Top App Categories Dominating the Post-Pandemic World

Posted by Parija Rangnekar On Filed under Mobile App Development No Comments
Top App Categories Dominating the Post-Pandemic World
mobile app development
The COVID pandemic came as an unwanted guest in our lives, and the world is yet to recover from it. Many businesses took a big hit due to the pandemic as the outbreak of the virus was too sudden. However, many businesses adapted to the change and managed to flourish.
All the industries such as hospitality, retail, and travel will need a lot of time to be back to normal. However, few sectors like gaming, eCommerce, and industries that could work-from-home have been the savior.
When distancing had become the norm, the only way for companies to survive was to go digital. Many businesses strengthened their website and pushed their social media game forward to get more clients. IT sector, mostly every mobile app development company, had seen huge growth when everything went online.
According to Statista, by 2025, there will be a projected 7.49 billion mobile users worldwide. Whether your business belongs to any domain, there are various app categories to which your app can belong.
So, which app category will make the cut post-covid?
While we are unsure when the pandemic will completely end, some app categories have gained a lot of traction. Here we have listed the 10 app categories that will grow tremendously in the post-COVID world.
1. Fintech Apps
Since the pandemic, people have been very paranoid about accepting money in cash. Dollar changes hand from one person to another at a very rapid pace, and the fear of getting COVID through it is real.
The pandemic highlighted the need for a cashless economy and has led to many fintech apps. People are skeptical about handing out cash and coming in close contact with people. That is where app categories like fintech come into play.
These apps allow you to make transactions without the actual use of money. Fintech apps are not just limited to online payment and also include online trading and investing.
In 2020 alone, at least one fintech app was used by 64% US adult population.
2. e-Learning Apps
Pandemic has brought a shift in the thinking of college students. With startups giving importance to skills than degrees, students are also searching for online courses. Online classes gave more free time to students, and it ultimately led to the growth of e-learning apps.
Students have started focusing on skill development and are enrolling in online courses. The most attractive aspect of app categories like these is that they provide you with courses and give you certification in the end.
Mobile Apps like Udemy have seen a 425% spike in enrolments during the pandemic. The idea of online learning through e-learning apps has connected with the students and will only get bigger in the future.
3. Healthcare Apps
The healthcare industry in US has gained a lot of attention during the peak of the pandemic. The loopholes in the system that was exposed during the pandemic has paved the way for mobile apps focusing on healthcare. People have started paying attention to their health and are choosing a healthy lifestyle
Did you know: Walking and fitness apps are most popular among older groups, while meditation apps are more likely used among Gen Z?
So fitness and meditation apps will have a bright future post-COVID. Other app categories such as medical care and mental health apps will also find a lot of customers. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of mental health not just for adults but also for students.
4. Grocery Apps
The pandemic has brought a major behavioral change in the people. The fear of the virus forced people to minimize human contact, and the habit continues even as the cases have started dropping. This adversity turned into an opportunity and led to the development of grocery apps.
According to an article from Techcrunch, Instacart, Apptopia, Walmart Grocery, and Shipt have seen their daily downloads surge.
Groceries are essential items, and people cannot survive without them. These app categories provides you convenience and provides something basic for your survival.
People are willing to pay extra now as long as they don’t have to go out. Moreover, it does not affect the business of grocery shop owners as these apps only bridge the gap between these owners and the customers.
5. Entertainment Apps
OTT platforms have been the biggest source of entertainment for people during the pandemic. Apps like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video have seen huge traction not just in the US but across the globe.
Theatres and multiplexes suffered a huge blow due to the pandemic as many state governments forced them to remain shut. The setback for theatres turned into an opportunity for mobile apps like entertainment apps.
Netflix grew globally through popular shows like Narcos and Money Heist. Spotify also expanded its premium user pool as more and more people tuned in to listen to music and podcasts. People are now binge-watching one show after another, and this trend will not die down any time soon.
6. Dating Apps
Traditional dating has been hard during the pandemic due to the lockdown and social distancing measures. This situation has led people to shift to online dating. Almost every data and research suggest a big spike in the use of dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, etc during the pandemic era.
There is little doubt that the number will only increase in the future for such app categories. The cost of meeting a date in person is very high compared to online dating.
Moreover, there is no guarantee that the person you meet is ‘the one.’ When it comes to dating apps, you can chat with your match and check if he/she is the right fit for you.
After a slump in the early 2010s, dating app revenues have increased every year since 2015, reaching $5.61 billion in 2021.
7. Food Delivery Apps
The pandemic has highlighted two aspects of human behavior. The first is that people constantly innovate to bring new products and services. The second aspect is that humans will choose convenience even if it comes at a higher price.
These aspects combined led to the birth of app categories like food delivery apps. Apps like UberEats helped many restaurants and fast-food chains to survive during the pandemic.
UberEats removed delivery charges during the pandemic’s peak to support local restaurants. If not for the pandemic, the food delivery app industry would have touched $41 billion in 2021.
However, the pandemic sped the process, and the industry touched $45 billion in 2020 itself. This only shows that the industry is seeing a lot of demand, and the demand will only go up in the future.
8. Online Education Apps
The traditional learning and teaching model took a back seat as students shifted to the online mode of learning. Zoom classes became the norm, and students started learning from their beds.
However, it was soon realized that online teaching is not as effective as offline. There was a huge gap waiting to be filled in the education sector. The mobile app development of e-learning apps filled this void.
Students started subscribing to such app categories to learn more immersively. Apps like ClassDojo, Remind:Safe Classroom, and Google Classroom saw a 565%, 290%, and 580% spike, respectively, from January 2020 to March 2020. (Source)
9. Social Media Apps
Social media apps were on the rise even before the pandemic. While the youngsters were swiping on Instagram and Snapchat, the older generation was busy scrolling through Facebook.
However, the pandemic gave people more reason to use social media apps. These app categories can now succeed even if we remove the pandemic from the equation
The rise in the use of social media apps is not just limited to individuals. Small businesses have also used the pandemic as an opportunity to improve their social media game. Since a large chunk of the world population is on social media, entrepreneurs are marketing their business through these apps.
It’s worth noting that TikTok’s active user base roughly doubled between December 2019 and September 2021
10. Home Improvement Apps
People started focusing on their homes, with people locking themselves up due to the virus. Many people spend their time renovating their homes and take help from app categories like home improvement apps.
Apps like Lowe’s and Home Depot saw a spike of 205% and 195%, respectively. Due to the pandemic, people also started setting up home offices.
Many companies have made work-from-home permanent, and the future will see the development of many more home offices. With such trends gaining traction, home improvement apps will continue to grow.

