Microsoft Purges 1500 Fake Apps From The Windows Store

Microsoft Purges 1500 Fake Apps From The Windows Store

The cesspool that is the Windows Store available in Windows 8 is finally getting a clean up. Microsoft is getting rid of 1,500 fake apps from the Store and will refund your money if you fell for a scam.

In a blog post titled “How we’re addressing misleading apps in Windows Store”, Microsoft’s Todd Brix writes that the company is modifying the Windows Store app certification requirements to put an end to fake apps masquerading as the real deal and trying to bait innocent customers. The changes include:

  • Naming — to clearly and accurately reflect the functionality of the app.
  • Categories — to ensure apps are categorized according to the app function and purpose.
  • Icons — must be differentiated to avoid being mistaken with others.

The issue was first pointed out by How-To Geek, which discovered that it was in fact totally not hard to run into obviously fake copies of legit apps, as you can see in the image below, for instance.

Microsoft Purges 1500 Fake Apps From The Windows Store

“Within half an hour we managed to find fake paid versions of Adobe Flash Player, Firefox, Pandora, IMDB, Candy Crush Saga, Wechat, WhatsApp, uTorrent, Picasa, Bluestacks, Minecraft, Spotify, Google Hangouts, Picasa, Clash of Clans, Blender 3D, and a lot more”, writes How-To Geek.

Microsoft’s new measures should hopefully keep the Store scam-free. Now we just need the same thing to happen for the Windows Phone Store. [Microsoft, How-To Geek]

Screenshot courtesy: How-To Geek


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.