A video player removed twice: IbPro Player returned to Google Play for a third time. 7 days, 7,600 installs

IbPro Player looks like a new app listed in Sep 16. It has no ratings, yet it climbed the video player charts in the Netherlands, Spain and France. It's actually an old IPTV brand, "Ibo Player Pro": the old package had about 2.3M installs. Google removed it in April 2025, a transition package was removed in April 2026, and this is the third package. It didn't buy traffic. The traffic came back through old users and IPTV sellers. Below: what it actually sells, where the people came back from, how the money is collected, and what you can take from it.

A six-line notice

In Oct 2026 30, the news page at iboproapp.com posted a notice titled "Samsung App Removal Issue":

Our Samsung app was recently removed from the store. You can now download our older app "Ib Player Pro" from the store. But it only supports models from 2022 onward. For older TVs, download the userwidget from the website and follow the tutorial to install it.

Under the notice is a YouTube tutorial. The company's news page was last updated in September 2023. After a three-year gap, its next post was "removed again, go install another one."

It has been living like this for years. The same is true on Google Play: a user visits the website, clicks "Get it on Google Play," and lands on the third package name, com.ibpro.player.

What it sells: an empty player shell plus a device "ticket"

The store listing is restrained: IbPro Player plays IPTV playlists that users supply, with support for M3U, favorites, multilingual subtitles, and parental lock. The "how to use" section is one line: get an M3U list or link from your IPTV provider and import it.

It ships with no channels. The website FAQ is blunter: it provides no playlists and won't help you find any. "Don't buy without a playlist. No refunds." The FAQ also admits it has no program guide (EPG), which must come from the provider.

Payment is a one-time fee per device. The app is free to install and has a trial period. After the trial, you activate on the website using the TV's MAC address plus a device key. Playlists are also managed by MAC address on the website backend, not in the app. A January 2023 notice on the website listed the price as 7.99 euros per TV or device, paid once (iboproapp.com/news). Current retail price isn't stated on the homepage, unverified. The Google Play page shows no in-app purchases and no ads, so the money mostly doesn't go through Google. It goes through the website and resellers.

The reseller side has posted prices (iboplayer.pro/become-reseller, 11-06):

Contact is a Brazilian WhatsApp number and Telegram @iboproapp. A 2023 notice also listed a +86 number. On eBay and gift-card marketplaces, "IBO Player Pro lifetime activation" has been sold for around $8.

It isn't only on Play. The iOS version "ibo Pro Player" launched in June 2023. In the US store it has 14,197 ratings with an average of 4.75 (App Store, 11-06). There are also versions for LG, Roku, Windows, and Zeasn/Whale TV systems, plus the one Samsung just removed.

An easy point to mix up: there's another company, IBO DEV (iboplayer.com), with its own "IBO Player Pro" alongside about 40 other apps including BOB Player and Duplex. Pricing is 1 euros per year at 5 or 10 euros lifetime. The website listed on com.ibpro.player on Play is iboproapp.com, and the website FAQ says iboplayer.pro and iboproapp.com are two domains for the same company. The relationship between the two companies is unverified. This article covers the iboproapp.com operation.

Removed once, back again

The version numbers run in sequence, from 4.3 to 4.6. The three packages sit under three different developer accounts, but the website and the official YouTube channel each time point users to the new one, so it's reasonable to conclude they're the same operator (inference).

Removal isn't unique to this one. From 2025 Apr 7 to 10, a batch of IPTV players including VU Player Pro were pulled from Play together. In early 2026 there was another round of rights-holder legal action: Google Play and the App Store removed 36 IPTV players in one sweep, totaling 26M downloads, XCIPTV included (iptvranking.com, 2026-06). IPTV Smarters was also pulled in Spain under a court order requested by the La Liga league.

How big: not big, but speeding up

In the first month or so after listing, it averaged 400 to 500 installs a day. It accelerated at the end of October, and in the last 7 days it grew by 7,600, more than doubling. Play's numbers refresh only every few days, so single-day figures can swing between 0 and 2,700.

It only charted in the Video Players free category. 10-29 through 11-06 its best ranks were #33 in the Netherlands, #40 in Spain, #54 in France, #79 in Germany, #106 in the UK, #116 in Canada; on 11-06 it hit #50 in Spain, #52 in the Netherlands, #55 in France. These category charts are easy to crack: a few thousand installs a week gets you into the top 50.

It still has 0 ratings on Play and not a single review. With tens of thousands of installs and nobody leaving a rating, it doesn't behave like a paid-acquisition app that pops up rating prompts. Users install it, activate it, and go watch TV.

Now the iOS app under the same name: 10,605 in Brazil, 7,494 in France, 6,935 in Germany, 5,919 in Spain, 3,043 in the Netherlands (App Store, 11-06). The countries where the new Play package charted are exactly these, so it's the same audience coming in through a different door.