Conclusion

Mobile apps are replacing almost every traditional business, and this change will only go forward in the future. From children to adults, everyone is immersed in smartphones. Therefore, it is natural that the usage of mobile and web apps will also increase. Industries like healthcare and education are witnessing a revolution due to mobile apps. The trend of mobile apps will only die if there is a better technology to replace them.
One thing common about the apps mentioned in the list is that they ultimately reduce people’s day-to-day work. App categories of such nature will flourish in the future, and many more apps will come to solve your problems. If you need any help in building such app categories, contact Biz4Solutions, a leading software company offering mobile app development services for more than a decade.

How does Sucuri enhance Website Security?       

Posted by Parija Rangnekar On Filed under Mobile App Development, web app development No Comments
How does Sucuri enhance Website Security?       

Overview on Sucuri

What is Sucuri?
Today, the commonest question that baffles app owners is: “How to secure a website against hackers?” Here is one of the viable solution to this issue – Sucuri, a cloud-based platform ensures website security by implementing strategies that keep a website clean and protect it from all sorts of security threats including hacking, malware attacks, DDoS, and blacklists. The adept professionals at Sucuri are capable of fixing hacks and they adopt suitable measures for preventing future hacks/attacks.
When Sucuri is enabled, the entire traffic of the website passes through Sucuri’s cloud proxy firewall before reaching the hosting server. This approach enables Sucuri to block all security breaches/attacks and only send the legitimate/relevant visitors to the website. So web app development companies can take the leverage of this tool to make their site more secured. Now, let’s take a look at how Sucuri works; the reference screenshots provided will provide better clarity and help you understand better on how to configure your site for better protection.

The Basic outline of Sucuri’s Network

Sucuri’s domain-specific services include the elimination of website security threats through monitoring, Firewall, and Backup services for websites.

Sucuri’s Pricing Model

Refer to the following link to check out the details of Sucuri’s pricing model.
Sucuri’s pricing model
Sucuri’s pricing model: In a nutshell
  • Sucuri offers 3 plans – A Basic Platform, a Pro Platform, and a Business Platform
  • Please note that each pricing plan supports only one website (domain) by default; reference URL: https://sucuri.net/faq/ question: How do you define a website?
    • The Single license plan will work for: example.com/blog and example.com/forum, and this will be treated as a single website
    • Multiple licenses is required if:
      • awesomedomain.com directs traffic to somesite.com/blog
      • blog.example.com or forum.example.com will need 3 different licenses – 2 for each blog and forum; and 1 for example.com

