Zao App: A Comprehensive Review of the Chinese Faceswap App

Zao app has become a darling of social media users, like several other face-swapping filters and apps. However, there are many different aspects of Zao that you must know about to determine whether it is a safe app to use and if there are any suitable alternatives to it.

Therefore, this article will thoroughly review the Zao app and some of its major questions. Let’s start with some basics.

What Is Zao App?

Zao is a face-swapping that was originally introduced for iPhone. Later on, the Zao app for pc and Zao app apk for Android devices was also released. It got viral overnight, thanks to social media. A Chinese team is behind this app. It was initially released in August to great acclaim on the Chinese App Store.

One of the major reasons that made Zao so popular is that it uses highly advanced algorithms and face swap technology to replace the faces of celebrities in different types of video clips with your own to produce realistic results.  

Why did Zao App Become So Popular?

There is no one specific reason why the Zao managed to become so popular in such a short amount of time. The rise in the popularity of face swap and AI tools has been slow and steady. Snapchat has contributed a lot towards the habit of people using face-swap and gender-swap filters.

With the Zao app, users get a separate app specially meant to create face swapping pictures and videos. Zao allows users to create a realistic face swap with just one photograph instead of dealing with any technical measures, such as training an AI model. Therefore, the capabilities of Zao are accessible to everyone and anyone. Zao’s user-friendliness and high efficiency led to its virality on the internet, not just in China but worldwide.

Features of Zao App

Zao is primarily a face-swapping app. It uses AI to replace the faces of celebrities with the faces of users. Some of the most popular features of Zao are:

• Zao is easy-to-use. People with little to no experience can easily use it to swap faces.
• It has a large library of content from movie and TV series scenes. For instance, it contains popular content like Titanic and Game of Thrones.
• Realistic face swap pictures and videos can be generated with Zao. It uses powerful AI algorithms and technology in the background to ensure maximum quality.
• You can share Zao’s face-swapped videos and pictures to other compatible social media platforms.
• There are some significant flaws in the privacy policy of Zao, but even these flaws and concerns are openly stated on the platform.
• Zao is available for all iOS, Android, and desktop users.  

Is There an English Version of Zao App?

No, there is no official English version of the Zao app. Some people use Chinese apps, like Zao, with a third-party screen translator, such as Screen Text Translate or App Translator, but you won’t find any official Zao in English. Therefore, if you truly want to enjoy the benefits of a reliable face swap ai app without compromising quality, you should explore apps like Zao such as DeepSwap.

How to Download Zao App?

Zao is only officially accessible on the Chinese iOS App Store. It is not available on the Google Play Store or the global iOS App Store. Privacy concerns and its limited features in the Chinese language are the main reasons why it’s not available in app stores.

However, if users still want to know how to download the Zao app, they should do it through the official website of Zao. Keep in mind that by downloading the Zao app apk, Zao app for PC, or Zao app for iOS devices, you will be accepting a lot of safety and privacy risks that come with Zao. Therefore, before making this decision, consider the following aspects of Zao app safety.

Is Zao App Safe?

Regarding the privacy and safety of your data, Zao is definitely not a safe platform to use. In fact, Zao has not even pretended to be a fully safe or secure platform. Its terms of service agreement clearly stated that users who were uploading their pictures on the Zao app were surrendering the intellectual property rights of their faces and allowing Zao to reuse the content in any of the marketing materials.

Initially, this term was overlooked by many users, but once it came to light, Zao suffered huge blowback on social media. It was also reflected in its ratings on the app store, which came down to 1.9 stars out of five. Moreover, due to security risks, reputed tech companies and platforms, including WeChat, banned Zao from its messenger.  

Hence, the short answer to the question of whether Zao app is safe is that no, it’s not a safe platform, and you should not trust it with your images.

Disadvantages of Zao App

Most of the disadvantages and limitations of the Zao app stem from its privacy issues. Following are the major drawbacks of the Zao app which you should pay attention using this face swap app:

• Zao is only officially available in the Chinese language, so it cannot cater to a global audience.
• Zao app for PC is less user-friendly than its iOS app. So, you cannot expect to fully enjoy the process of creating face swap on the larger screen of your PC.
• Downloading the Zao app apk or Zao iOS app is not as easy as some of its alternatives.
• Various aspects of the privacy policy of Zao make it clear it collects a lot of user data. It states that the user’s personal information can be collected without consent in certain cases.
• Zao stores the user’s pictures in its database and gets the rights to use them for marketing purposes.
• Due to privacy concerns, there is a lack of compatibility with leading chatting apps, such as WeChat, that banned Zao.

Keeping all of these disadvantages and security drawbacks in mind, you must explore apps like Zao to get the benefits of face swapping technologies safely and efficiently.

Alternative Apps of Zao

Nowadays, you can find reliable and safe face swap apps that have a user-friendly interface to allow help users in creating face-swapped images quickly and easily while all the heavy technical work is done in the background by the platform.

Some of the common alternative apps like Zao are Familiar, Impressions, and DeepSwap. Let’s discuss DeepSwap in detail because it is similar to Zao in terms of its user-friendliness but with greater privacy and safety.

DeepSwap

DeepSwap.ai is a powerful online AI face-swap tool through which you can find great face-swap videos, photos, and GIFs. It is a cloud-based tool. Hence, you don’t have to worry about downloading any app on your device. It eliminated the need to waste time in finding an app for your specific model, such as Zao face swap apk. Instead, you can open DeepSwap.ai and get started with its face-swapping features.  

One of the most important things about DeepSwap to know is that, unlike Zao, it has very safe and secure working procedures that are also reflected in its privacy policy and terms of service. You don’t have to worry about your data being stored by Deepswap in any way.

You can easily and safely swap faces with DeepSwap and create funny memes, GIFs, movie clips, or any other type of content. The fact that DeepSwap is available in 8 languages makes it a truly reliable and globally accessible platform, so you should definitely check it out.

Impressions

Impressions is another reliable alternative to Zao. It is capable of creating realistic face swap videos quickly and easily. Impressions are mainly popular for recreating scenes from iconic movies and series with swapped faces. As a result, users can use Impressions to create different types of memes.

You can access more than fifty celebrity faces in Impressions. Free videos are added on a weekly basis to give more face-swapping options. You can use Impressions for free with a 3-day free trial, but you’ll have to start paying after that.

Face Swap Live

Face Swap Live is an efficient face swap app that allows you to swap faces in real-time. You can record videos or capture photos with Face Swap Live and swap faces with your friends or any other actor and celebrity. It costs $0.99 and is available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store. However, you should know that the results produced by Face Swap Live are less realistic than the output of the other face swap apps.

Conclusion

Zao app is definitely one of the highlights of the advancements in face swap technology and the vast accessibility of face-swapping apps. However, the security and privacy concerns associated with the Zao app also cause a significant setback for the industry because it makes users apprehensive about using similar apps.

The good thing is that alternative apps like Zao, such as DeepSwap, are much more reliable, user-friendly, and transparent than Zao. These apps have comprehensive working parameters and privacy policies to protect their users’ data. Therefore, you can use them to create some amazing face swap photos and videos without worrying about your privacy.