• TikTok app download available from ByteDance.
• App still not available in the US, although service still available for users.
• ByteDance has until April to sell to US company.

Social media platform TikTok has made its app available for direct download from its servers, so users who can’t install it through official channels – such as the Play Store – can sideload the app and install it manually.

In the US, a law banning TikTok currently bans the app from appearing in the Android and iOS official app stores. Under the law, operators of app stores face fines of $5000 for every download of the app. The ban may be lifted in time, if ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, agrees to sell the application to a US-based company.

The TikTok service continues to be available to US users, which was only briefly interrupted by the imposition of the law. An executive order signed by newly-elected president Donald Trump paused the law for 75 days in the hope that a buyer could be found, which gives ByteDance until April to reach an agreement on price and terms with a US company.

However, for Android users (and iOS users inside the EU), applications can be manually added to a phone and installed. For Android, TikTok is available as an .apk ‘blob’ which contains the application in a single file, so anywhere the app is banned, users might still be able to get their video short ‘fix.’

Users can either download the .apk on their mobile device, or use a computer to download the file and transfer it via cable or Bluetooth. Then, it’s as simple as tapping the downloaded .apk file and clicking through the warnings about insecure package installation.

In addition to the security implications of users sourcing maliciously doctored .apk files from sources other than TikTok, apps installed via sideloading may not auto-update as part of a system update, which usually includes checking for new versions of apps installed through ‘official channels’ – in this case, the Google Play Store.

The US currently has (or rather, had) 170 million active monthly users, despite an uptick in the installation and use of similar apps (RedNote, for example) around the time of the TikTok ban.

The president has reportedly handed the negotiation of the sale of TikTok to his vice-president, J.D. Vance. Several options are on the table, including expressions of interest to buy from online personality MrBeast, billionaire Elon Musk, AI company Perplexity, and database giant, Oracle.

A member of ByteDance’s board of directors, Bill Ford (CEO of Axios), has hinted that there are other solutions under consideration that are “short of divesture”, that is, not necessarily a full and outright sale of TikTok. Some commentators have also said that a 50-50, half US, half Chinese deal is possible.

The undercurrents of the issue are the ongoing trade war between the US and China, with tariffs and counter-tariffs placed by either side as the two largest economies in the world jockey for position. Both sides often state security concerns with the other’s products. In this instance, TikTok has variously been accused tracking US citizens and showing misleading advertising, harming younger American users, acting as a cryptocurrency exchange, influencing elections, and sending data on US citizens to China.

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