Where people are coming back from

Old users looking for the new package. This is the biggest source. The old package had 2.3M installs, and there's a group of people who've paid on iOS and on various TV app stores. Every time Play removed the package, they had to hunt for the "official new one." The Google Play button at the bottom of every page on the official site now points to com.ibpro.player.

IPTV resellers bring people in. People who buy IPTV subscriptions usually have the player picked for them by the seller. Sellers bulk-buy activation credits from the official site and send the activation codes and install guide with each subscription sale, so they have the strongest interest in customers installing the official, working build. The seller sites already carry an IBO install guide for the 2026 version, and Facebook has an "Ibo Player Pro 2026" user group where the questions are all about activation and pricing.

Official tutorials plus store search. The official YouTube channel @IboPlayerPro posted "How to install Ibo Player Pro (IbPro Player) in Android TV from Google playstore" on 2025-06-22, and it has 208k views. Reddit tutorials say the same thing: "Open the Play Store and search Ibpro." The new package name "IbPro Player" is close enough to the old name that search finds it.

Platform events, possibly related. The new package arrived just as the European football season started. Samsung removed its TV app in Oct 30; some Samsung TV users may have switched to Android boxes or Firesticks. The timing lines up with the late-October acceleration, but causation is unverified.

Paid acquisition: none seen. No ads, no Google in-app purchases, no ratings, nobody has talked about it on X in nearly 60 days, and TikTok searches turn up nothing substantial.

Who it's competing with

On the player features, it's no different from these rivals, and it lacks a program guide. The difference is the business structure: it charges a one-time fee per device, and users' activation records and playlists live on its own servers, not in any store account. When the package gets removed, a new package under a different name goes live, old users' activations still work, and growth can restart the same day. On the TV side it also has few competitors: Samsung and LG TVs can't sideload, TV stores don't handle subscription billing well, and activating by MAC address on a web page is almost the only convenient way to charge.

How well known is it?

It's well known in its own niche and almost unknown outside it. Among IPTV users and sellers, "IBO Player Pro" is a name everyone recognizes, with plenty of install guides, "alternatives" articles, and Facebook groups. Revenue isn't public, no media outlet has covered it, and product builders rarely discuss it. Six or seven name-borrowing shells already exist.

If it were you

Verdict: copy its structure, not its category. IbPro's growth this round came from something a follower can't get: an old brand with 2.3M installs, plus a seller network that recognizes the brand. The player itself is easy to write, dozens already exist on the market, and the name-borrowing shells are crowded too.

Who it suits: people who already have a channel. For example, a team already doing white-label work for IPTV sellers or TV box makers, or someone with connections in a particular language's seller community who can get sellers to specify your player. Those people can follow its approach and move billing and user assets off the app stores.

Who it doesn't suit: indie developers who want to build a new IPTV player from zero, relying on organic Play traffic. A new package gets no return traffic from old users, so cold start requires paid acquisition or borrowing a name. The first means competing on price with the ad shells; the second means becoming the next shell to get reported. Anyone unwilling to deal with copyright disputes should stay away too: this category gets cleared out every year or two, and packages last just over a year on average. Samsung's store just removed it.

How to do it (if you have a channel):

• Keep activations and playlists on your own web backend, bind them to device MAC addresses, charge once; the app is just an entry point that can be swapped at any time.
• Open bulk credits to sellers with a clear price ladder (it sells 10 at 3 euros each and 1000 at 1.25 euros each), so sellers sell for you, teach users for you, and handle support for you.
• Don't miss any TV platform: Android TV, Firestick, Samsung, LG, Roku, plus Zeasn/Whale which it covers. The hardest-hit channel was Play, and TV manufacturers' stores are its foundation.
• The only visible gap it leaves is that it has no program guide. Building a version with a built-in guide, where playlists can be imported with the TV remote, is the most direct improvement (inference; how many users care about a guide is unverified).

How to get users: not by buying ads, but by working with sellers. Every language's IPTV seller community (Telegram groups, Facebook groups, seller sites) is looking for a stable player that won't suddenly stop working. You can give the first batch of credits away for free, then pair it with a YouTube install guide covering every kind of TV, showing exactly which store to search and what name to type.

How long the window lasts: there's no fixed deadline. The rhythm of the window is set by rights holders and platforms: before the next round of mass takedowns, each new package has a while to live; when the next big cleanup hits, the whole category goes to zero at once.

What would mean you read it wrong:

• If com.ibpro.player gets removed again within a few months while its iOS and TV ratings keep climbing, that shows keeping user assets on your own servers really does survive package removals, and that the structure is worth more than this article estimates.
• If it gets removed again and this time the official site doesn't put up a new package, and users in the community start discussing other players, that means the cost of this path has outweighed the return. Don't go in.
• Conversely, if one of the name-borrowing shells (for example Ibo Player Smarter, with 320k installs) starts publicly selling reseller credits and taking sellers away, that means the brand isn't the moat either. The seller network is; whoever signs the sellers first wins.