspectors” that ByteDance selected last year following former reported accusations that its Project Texas effort to wall off its US operations from China and appease US lawmakers was “largely cosmetic.” Google did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment. Apple doesn’t allow sideloading in the US, so iPhone owners will have to continue using it in a web browser while waiting for Apple to reinstate the app on the App Store. That may not happen anytime soon, as neither Google nor Apple have seemed eager to defy the ban and risk billions in fines, despite President Trump’s executive order staying enforcement of it.