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Don't use these shady health tracker apps with 10 mil downloads
We’re in the first month of a new year, and you know what that means. Tons of people are focusing on fitness and living a healthier lifestyle. Many turn to health-tracking apps for guidance. Unfortunately, some popular health trackers have been caught spreading adware.
Read on for a list of shady apps to avoid and a few suggestions to dodge malicious apps.
Here’s the backstory
A study a few years ago found that only 0.8% of all apps on the Google Play Store had malicious intent. That might seem negligible, but they can have devastating consequences for your data if you install one of them.
Others don’t necessarily go after your information but use shady methods to make the developers money. According to research from Dr. Web, several health and fitness apps on Google Play use this tactic.
The apps claim to be fitness trackers or step counters, and you can earn rewards for doing certain activities or hitting specific goals. That seems great, but problems soon arise when you want to cash out your earnings.
“The applications demanded that they watch dozens of advertising videos. They were then offered several dozen more ads to watch in order to ‘speed up’ the withdrawal process,” Dr. Web explains.
The apps make it nearly impossible to receive the compensation you are promised for hitting goals. In fact, the apps don’t ask for banking information to send payments. What’s really happening is app developers are getting paid for all the ads you are forced to watch.
Some of the apps mentioned in the report are:
- Lucky Step-Walking Tracker.
- WalkingJoy.
- Lucky Habit: health tracker.
A slew of apps also pose as investment applications or mobile games. After installation, these apps connect to a remote server for instructions on what information to steal.
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