[belodion]

From an idea by @B. Diddy.

Members and guests sometimes ask for recommendations about various kinds of app, and of course, it's a perfectly legitimate topic of discussion and can lead to interesting exchanges. No problem there.

But, beware the spammers, who have no interest in anything other than promoting their own app for doing this or that. Let's take collage-making apps as an example. 'What,' we are asked, 'is the best app for making collages?'

Such a question, taken at face value, can hardly be answered. There are countless apps in the Play Store for making collages, and the only person qualified to say which is best would be the one who has tried them all and made a deep comparative study, and even then, what is 'best' for that person might be useless for someone else. Nevertheless, there are people who will immediately post a reply assuring the questioner that this or this app is the best. The result is a 226-point infraction and a permanent ban, because this is obvious tag-team spamming. The app itself may actually be very bad, clogged with ads which hardly give you the chance to use it properly, or requiring suspiciously many app permissions to which it has no obvious right.

Spammers will sometimes similarly promote certain types of software, such as that for data retrieval. This software, they assure us, is unsurpassed for the task. It is, in fact, the best. They neglect to support the assertion with any facts, don't mention the high price that the user will have to pay, and make no reference to unpleasantnesses of one kind or another which may find their way system-deep into your PC.

The easiest way to evaluate an app, for genuine enquirers, is to read the Play Store reviews of it, taking care that they're not fake reviews. Judge whether the required permissions are appropriate for the type of app.

Of software programs, be much more cautious, and read about them fully first.

[B. Diddy]

We've all developed a sixth sense for these spammers, so hopefully, you all as Android Central community members will rarely come across them because they will already have been condemned to the 9th circle of Android heck. If you do see any that seem suspicious, click that little Report button (that looks like a triangle with an exclamation point in it) and let us know!