Microsoft finally acknowledges that the Windows Store has a bunch of crap apps

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Exterminator

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Microsoft's Windows Store has plenty of quality apps that can enhance your productivity or allow you to pass some time with engaging games. But, on the other side of the coin, there are also tons of apps that are straight up scams and all they do is take your money and provide no value at all.

For example, if you search VLC, a popular media player, you will find several options, and it is not clear which app is the official product. More so, if you click on the wrong one, it will cost you $2.49 to download an 'app' that provides you with a download link to the desktop application. There is no value for this app and yet Microsoft has let it through its filters and is live in the Windows Store.



The story of the Windows Store has been making its way around the web for sometime, and the conversation was reignited after How-To Geeks dug deep into the Windows Store and uncovered quite a few apps parading around as official applications. Really, though, this is nothing new, as the Windows Phone store has had the same quality issue as well. But, Microsoft is finally starting to acknowledge that there is room for improvement in its stores:
We strive to make the Windows Store a high-quality experience for customers and also accessible to the broadest audience of developers. Based on customer and developer feedback, we recently took actions to help users discover the specific app titles they’re searching for and improve the overall Store experience. Those updates provide clear guidance to developers and also improve our ability to identify, audit and remove problematic apps. We recognize that there is more work to do and will continue to re-evaluate our policies to strike a balance between the opportunity for developers and the app quality that our customers expect.

The real proof will come when there is considerable change to the store to remove all of the apps that try to deceive users, but for now, Microsoft is at least acknowledging the issue. Of course, for Microsoft, it's a numbers game too as they want to be able to say that they have X number of apps in their stores as they compete against Google and Apple. But, if your entire store is mostly filled with garbage, is it better to say that you have a small quantity of quality apps, or an even larger quantity of crappy apps?

Via: Slate.com
 

Prorootect

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Windows Store Infested with Fake Apps : on tomsguide.com : http://www.tomsguide.com/us/microso...9.html?&_suid=1409058680265015235855108762963
Copycat apps and obvious scams in the iTunes App Store and Google Play are obnoxious, but they may have nothing on Microsoft's Windows Store. A tech website has accused the Windows Store of being full of unmitigated garbage that could cost you money and possibly even system security, and blames the problem on Microsoft's own desire to quickly populate its app store.
The cluttered state of the Windows Store is obvious to visitors, but tech news and tutorial site How-To Geek decided to really poke around. Searching for the free high-quality media player VLC, How-To Geek staffers encountered legions of shady me-too apps stealing the VLC logo and trying to charge users for the phony products.
The problem was not limited to VLC. Tom's Guide verified that Adobe Flash Player, Pandora, Firefox, Minecraft and Spotify, none of which seem to have an official Windows app, each had several fake apps listed on the first page of search results. Many of the fake apps stole logos wholesale and charged money for what would otherwise be free apps. Even Microsoft had several imitators that tried to duplicate the look of official apps.
How-To Geek theorizes that this proliferation of junk apps is due to Microsoft's Keep the Cash promotion, which ran in the earlier days of Windows 8 and the Windows Phone. The promotion offered developers $100 for each app they added to the Windows Store, up to a total of $2,000. In practice, it seems to have resulted in a deluge of shoddy apps rather than one or two really good ones. ..

- read more on the website, please ..
 
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