How to set up Sucuri: Key Steps

Peek through the steps of setting up this website security and protection platform. Here we go!
1. Logging in
  • For logging in to Sucuri you have 2 options to choose from:
  • Then, you will be redirected to the login page and you need to log in using the login details you are having.
2. Adding and Scanning the website domain
    • After the login process is completed, the first-time users will be redirected to the “Add site” screen, as provided in the following screenshot:
    • Thereafter, click on the “Add Site” button to add the site for monitoring. This click will open a pop-up screen, where you need to add the website domain. Enter the website domain in the given text space. It will take some time to get scanned when entered for the first time. Check out the following screenshot for reference:
    • After the scan is completed, the result will be displayed as shown in the screenshot provided below – it will inform you whether the site is under malware attack or not, it will also let you know whether the site has been blocked by any Antivirus, etc. Check out the screenshot given below for reference:
3. Enabling the server-side Scanner
Now, we need to enable the server-side scanner. For executing this step, you need to go to Monitoring -> Settings -> Server Side Scanner; refer to the screenshot given below:
  • To enable the server-side scanner, Sucuri uses a file that needs to be uploaded at the root directory of the website and so, Sucuri will ask for FTP/SFTP details for uploading the file on the server. Thereafter, it does not require the FTP/SFTP as it is a one-time process. This step can be executed manually as well. Here goes the process:
    • Enabling the server-side scanner via FTP/SFTP – Sucuri will provide the form as given below for receiving the FTP/SFTP details; refer to the following screenshot:
    • Enabling the server-side scanner manually instead of providing FTP/SFTP details: Click on the blue line labeled as “Enable Manually”. You will be provided with an option to download the file. Download that file manually, upload it on the server at the root level, and then click on the button “Verify File and Enable”.
4. Adding Firewall
Now you need to add a firewall for your site.
  • Click on the Firewall menu given on the top of the main menu bar, check out the screenshot provided below for reference:
    • For first-time users, a screen will be displayed which will ask the user to protect the site.
    • When you select to protect the site, a pop-up bar will be displayed and it will ask you to add the website domain for the firewall.
  • Here, if your website is under a DDoS attack, you can click the first option
  • If you’ve got a WordPress site or any CMS site, and wish to restrict the access of its admin panel for the general public and enable it only for the IP addresses which are whitelisted, you need to select the second option.
  • Depending on the requirement you can decide whether or not you should use Sucuri’s DNS servers. And, if you wish to use DNS servers, you need to select the third option.
  • Thereafter, click on “Add Site”. It will activate the firewall and generate a firewall IP, and will also download copies of the website content to Sucuri’s network.
  • You need to switch the DNS (www.example.com) to point to the newly generated firewall IP of Sucuri. Before that, when we click on “Add Site”, it will show a warning that “the Service is Not Activated, and that’s because we’ve not yet switched the DNS to point Sucuri’s firewall IP.” Before switching to the DNS, we can test whether Sucuri’s network has downloaded the website content properly or not, and for this, Sucuri’s provides its internal Sucuri Firewall Domain. Click on this, and if you find that the website is loading properly, it indicates that everything has gone well so far.
  • After switching the DNS (www.example.com) to Sucuri’s Firewall IP in a domain management service provider like godaddy.com, AWS, etc. if we visit Sucuri’s Firewall menu; it will show that the Firewall Service is ‘Activated’ and that the domain is pointing to firewall IP.
Now, take a look at certain crucial Firewall settings that need to be established
Access Control:
    • Allow IP Addresses: Here if you have provided restricted access only for the whitelisted IP addresses, you can add IPs for whitelisting them. Sucuri provides some options while whitelisting the IP – time-based whitelisting for IP that is been going to be added, for a duration of 30 mins, 1 hr, 3 hrs, 6 hrs, 12 hrs, 1 day, or for a permanent period.
    • Geo-Blocking: Here, you can block access to your website based on geo-location – you can restrict users belonging to certain countries/regions from accessing the website. Sucuri provides some options like “View” and “Post.” Read the description given below for figuring out what View and Post will do; refer to the screenshot given below:
Security:
    • As given in the screenshot provided below, the options that are provided inside the orange-colored box under the button “Advanced Security Options,” are the options that are most likely to be enabled.
    • The options that are provided inside the yellow-colored box are related to WordPress. Here, the first option restricts the Admin panel from being publicly accessed and the second set of options restricts comments, etc. Refer to the screenshot given below:


Key Takeaway

So, isn’t Sucuri a good tool to adopt for protecting your website from data breaches and ensuring website security? We are an experienced and technically sound IT firm outsourcing software development services to a global clientele. We have helped several entrepreneurs to establish their digital footprints without any hassles.