Tips and Tricks to Check If an App is Safe to Download on Android and iOS

Many mobile users think that downloading apps from Google Play or Apple stores is safe, but unfortunately doing so without carefulness may not guarantee you a safe trip. 

Those mobile app stores are full of many malicious apps that steal users' private information. 

Fake apps are increasing day by day with the rising number of mobile users. The emergence of fraud apps keeps spawning in a way that they are hard to identify. 

Even though the official mobile app stores (Play Store and App Store) are trying harder to detect those kinds of malicious apps, many of them find a way to sneak and do harmful effects on many users before they got uncovered. 

Before you are caught unaware, learn these tips and tricks as a guideline to know if a mobile app is safe to download on your Android or iOS phones. 

Also, read:  

• How to know if the website is secured or not
• 9 Hidden Android features you don't know about  

1. Consider Recommended Apps

These are the apps that got a trust badge from the official store, they consider the peoples' reactions and how trustful the app is, then they put it forward and suggest it for you once you dwell on the home page. 

Those are the apps that you first see in the dashboard of your app store with respective categories. 

However you might not find your desired app on the recommended list, in that case, you have to search to find exactly the one that will fit your intent. 

While you're looking for trusted and safe apps to download, you should not hurry in downloading them before you check the following safety measures: 

2. Do not ignore reading the apps permission section 

This is a vital part to check before using any mobile app. It's better to know which information an app access on your device because hackers manage to get user's sensitive data through malicious apps, they usually create an app with malware, and once a user installs and permit the application to read his data, then they got a chance to steal and sell users information. 

As usual, any application is requesting the user's permission to access certain features that are related to its functions. For example, the Google Maps app will request access to your location, a camera to take pictures and videos, and a microphone to record audio. The video player will request access to your phone storage and a camera. 

If you want to download the app read all the permission requirements to know which information they access in your device. If it's correspondent to their functionality then it's okay. 

If a photo editor app is requesting permission to access your location or read your contact or text messages maybe it is not trustworthy, just ignore it and look for another one. 

As for the app that you already installed, you can check their permission access in your phone settings. Head to your phone settings >> tap on apps and notifications>> tap app permission>> then tap on each section and see which app is accessing it. 

You can revoke each permission that you don't trust. 

3. Inspect the download figures

By looking at the number of times the app is being downloaded you can have a clear sight of whether the app is safe or it's just malware spying on the user's data. But what download figures signal the red danger ahead? If you notice any of the under-listed signs in the download counts of the app you should better move to another one: 

1. Too many download counts in an app that is just recently been uploaded. 
2. An unpopular app that received too many downloads in a short amount of time. 

4. Look at  how the Users are Reviewing and Assessing the App

Asides from the app's popularity, there should be users' assessment of how they feel about using it. 

Normally, the user's reviews should contain both positive and negative responses, and usually lengthy, suggesting some features to improve. 

The app is considered to be unsafe if it contains reviews in these forms: 

1. Short reviews all praise the application. Like: "How awesome was this!", "I really enjoy using this app", "keep up the good work", etc.  
2. If all reviews are positive favor the app developer because no matter how the app is good you must find some people who do not enjoy it and post their negative thoughts about it. 
3. If no recommendations or suggestions were made by users to improve the performance of the app. 
4. If the developer is not responding to the inquiries and reviews that were made against the app is also another sign of a red flag. 

5. Avoid downloading apps from an unknown source 

Some are inventing malicious mobile apps and refrain from uploading them to the official stores (Play Store and Apple Store) to be unrestricted in getting users' private information. Most of them look trusted but unfortunately, they're scammers hidden behind lucrative apps and stealing users' data. 

Beware to victimize yourself by downloading a mobile app from third-party stores, or any link that will not lead to your phone's official app store. 

6. Read the app descriptions 

You can check if the app is safe and trustworthy by reading the description under its name. 

Any normal and secure app is expected to be described with normal language and without any keyword stuffing trying to manipulate search engines. 

What usually indicates that the app is unsafe by its description includes: 

Vague description and; 

Grammatical errors in the description. 

7. Consider installing Regularly updated apps 

Looking at when the app is last updated will give you a flashlight on whether the app is safe to install on your Android or iOS phone. Mobile apps are updated regularly by developers to keep them away from unwanted security breaches. So if you see an app that stayed long without updates it's better not to install it on your phone. And in iOS stores you can see update history describing the respective dates the app updated and the issues they have resolved during the update. 

8. Enable Play to protect your Android 

If you are using an Android phone, make sure you enable play protect in the play store settings. This feature regularly checks and ensures no harmful behavior in your device and the safety of any app you installed. You will be notified as soon as they detect any suspicious activity on your device. 

Play protect is enabled by default on your play store, you can check if it's turned off in Play Store settings. 

9. Ignoring to read the app privacy policy could get you caught up

For your safety, it's good if you know which data an app is collecting from you before you install it on your mobile phone. As a rule of thumb, any app developer must inform his client about what data they collected, how they use it, for how long they retained it, and whether they are selling user data to third parties or not. 

By the time you installed the app on your phone, you agree and consent to the developer's policy. That means you permitted them to apply their policies to your data. 

One thing you should consider while reading the developer's privacy policy is to ask yourself does it looks moderate. 

If it is too short or too complicated there may be an indication of danger. 

Bonus tip: Install an Antivirus on your phone

Although viruses are not coming to mobile phones as they infect computers, there is other virus-like malware that is created to compromise mobile phone users' private data. Generally, fake websites and mobile apps are embedded with malicious malware and or adware to spy on the user's sensitive information. 

There are many types of anti-viruses you should consider installing on your mobile phone such as AVG, Kaspersky, Clario, and Norton antivirus. 

Conclusion 

If you have a suspicion about any app you previously installed on your Android or iOS phone, just open your app store and apply those tips we mentioned to check if it's safe to download, if you still doubt it removes it from your phone and downloads another one. Prevention is simple but once you contract the poisonous snake you might suffer a great casualty before you find the antidote. 

Any other tips you know that might benefit us? Drop them in the comments section. 

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