Safe Application?

[BigBlue22]

Hey everyone.
Please excuse me as I'm a bit of a noob, I've been a BlackBerry user for nearly eight years and I've finally opened my eyes to what I've been missing. I recently downloaded an app from Google Play (Insanity Workout Tracker by ZeezOnline) and I'm a bit worried if it was a safe application or not. I was wondering if anyone could help me to find out?

I know I'm probably just being paranoid, what with all the bad press (most of which is bogus) about Android phones being unsafe and such, but I just want to make sure.

Thanks in advance for anyone who helps me, and excuse me for being so new at this hahah.

 

[jean15paul]

you could scan it with a app like Lookout, but that will only detect a virus or trojan, it might miss a generally malicious app. The best thing is to look at the ratings and review in the Play Store and see if any raise concerns. Also look at the permissions and see if they make sense. If you're not sure you can post them here and/or email the developer directly to ask.

 

[simplyapplied]

Definitely look at the reviews and the permissions first. If you have any questions about the permissions used, email the developer and ask why the app needs those permissions.

A responsive developer will explain exactly why the permissions are needed - if they don't then you might want to beware.

However, in general the permissions are generally quite a bit more threatening sounding than they actually are. Sure, many of the permissions can be misused by a malicious developer, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of perfectly reasonable reasons for a developer to include those permissions.

For instance, we have a speed dial app. Here is one of the permissions:

Services that cost you money

Directly call phone numbers

Allows the app to call phone numbers without your intervention. Malicious apps may cause unexpected calls on your phone bill. Note that this doesn't allow the app to call emergency numbers.

While it certainly isn't a false statement that the permission could be misused in this way, it would be nice if it also had a less scary sounding description or at least provided an alternative description explaining why a legitimate app might need that permission. In the case of our app, since its a speed dial app, it has to be able to access the dialer and make calls. It would be nice to see that language included in the permission description instead of only providing the alarming language about it costing money and making unexpected calls.

We've actually started including the permission information in our app description for this reason.