Android phones: ‘Criminal’ apps disguised on Google Play Store

collected by :Maya Tony

1:19Android phone owners are being warned about 22 dodgy apps that drain your battery life — and could land you by a big phone bill. The "click-fraud" apps pretend to be normal apps on the Google Play Store, but secretly perform criminal actions out of sight, reports The Sun. This means the people running the dodgy apps make more money. caution signs would be increased data usage and fast-draining battery life — but pinning those to the dodgy apps would be hard. "Because consumers would not be able to correlate these effects to the apps themselves, their Play Market reviews for these apps showed few negative comments."Google removed the dodgy apps from the Play Store on the 7 days of November 25.

These are the best Android apps of 2018, according to Google

Google has launched its list of the best Android apps for 2018, and the highest prize has gone to − drumroll please − language-learning app Drops. Read more: Best smartphoneIt currently lets you learn a selection of 30 different languages, and there are alextremely sepaaverage programs for British English and American English. "This is the app that we found ourselves returning to and sharing by friends all year. Beautifully designed and universally useful, it's our Best App of 2018," said Google. Read more: Best photo editing apps"For the first time ever, we've alextremely added a new "Fan Favourite" category, giving our users the chance to vote for their favourite games and apps of the year.

Google Play-promoted Android apps are using scammy ad practices, report says

according to Eight Android apps by more than 2 billion downloads in the Google Play store have been engaging in fraudulent ad practices, BuzzFeed News announced today. Seven of the apps are owned by Cheetah Mobile, a publicly-traded Chinese company, and one app is owned by Kika Tech, a Chinese company headquartered in Silicon Valley. In a normal installation process, downloaded apps going to check that link or ad the consumer clicked on to see where to attribute the download. In some cases, Cheetah Mobile's apps were programmed to launch the newly downloaded apps themselves in order to get credit for the installation, according to the report. Update 11/27/18 12:42pm ET: Two of Cheetah Mobile's apps, Battery Doctor and CM Locker, have been removed from the Play store.