Topic: You are responsible for your own safety. - page 2. (Read 344 times)

I so much love the move by Google to right back because there had been so many complaints and now it is time when they are enforcimg their power to fight back. If this continues, it will reduce the number of scam applications on the Google play store.
This would be a long fight because I believe the team are prepared and they might have lost so many customers that would have added big to their fortune. I know so many people that had lostonwy just because they downloaded the wrong apps on Google play store losing valuable amount of money.

Reading reviews about a particular product might also help ascertain how trustworthy a product is. It might shouldn't be the only means of determining it but it can be part of your source of information. Going through some of the reviews of Bitcoin wallets one common mistake that most people made was downloading these applications from the wrong sources. After they have lost funds, they usually blame the original developers and write negative reviews.

Google Play and Apple Store are not trustworthy platforms to download any application without verification. They will always claim that they protect consumers but they don't do enough investigation of applications advertised on these platforms. Most newbies in this forum are fortunate because they are in the right community which has almost every information they need to protect themselves from these scam projects.

This is another strategy used by business owners or creators to buy the heart of victims and app users. Definitely you don't expect play store community to keep quiet and watch cause users will give a negative feedback if action is not carried out but rather I love the action taken by the community. Scammers are basically everywhere so I will always love the action taken to eliminate the evil act

Excatly, everyone ought to prioritize their safety and not rely on any community or project when it comes to safety measures. just a quick reminder, despite the act carried by Google and the community scammers will still find other means. Almost all Android users make use of Google play store so I believe this will have a negative impact on crypto enthusiast but it'll difficult to convince users who know their worth

It seems like all app stores are suffering from the same attacks, either apple store or other, maybe they will start doing the same thing? It's already been a long time coming, enough is enough.

They can only go after the ones they find, but the numbers of scammers that are making a living out of scamming people are higher in numbers, they can't get a hold of them all.

This is why people need to start standing up for themselves, google might not have any choice than to intervene to save their name and business, we really can't rely on them, it is better we try to avoid these dirty scammers ourselves.

Official marketplace for smartphone is supposed to provide us better security but whether it's Google or Apple both allowed fake apps to be uploaded on their platforms which caused the users of respective platforms to lose their money.

In my opinion, identifying fake apps is very simple especially from official app store, just look at the number of downloads, if you see the numbers in thousands of it has been uploaded very recently then just skip it without a blink.

I am an Android user ever since I am holding smartphones and I kept my banking apps as well as cryptos safe by following the safety procedures.

It's good to see Google's lawsuit acting against these scammers. Why now? Maybe they're improving their app vetting process, or perhaps the number of complaints reached a critical point. While their timing might be suspicious, suing these developers is a positive step. It's important to remember, that lawsuits take time, so this might not be directly related to the recent complaints.

As for downloading apps, it's wise to be cautious with crypto wallets and bank apps, regardless of the source. While the official website is usually the safest option, the Google Play Store does have some legitimate crypto wallets. The key is to do your research before downloading anything.

It's a good idea to check reviews and ensure the downloaded app matches the official website description. Staying safe online is a shared responsibility. Google can improve security, but we also need to be smart about what we download.

Good advice regarding downloading the wallet from the official site and don't download it directly from Playstore because it is very risky.
Reminders like this are important as a precautionary measure and I strongly support this advice for safety reasons.
Regarding wallets, make sure what you use is a wallet that has been proven. Then also pay attention to the source of the wallet and when using it you must go through the process correctly according to the procedure.

They prolly are, but it changes nothing in the grand scheme of things. Google playstore and Apple's appstore is not safe to download your crypto wallets or any crypto tool, it is very possible to download a phishing application that will lure you to input your seed phrase and lose your money.

If they are suing crypto scammers now, then good a thing, but they should also be stricter in their policy of publishing applications in their platforms, this would not mean it becomes safe to use, but it would make things safer for people who are hell bent on always using their platforms.

I very much agree with the points that you have raised.

It is very ironic that Playstore/Google has been taking action despite all the complaints that have been circulating since then. The funny thing is, the regulation in order to register any kind of application in the playstore is not stringent which results to an influx of many fake and scam exchanges and/or wallets throughout the years.

Again just to reiterate once again, prevention is better than cure. Before you download something on any kind of online store in your mobile phones, always check for genuine feedback and reviews from this forum itself. This thread is an excellent source of information that can warn users in order to avoid downloading the WRONG application which can result to your coins being scammed in the process.

Everyone, please be vigilant on the things that you download on in the internet. Not everything on what is posted is genuine- always be skeptical about everything as scammers just need ONE opportunity to scam you and they will do it swiftly.

Thankfully, in my early days in the crypto industry, I never attempted such an act because whenever I'm not familiar with the apps, I won't ever look at it let alone download it. This was the same when the cloud-mining era was popular, they created fake cloud-mining sites offering their investors big income from their capital but in reality, they just want to steal their money and once they deposit it, they can't withdraw it once again, they need to wait for weeks or months to get it back but the problem is, the cloud-mining site is not paying them back weekly again and run away with their money. This is what they are doing with those apps, and that's why equipping yourselves with knowledge before engaging in any sort of crypto activity is a must because a huge number of scammers are wreaking havoc on the internet nowadays.

