Google Play Removed 700,000 Bad Apps In 2017, 70 Percent More Than In 2016 (venturebeat.com) 38
Today, Google announced that it removed more than 700,000 apps that violated Google Play's policies, or 70 percent more apps than the year before. "Google does not share total Google Play app numbers anymore, so we have to rely on third-party estimates to put this 70 percent figure into perspective," reports VentureBeat. "Statista pegs the total number of apps on Google Play at 2.6 million in December 2016 and 3.5 million in December 2017, a 35 percent growth. How many of those were bad apps, however, is anyone's guess." From the report: All we know is that the number of bad apps removed grew faster than the total number of apps in the store, which makes sense if you take into account the next statistic Google revealed today: 99 percent of apps with abusive content were identified and rejected before anyone could install them in 2017. This was possible, Google says, thanks to its implementation of machine learning models and techniques to detect abusive app content and behaviors such as impersonation, inappropriate content, or malware. The company claims that the odds of getting malware is 10x lower via Google Play than if you install apps from outside sources.
Company claims (Score:3)
"The company claims that the odds of getting malware is 10x lower via Google Play than if you install apps from outside sources."
This means nothing.
Considering the worst possibility, if outside sources have 100% chance to get malware, then Google Play has 10% chance, which is VERY BAD.
Even a chance of 1% of getting malware is horrible, considering we are talking about Google's official app channel.
IMO the chance should be 1 in 100K, meaning there would still be 35 apps in the official store loaded with malware.
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And that's ignoring the fact that most of the malware on the Play Store (spyware, adware, etc.) isn't considered malware in the Android world. It's par for the course to exploit your users and shit on their devices!
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I just read the headline and like what the fuck Google, you allowed 700,000 bad apps onto you platform, 70% more than 2016, you are getting fucking worse and what you take pride in it? Shit google you know how many bad apps you should be 'taking off' your platform, fucking zero, you idiots. Google, you fucking idiots, you want to brag about a headline, it's one that says, Google blocked access to 700,000 bad apps, to the Google play store. I even checked the article, yep, Google are taking pride in allowing
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Not according to the article I just read. They went on and Google removed them, based obviously on complaints, yeah, it is a shit way to do it and Apple tries to prevent them getting on by checking them first. Now if it is different, fucking prove it with a link to Google, too fucking easy.
Solutions, please, not just rants (Score:2)
I think there is an obvious solution: SHARE information about the financial models used by the developers with the potential victims. One way to approach this would be with a "Financial Model" or "Money" tab in Google Play. The developer would explain where the money is. Most of the time that would involve selecting from a menu of popular business models, but it should also allow the developers to explain "Other" ideas.
Below the part controlled by the developer of the app, there would be secure commentary p
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Walled gardens keep the existing weeds safe from having to compete with other weeds.
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Why pay for an OS and expensive software when a few apps can provide most of the user support and fun needed.
Creative people offer apps that people crave. For sport, art, culture, a hobby, fun, as a game.
In a gov regulated nation a user would have to buy a boxed app from a shop at say $50 or $100 for a computer programme that fully support the local language and was gov approved.
The internet and software
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This is why I buy nothing but Apple products for my home and family. Only Apple takes the time to vet every single app submitted for sale in the App Store.
Only Apple has a plain privacy statement online.
Only Apple is in constant heat with the Feds wanting your data (Google and Samsung hand it over like Skittles!)
If you value your security and privacy, there is only one choice: Apple Inc.
I hate Apple, iOS, iPhones, etc.
You are absolutely correct. If you care about security, Apple is the only choice. No, they're not perfect (especially lately), but Android is a joooooooooooke with regards to security. As far as privacy goes, I wouldn't trust Apple not to spy on me, but it's clear that if they do they're not doing it to anywhere near the extent that Google is.
Permission System (Score:5, Insightful)
I am most annoyed by Google's choices in the Permission System. It is defective by design. What did they expect? It is now the choice malware target. Sure, it is an improvement since the earlier versions since we can revoke permissions now. The system is far less leaky on iOS (at least it was, I have not owned an iOS device in a while). I really wish I could set up virtual/shadow address books and file systems. The current system is just playing whack-a-mole. There should be a setting where apps will not have access to any of my private information by default, but still not fail when denied. Or a means to have two profiles, a trusted and a sandbox profile.. and it should be trivial for the user to switch between them, while providing good feedback on which one is active.
