Vysor app for using your Android device from your computer becomes unavailable

Vysor, a free Chrome app that garnered attention last year thanks to its ability to let you control an Android device remotely through a desktop computer, has been removed from the Chrome Web Store.

The person behind Vysor, well regarded Android developer Koushik “Koush” Dutta of ClockworkMod, announced the move in a Google+ post.

“I voluntarily unpublished the Chrome app just now,” Koush wrote. “Some MPEG-LA folks got in touch with me about licensing the broadway.js decoder (the Android h264 decoder translated to js using emscripten) that is packaged in Vysor to do the real time decoding. $0.20 per download/user or something. Will see if I can get this figured out, but no sense running up a massive bill on a free app.”

In the comments, some people suggested that they would be willing to pay for Vysor.

Other apps, like Airdroid and Pushbullet, let you do things with your phone right on your computer. But both of those have paid plans. Now Koush may well choose to do that, too.

Update on May 16: Vysor is back on the Chrome Web Store, Koush wrote on Google+ today. This time, there’s a new Pro premium tier that costs $1.99 a month or $9.99 a year. Paid features include file drag and drop, full-screen mode, Vysor Share, and high-quality device mirroring.