Even More Android Fleeceware to Remove From Your Phone
It’s time again: a bunch of crappy apps have hit the Google Play Store and you have to make sure they aren’t installed on your Android phone. If you do this, then you are simply sucked in by the “fleece utensils”.
What are fleece utensils? I admit I don’t often hear this term, but it’s mostly deceptive marketing. The app is hiding its terms, fees and / or subscription costs, or otherwise has a clever way of coaxing you into signing up for a “free trial” which actually expires very soon and will cost you a lot more than you expected when it ends. These apps are not malware by themselves – at least they won’t infect your phone with malicious junk that tries to steal your account data or anything like that – they’ll just take your money.
The worst part? They bypass Google Play Store rules just enough to avoid being banned by Google. As Sophos writes:
“In the list of apps we reported to Google, the company refused to take action on all but a few, and in those cases, apps changed the way they display the description and terms of the free trial, fixing the only violations. Publishers may choose to inflate subscription prices at their discretion, provided they adhere to these anti-fraudulent practices in their promotions.
We understand that it is difficult to provide a fixed price for an app’s service, but when an app gets tested, of course, reviewers can easily separate a dodgy looking photo editor paying $ 90 a week from a reputed developer charging a fair price for an app with a professional. or premium features. “
Generally speaking, you should always act very, very carefully when an app offers you a free trial, especially if the app already seems a little unfinished, contains poor grammar, or looks like an app that probably doesn’t need to have in-app purchases, let alone already about subscriptions. Know exactly what you are signing up for, how long it lasts, and what will happen to you when it ends. This includes the invoice size and billing frequency for your new subscription, if applicable.
If you are not entirely sure about these details, close the application and uninstall it. If you don’t know what you just signed up for or what you have already signed up for, you can always check your Android subscriptions here . Make sure to visit this page regularly to make sure you are not paying for something you didn’t want.
And while this is far from a complete list of fleece software in the Google Play Store – there will always be more – avoiding or removing these apps is a good start:
- File converter & JPEG converter
- Recover Deleted Photos, Back Up Photos
- Screen Recording: Game Recording
- Photo Grid Blender: Insta grid & photogrid
- Image Search: Image Search – Smart Search
- Dynamic wallpaper
- Gametris Wallpaper
- Tell Shortvideo
- Fontmoji
- Video Magician
- Xstar: Sleep and Mindfu – Apps bei Google Play
- Palmistry Astrology
- Futurescope
- Mirror of Fortune
- Call with Draws Free Lite
- Fake Chat Conversation – Prank
- Old me
- My copy 2: ethnicity, celebrity doppelganger
- Live GO Map 2020 for Poke Radar
- IV GO Calculator for Poke GO Genie
- Hy G File Scanner
- Installation
- Zynoa Wallpaper
- Futurescope
This all sounds perfectly legal and is not a scam at all, right?