Don't get caught: the Mac App Store is full of scammers

http://www.howtogeek.com/281849/dont-be-fooled-the-mac-app-store-is-full-of-scams/
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You, probably, love and understand computer technologies - but there are also other people. Many computers are confused, or even frightened. Malicious individuals are aware of this and are deliberately trying to deceive people online. From advertisements disguised as a download button, to pop-up extortionists - the web is full of deceptive designs aimed at technically un-savvy people.

In theory, application stores are therefore useful. Users are afraid to be deceived in the "open" web, and therefore can feel comfortable in the Mac App Store, because Apple garden behind the fence will be able to protect them.

But he does not protect them.

Let's try to buy Excel with you.


Try to feel like a novice computer user. You have a new iMac on which you need to edit a few Excel plates. In the Dock toolbar, you find the App Store you’ve heard about and open it. Then you search for the search field and enter Microsoft Excel.


The top result is called the “Office Bundle” and costs $ 30. You open it, and read the details.


Look, this is “the easiest way to create high-quality Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.” This is what you need! Let's read more.


- Create documents Word, Excel, Powerpoint;
- sync them to OneDrive;
- track changes in online documents that are automatically displayed in local;
- work with calendar and Outlook;
- ...


After reading this text, try to guess what this application offers you? I'll wait.

These are ... patterns! 293 MB of templates for $ 30, and they are useless without Microsoft Office.

Of course, a collection of templates can cost $ 30. Perhaps these are really great templates. But let's clarify:

• This is the top search result "Microsoft Excel".
• The words “template” [template] are not in the product name.
• The words “template” are not in the product description.
• The product description mentions features that are specific to Microsoft Office and are in no way related to what the user gets by ordering a collection of templates.
• This product cannot be found by searching for patterns.

It is easy to understand that a user can be deceived by such an application, and it is very difficult to imagine that such a state of affairs was not intentionally created by the developer. Whatever he wants, people fall for it.


Let's face it: users have been robbed, Apple pocketed $ 10. You can see these comments only if you scroll through the page below two reviews of 5 stars each, many times mentioning the word “app”. And both reviews are made from accounts that have not done any more reviews in the AppStore.

Look for other Office applications, and you will find even more template sets disguised as official applications in various ways.


Also, there are several applications for $ 20, simply placing free online versions of Microsoft Office programs in a dedicated browser. Also there you can find several real “applications” that can open and edit Office files, many of which use word combinations in the names. Apparently, this is a slightly modified version of open source applications - we did not buy them to understand this.

All these fakes are used by brands from Microsoft - Office, Word, Excel - in their names. Logos they do not copy completely, but almost always the color and letters are very similar - blue W for Word, green E for Excel, and so on.

We already wroteOn the topic of why the Mac App Store does not have the applications you need, and the Microsoft Office Suite refers to those applications that are not there to find. Maybe you already know this, but tell me: why should the average computer user know this? Unscrupulous developers understand that the average user does not know this, and they use it.

With the exception of OneNote and OneDrive, in the Mac App Store you can not buy official applications from the Office. They need to be ordered directly from Microsoft , either for $ 150, either as an annual Office 365 subscription. Alternatively, you can use iWork, which comes with Mac, or a completely free web version of Microsoft Office , as well as an open source alternative, such as LibreOffice .

This may be obvious to you. But this is not obvious to everyone, and the existence of a Mac App Store, filled with imitations, further complicates the situation. Garden behind the fence does not protect anyone.

The App Store is full of such fraudulent applications.


We focused on the App Store, as this is a glaring case. But no need to dig deep to find other similar problems.

Look for "Indesign", and you will not find a tool for publishing from Adobe, but instead you will come across several sets of training videos, with icons that mimic InDesign.


Here the attempts to deceive the user are not so obvious, but in this case, an attempt to imitate the developers of the official brand is striking.

Other developers have some kind of obscure SEO magic against the App Store. Look for "Firefox" or "Chrome", and the first on the list will be "Fast Browser", an app for $ 1, which has not been updated since 2014.


Using such a browser would be a disgusting idea.

And there are a lot of problems like this:

• Look for "Adblock", and you will find an application for $ 2, absolutely not connected with this browser plugin.
• Look for a website — Facebook, Gmail, whatever — and find dozens of “apps” that simply open a browser window with this site.
• This summer, at least one application from the Mac App Store installed malware on a Mac.
• The App Store is full of disk and memory cleaners that you do not need.

One could proceed further. The bottom line is that the App Store, which promises to protect users, does not cope with this. Inside the garden behind the fence is found decently any nonsense.

Apple needs to clear the Mac App Store


Last year, we exposed the Windows Store as a cesspool full of deceptions, and since then Microsoft has been struggling with this. Apple is making efforts to eliminate fake apps from iPhone and iPad users: The iOS App Store is being cleared of old and non-working apps.

But regular visitors to the Mac App Store know that it’s time to clean this platform. Allegedly official applications of dubious nature are too easy to find through a search. It is clear that Apple needs the App Store to look full, but it’s unlikely to leave such things designed, it seems, specifically to trick users.

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