You’d be hard pressed to spend more than five minutes online without coming across an ad for a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Indeed, while VPNs have been around for the better part of three decades, companies like ExpressVPN and NordVPN have enjoyed astonishing success over just the last five-to-ten years. This is due in large part to the continued flourishing of digital life — and all the cybersecurity threats that come with it. With this in mind, we here at 42matters decided to take a look a

The streaming wars are upon us. While services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and Amazon have long represented the vanguard of the industry, a number of newcomers have begun to turn some heads, portending potentially seismic realignments in the digital streaming market. And these aren’t small names, either. Indeed, as heavy hitters like Disney, NBC, HBO, Paramount, and Apple continue to roll-out revamped digital offerings, it’s tough not to recall that old line from the Who: “Meet the new boss, s

Coronavirus caught everyone off guard. Fortunately, in our increasingly digital world, adapting to “new normals” has never been easier. In-person meetings were swapped out for video calls on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other platforms; trade shows and conventions were conducted via webinar tools like ON24 and GoToWebinar; and water cooler chit-chat moved from break rooms to #random Slack channels and other productivity apps. But digitization has pushed productivity even further. While apps like

Back in January, social media was abuzz with talk of “memestocks,” Wall Street Bets, and GameStop. You couldn’t throw a stone into a socially-distanced supermarket without beaning an expert on Short Selling in the head, or knocking the tinfoil hat off a techno-populist CEO, or taking out vast swathes of fussy contrarians eager to pontificate on the regulatory capital requirements of commission-free investing apps. That said, while we recapped the whole story [https://42matters.com/blog/?p=how-g

We’ve released two new APIs and launched the “Historical Plan.” Now, with 42matters, you’ll have programmatic API access to both app download estimates and changelogs. In addition, our APIs now offer access to historical data. Over the last couple months, we’ve been hard at work improving the 42matters product set, adding 11 new products and features to the line up. Last week, our development team launched two new file dumps for connected TV (CTV) apps: File Dump for LG TV Apps and File Dump

We’ve launched the 42matters SDK Explorer! Now, you’ll be able to browse the mobile software development kit (SDK) landscape, gaining insight into SDK developers, app category market share, and a variety of other metrics. Last week, we kicked things off by announcing the Explorer’s new app export history [https://bit.ly/3JjFTad] feature. This was the latest in a series of eight(!) product updates dating back to the beginning of 2021. These include: iOS Content Advisories [https://42matters.com

Clubhouse is an invitation-only drop-in audio social networking app. Launched in April 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the app first gained widespread notoriety after Elon Musk was interviewed on Good Time, a show broadcast over the Clubhouse app. Over the last few months, there’s been a groundswell of conversation across social media concerning a mysterious new app called Clubhouse. Now, the mystery is easy to explain. Clubhouse is invitation only, it’s currently availab

We’ve added a new feature to the 42matters Explorer! Now, you’ll be able to view your app export history for all iOS and Android queries conducted on the Explorer platform. A few weeks ago, we launched a spate of new features on the 42matters Explorer platform. One such feature was Precision App Exports [https://bit.ly/3gAYP80], which gave you more control over the number of iOS and Android apps you export from our database. Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve taken this feature one

How Wall Street Bets and GameStop Impacted the financial app market, including: Robinhood, Reddit, Coinbase, WeBull, Fidelity Investments, and Cash App. It’s hard to imagine anything topping the peculiarities of 2020, but 2021 is off to a hot start. The latest head-scratcher comes courtesy of GameStop, whose stock soared 400% [https://on.mktw.net/3J68Ru2] during an extremely volatile week of trading. In a stunning turn of events, the American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming me

X-Mode Social Inc., an American company specialized in location data, has come under intense scrutiny in recent months for selling user-generated location data collected by their software development kit (SDK) to defense contractors that work with the US military. According to Vice’s tech blog Motherboard, the US military has been buying granular movement data [https://bit.ly/3Jlc8G5] harvested from seemingly innocuous apps that integrate X-Mode’s SDK. While the most popular app among those re

We’ve added a new filter to the 42matters Explorer! Now, you’ll be able to sort all iOS apps available on the Apple App Store based on their required capabilities. Over the past couple weeks, we’ve announced the arrival of six new features to the 42matters Explorer platform. These include: iOS Content Advisories [https://bit.ly/3oDeiIW], Google Play Content Descriptors [https://bit.ly/3uyBMD3], Age Approved by Teachers [https://bit.ly/3spP16o], iOS In-App Purchases [https://42matters.com/blo

We’ve added three new features to the 42matters Explorer! Now, you can see which iOS apps have in-app purchases, determine which Android apps include interactive elements, and export more refined mobile app data. If you haven’t noticed, our development team is on a roll. Over the past few days, we’ve added three(!) new filters to the 42matters Explorer. You should check them out: iOS Content Advisories [https://42matters.com/blog/?p=new-ios-content-advisories-sort-apps-by-content], Google Pl

We’ve added a new filter to the 42matters Explorer! Now, you’ll be able to see which Android apps have been age approved by teachers. Over the past few days, we’ve announced the addition of two new filters to the 42matters Explorer — iOS Content Advisories [https://42matters.com/blog/?p=new-ios-content-advisories-sort-apps-by-content] and Google Play Content Descriptors [https://42matters.com/blog/?p=new-google-play-content-descriptors-sort-apps-by-content] . Today, we’re pleased to announce

We’ve added iOS content advisories to the 42matters Explorer! Now you’ll be able to sort all iOS apps available on the Apple App Store by the content they contain. Last week, we announced that the 42matters Explorer platform now enables users to filter Android apps by content descriptors [https://42matters.com/blog/?p=new-google-play-content-descriptors-sort-apps-by-content] , which provide consumers, app developers, ad networks, and advertisers with information on the sort of content contain

We’ve added Google Play content descriptors to the 42matters Explorer! Now you’ll be able to sort all Android apps available on Google play by the content they contain. Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to 2021! The year is young and while we thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season, we at 42matters have wasted no time getting back into the swing of things. Indeed, we’re already hard at work refining our products and offerings. This week, for instance, our development team has added Google Pl