Even if you download a crypto wallet from its official website, still that doesn't guarantee safety. You will have to take a step further to verify its GPG signatures as an added precaution. As you have implied in the OP, hackers are relentless and can hack even official sites, replacing files without users notice. Verifying GPG signatures is important because if files have been changed the verification will fail.
Learn how to verify GPG signature by reading this - https://electrum.org/#download

Usually do the same since its hard to search it somewhere even on those legit app store or playstore since some of scam devs are capable to create a same like up just to confuse people and scam them. Lots of phising apps has been placed on Play store before and that's why I don't trust that platform anymore especially for seeking some wallets to use since there's no guaranteed that we can be safe their. Maybe they didn't do a proper verification on those apps listed on their platform and what they only care is the money they can get that's why those scary apps are been listed waiting for the victims to upload it. We are really responsible on our safety that's why before doing some actions especially if there's money involve with it we should seek for verification from the support of the apps that we download their legit application so we can avoid any possible troubles.

i have expected that there will be some form of checks and balances on th authenticity of the apps that are allowed on the Google play store but that's not the case.  The thing is that because of the ease in getting these apps from the Google play stores, people generally don't take the safety aspect of those apps seriously and coupled with the fact that most of the reviews you see on play store are ones that are sponsored by owners you can't even believe any of those reviews because most of those reviewing these apps have been paid to do so and what they are just saying is just good stuff that will make them receive there pay even when that's not true of the app.

For those using mobile device, it's deficult to access original version of apps that's outside of play store and even when you see them, you will still be referred back to play store. I have heard an experience last December when jumia was doing her black Friday sales, some guys hard to clone the jumia app and after placing an order through the app my aunt installed from her play store, we waited for weeks without seeing it and even after making several attempts to get good feedback from jumia customer service line, the result was not reasonable and the whole money flew into the air. The internet in itself has denied us of our privacy and security and we only wish not to fall victim of doing business from wrong source that's rampant everywhere.

That's the whole point of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Isn't?

Be your own bank. Have a full control and responsibility of your funds or finances.

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And yet when you try using their search engine, there is a still a good number of phishing sites that appear at the top of their search engine as ads. To them ads revenue from phishing sites is more important than user safety.
No one should blindly trust Google and its products.

Mycelium is losing it. I think the iOS version is even no longer being maintained.

I would go further and recommend downloading wallet software directly from the developer's website. As for Google, yes, we often see their advertisements, which later turn out to be phishing. Some applications that are downloaded to the Play Store also bring a lot of inconvenience to users. The question is, how do they get there? Everyone probably guesses that Google cares about money; pay and continue advertising whatever you want. So yes, the OP is right. We are responsible for our safety. Attaching your phones to applications that seem convenient is like walking through a minefield. It’s enough that Google itself regularly tracks our steps, but opening your data to scammers by installing a bunch of applications is like throwing your money and data down the drain.

Interesting. I wonder if Apple is going to follow suit as well, given that they are suffering from the same problem:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1b3q5wr/fake_wallet_on_apple_app_store/

I have my doubts that a lawsuit is going to change anything in the long term, since for each scammer they take down, another will emerge. But it's better than nothing, I guess?

Sparrow and Armory doesn't support Android and iOS.

While Bitpay, Bither and Edge, I'm not sure if it's really trustworthy since not many people discuss about it, there's a chance it could be closed source.

Remember, when you've successfully install your wallet from the official sites, don't forget to verify the PGP signature to know if you're installed the original wallet, not the fake one.

Our safety is our sole responsibility actually but I think Google should not be blame for all this foul play going on in their store. They are running a business and cares more about their profits than users safety but they are still trying and working hard to improve their security measures in order to reduce fraudulent activities. If I remember correctly, Google took down over millions apps that are considered harmful, suspicious and deceitful. The problem is that some of these scammers are highly skilled and intelligent in this tech industry and they are coming up with new techniques to evade detection from Google.

We should just apply caution when downloading from play store because some of these websites and even banking institutions will still redirect you to Google store to get their apps. Although this guarantees that you are getting the legitimate version of the app but some times even the official sites can be hacked and manipulated or imitated.

So it is true that Google sued some crypto scammers for allegedly uploading fake apps on their Android app stores? Why now?

Have they noticed that people are abandoning google play store? Because there have been many complaints since 2020 about how many people lost money to fake apps and they never made any move.

Are they trying to look like the good guys now?

They even claimed to be among the first peers to take action against crypto scammers.

https://www.CNBC.com/2024/04/04/google-sues-crypto-scammers-allegedly-uploading-fake-apps-android-app-store.HTML

The scammers have created over 87 fraudulent apps since 2019 luring their victims to deposit and preventing them from withdrawing their money.

Anyways, readers, especially the beginners, do not think that Google has your best interest at heart, even if they can sue all the scammers that have uploaded fake apps on their store your safety belongs to you only.

Do not download apps from Google playstore for any reason, whether it's bank apps or crypto wallets, always go for the old crypto wallets and download from the crypto wallet official websites, do not use app stores to find your desired app, there will never be an end to these scam and fakes apps online.

Bitcoin.org is enough, this website has all the official links to all available trusty crypto wallets, not just for Bitcoin only, Mycelium, Unstoppable, Electrum, Bitpay, Bither, Edge, Green, Armory, Sparrow, wasabi, etc, as a beginner it's a good place to start.