Smartphone owners need to go through their library and delete their seven most used apps or face risk, experts are warning.
The risks are many and varied: from reduced battery life to identity theft and bank fraud.
By Crawford tech expert Sam Crawford told The Sun that apps downloaded whilst on holiday could contribute to the post-holiday blues in a number of ways.
“If you downloaded an app specifically for your vacation, it would be wise to delete it afterwards,” Crawford explained.
“These apps may not be needed in the future, and their continued data collection could pose privacy risks.”
“Removing them will extend your battery life, save storage space, and protect your privacy.”
The fewer apps you have, the fewer opportunities hackers have to steal your personal and payment information.
“If the app is compromised in a data breach, your information could fall into the hands of bad actors and be used for a variety of purposes, including identity theft,” Crawford added.
Here are the 7 apps you should delete:
- Train and bus apps
- Ticket booking app
- Taxi app
- Bike rental app
- Event App
- Translation App
- Currency Converter App
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“The main risk with currency conversion apps is that they may store sensitive financial data,” Crawford explained.
“Payment information is accessible, which could be exposed if the app is compromised.”
This applies to any app that stores payment details.
“Unwanted surveillance” is another big reason for removing these apps, according to Crawford.
“These apps may continue to collect location information even when they are not being used,” he said.
“Apps may collect your location data to build a detailed profile of your behavior, preferences and habits and use it to target advertising.”
But all this tracking is actually draining your battery behind the scenes.
Having an unnecessary number of apps running in the background will drain battery power and slow down your device.
Crawford says “spring cleaning” your apps can improve your device's battery life by up to 20 percent and reduce the amount of data consumed.
He added: “Removing these apps will help reduce unnecessary background activity, such as data syncing, updates, location tracking, and notifications.”
“These apps may use mobile data, eating up battery power and MBs from your data plan.”
Crawford recommends going through your app library and deleting any apps you aren't using every three months.
How to spot suspicious apps
If you know the signs, it's easy to detect malicious apps before you even hit that “download” button.
Follow this 8-point checklist when downloading an app you're unsure about:
- Read reviews – Be wary of both complaints from fake accounts and uniformly positive reviews.
- Beware of grammar mistakes – Legitimate app developers will not make typos or mistakes in their app description.
- Check the number of downloads – Avoid apps with only a few thousand downloads as they may be fake.
- Survey your developers -Does it have a good reputation or is it completely fake?
- Check the release date – If the release date is recent and there are a lot of downloads, that's usually bad news.
- Check the license agreement – This contract gives the app permission to get some of the user's data, but fake apps often ask for additional data they don't need.
- Check the update frequency – Apps that are updated frequently usually indicate security vulnerabilities.
- Check the icon – Look closely and don't be fooled by distorted or low-quality icons of genuine apps.
All this information is available on both Apple's App Store and Google Play Store.