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https://github.com/M66B/XPriva... [github.com]
Should be standard
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Maybe you are using some really badly coded apps, but they should not fail when denied permissions. If they support any recent version of Android they will know that they were denied, and if not they just get an empty address book or blank device ID or "device has no camera" error etc.
Also, you can have two profiles. Android has supported this for years. Each profile gets its own personal details, address book etc. You can easily create a fake profile with dummy data.
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A link to malware in the Play Store... (Score:2)
Here you go:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
Dozens and dozens of cloned apps that "clean" your device. Fake ratings and reviews.
They prey on the layman users' false "common sense" of how computers/devices should work. Each contains the same false information about optimizing Android performance, creating a completely inaccurate "common knowledge" amongst many Android users.
For example, there's no positive benefit in "cleaning apps" to save memory (RAM). The OS will just cache more, which uses even more
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Usefulness (Score:2)
Here you go:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
Dozens and dozens of cloned apps that "clean" your device.
{...}
They prey on the layman users' false "common sense" of how computers/devices should work. Each contains the same false information about optimizing Android performance, creating a completely inaccurate "common knowledge" amongst many Android users.
For example, there's no positive benefit in "cleaning apps" to save memory (RAM).
Optimizing RAM ? Yeah, that's bonkers, you get the same quick effect by simply rebooting the device (it does too stop most of the apps running in the background), and lots of modern OS implementation have methods to kill running background apps when ressources get low.
But optimizing free space ?
That's actually useful : at least the Android versions I've seen don't have a nice convenient way to purge all the cache, and delete all the temporary files or non critical files (thumbnails preview, etc.) in a singl
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Purging cache on Android is a matter of opening the storage settings and pressing the "cache" bar. It'll clear the entire cache on that storage device.
Solution to fake ratings and reviews (Score:2)
There should be a way to see the EARNED public reputation of identities. That should also be linked to the actual data, allowing for network-based validation. The google is supposed to be smart enough to understand how to set up a negative feedback loop. The way this one would work would be that the harder you work to create a network of fake identities, the more visible the fake network will become and the easier to trace and remove ALL of the members (thereby erasing all of their fake ratings and reviews,
The real question (Score:1)
The real question is why the heck did google let 700,000 malware apps into their store in the first place? Don't they have enough money to actually vet the apps going into their store? Does google even care a bit about the users? google sure is becoming a shit of a company.
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Violating terms != Bad App (Score:2)
Violating Google's policies does not mean it's a bad app. A favourite recipe app of mine was capable of downloading recipes from multiple sources if you had logins to those sites. That's hardly malware. Neither are computer and game system emulation apps, nor spoof apps to morph your photo to look like other racial stereotypes. Sure some of them are controversial in their own ways, but they are hardly malware. Google doesn't release stats on which terms of their service that apps were removed for, so w
It depends when they were removed (Score:1)
Interesting looking back (Score:3)
It's always interesting to have a look back at the environment when Apple started with their tight controls over everything on the iPhone. Many people derided this heavy-handedness and wanted something which they could do anything to. Enter the Android-based smartphones which would allow people to install anything from anywhere. The dangers of such a platform for a smartphone became evident over the years and the push for users towards using Google's official source for apps (the Google Play Store) increased. Things which people have often criticized Apple for doing often got implemented soon afterwards. I'm not saying Apple is perfect or makes the best decisions and this isn't about singing their praises. Apple knew the importance around keeping tight control over what is allowed to be installed onto the iOS devices, particularly as it relates to security and stability. (yes, I know they also stand to benefit from these decisions as well). So, here we are with Google screening apps and rejecting apps before they get to the Google Play Store, much like Apple did and does with iOS. I tend to thing that any security-conscious Android user urges those they know to only use apps from the Google Play Store for security reasons and to save users from installing malware riddled apps on their phones.
This also differs greatly from PC's (before someone says "but what about PC's where you can install anything you want!!") PC's don't delay or lock out critical OS updates the way the heavily fragmented Android smartphone industry does.
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