Perhaps you have had enough of the limitations that some of the mobile applications that you use the most often impose on you. This is normal, given the amount of frustration that these can cause. It is under these situations that people, fed up with these apps , look for unofficial alternatives that include more functions and are completely free to access. However, despite the ambitious promises that these programs usually make, the truth is that they hide much more than they appear.
Why can it be dangerous to install a third-party application?
The use of unofficial applications has become more and more widespread among smartphone users , who think that these programs are completely safe and will not bring any kind of problem to their device. Nothing could be further from the truth, since the vast majority of these programs usually carry an infinity of risks that can include everything from virus injections to the leaking of personal information on your smart device.
One of the most installed unofficial apps on Android devices is WhatsApp Plus , whose logo is very similar to the original, with the difference that it has been colored an intense blue . This application allows its users to send up to 50 MB of files, as well as receive notifications when one of your contacts is online or completely customize the color of the interface, among other exclusive functions.
The protection of official distribution platforms
The official mobile app distribution platforms are dedicated to reviewing, quite frequently, the different applications that they make available to their users. This allows them to detect and eliminate any type of malware or malicious software that may have infiltrated their catalog, all with the purpose of guaranteeing the safety of their users. The Android operating system uses Google Play Protect to detect these malicious programs.
With regard to the operating system of Apple devices, it also has a review team in charge of filtering the applications that may appear in its catalog, thus preventing the entry of fraudulent programs that are capable of affecting user security. Unlike Android terminals, iPhones do not support apps that do not come from their official store, so you cannot install software from third-party pages on your Apple terminal.
How to detect if an application is harmful to my mobile phone?
Usually these unofficial apps will make your phone not work as it should. If, for example, the consumption of mobile data skyrockets in a month and you know that it has not been due to the use you have given them, it is very likely that the cause is the last third-party application that you have installed and that, without your permission, is operating in the background and using all your data.
If more and more ads, pop-ups and notifications appear on your phone that do not go away even when you remove notifications from Google Chrome on Android, it is very possible that this is also due to an application that you have installed on your device and that may have brought along some unwanted adware .
Some of these programs can also, for no apparent reason, cause the battery to drain much faster than it usually does . The truth is that it is very likely that it is a third-party app that is working in the background and that, although it is legitimate, it may have caused the installation of malware on the device.
Is it worth installing an antivirus on my phone?
Since third-party mobile applications can contain viruses or cause them to be installed on the device in question, it would be logical to think that all these problems will be solved when an anti-virus program that is capable of detecting these applications is installed. malicious and stop its operation.
However, the truth is that these antivirus applications hardly offer protection beyond that provided by Google itself. Yes, they can provide us with updated reports of viruses and security problems, but their general functions do not usually go much beyond improving the terminal’s resources. In fact, the use of this type of app on mid-range or low-end devices will make them work much slower, thus wasting the resources of the terminal on which it has been installed.
That is why, in this situation, the best thing you can do to protect your phone against the threat of third-party applications is to install applications only through official distribution platforms . Of course, there are safe third-party repositories, but you should first do some research to determine if the repositories you are going to download your apps from are trustworthy or not.
