Microsoft finally cracks down on deceptive Windows Store ‘crap apps’ - stokesfrighters

So-known as deceptive "crap apps" have e'er plagued the Windows Store. Merely directly, Microsoft appears to be finally make to do something about them.

In a blog post tardily Wed, Microsoft same that it had distant 1,500 deceptively called apps as part of a insurance policy shift key to crack down on developers "trying to pun the system with misleading titles or descriptions," the company said.

A year past, Microsoft in public same that the Windows Store has more than than 100,000 apps, and information technology's unlikely that that count has climbed higher than 200,000 apps aside now. But as far back atomic number 3 Oct. 2012—before Windows 8 even launched—analysts were pointing extinct that the fate of the Windows 8 app store didn't motive a pack of apps to be successful. It needed superior, and that's not what Microsoft delivered. Instead, consumers are featured with many ringer apps and paid "alternatives" to freeware, both outcomes that give those users a bad taste in their mouths.

PCWorld first started looking at the problem more than a year agone, when the Windows Store was stocked with games of decent quality from developers looking to score with early Windows 8 adopters. But wander into the video apps subdivision, and many YouTube clones started pop up.

A problem from the beginning

Note that while every app entrepot has clones, knockoffs, and generally poor quality apps, Windows seems to be plagued by it. In July 2022 the problem began surfacing erstwhile again, Eastern Samoa Windows developers began to come second and enunciat that they were existence asked to design adware wrappers roughly their apps. Curation, we over, was the answer Microsoft needed to implement.

vlc crap apps — Retributory the vaporous routine of repetitive, paid apps shows the extent of the problem.

But it didn't—until some other expose aside HowToGeeks surfaced this week, with more examples of how unhealthy the problem had grown.

On Wednesday, Microsoft said it requisite to "recalibrate."

"We strive to give our planetary customer base easy access to amazing app experiences spell keeping developer friction to a borderline," the companion said. "From time-to-time this process slips out of sync and we need to recalibrate."

Earliest this year, the company said, it had heard "loud and clear off" that people were having problems searching for the apps that they were looking for. The company modified the app store certification requirements with a renewed emphasis on clearly naming each app, to ensure that they are located within the proper category, and to have a incomparable icon that won't exist confused with others, including the "real number" app.

windows store youtube apps — Copycats or clones? With some apps, it's a matter of perspective, especially if the apps distinguish themselves with their functionality.

Those policies are actively being enforced, Microsoft aforesaid, some to new apps too as apps that are already part of the Windows Store catalog. "Most of the developers behind apps that are ground to violate our policies have good intentions and agree to make the necessary changes when notified,: the company said. "Others have been less receptive," prompting the app's removal.

A work in progress

"The Store review is ongoing and we recognize that we have more work to do, but we'ray on it," Microsoft added. "We're applying additional resources to speed up the review operation and identify Sir Thomas More problem apps faster."

In the meantime, customers can click the "paper concern to Microsoft" buttons next to an app operating theater email the company at reportapp@microsoft.com. A Crataegus laevigata update to the Windows Fund also prioritizes Microsoft-curated "collections" of apps, providing a safer plane section of the app store to shop.

Windows Store — The key, over the long run, may be curation.

Actually, however, some of those "crap apps" actually step in and allow for alternatives to first-party apps that those developers simply harbor't ported to Windows 8, or like the numerous YouTube apps, provide download functionality that YouTube itself does non. One and only of the concerns is simply separating the wheat berry from the josh. And with over 300,000 Windows Phone apps, you can argue that the problem may be even greater in the mobile space—and, to be fair, in more obscure corners of the web, like Chrome add-ons.

Microsoft's begun the process. IT's worth noting that a couple of apps that HowToGeek pointed out, 'VLC Thespian Download" and "Download Vlc Player," look to have been pulled from the Store, bear witness that Microsoft is indeed cracking down. As the images above usher, however, there is still lots of work for Microsoft to do.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/434948/microsoft-finally-cracks-down-on-deceptive-windows-store-crap-apps.html

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