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March 20th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda It’s no surprise the free apps on Google Play (formerly the Android Market) and the App Store are the most popular. According to mobile ad firm Fiksu, 6 million of Apple’s top free apps were downloaded each day in December. And according to Distimo’s analytics, as of about this time last year there were even more free apps on the Android Market than there were on the App Store.
The thing is, not all free apps are created equal. Some, like the Firefox Web browser (and Firefox Home on the App Store), are free because they’re created by a public benefit nonprofit. Others are companion apps to Web services like SparkleShare and WordPress, and still others — like to-do list Astrid Task — are free to use but have premium add-ons available.
Most, however, are supported by ads. And while there’s nothing wrong with advertising in and of itself (please do click on our fine sponsors), mobile advertising has some problems you should be aware of, even if you’re a fan of the free apps themselves.
They drain your battery
According to research by Abhinav Pathak and colleagues, which was reported on by New Scientist’s Jacob Aron, “Up to 75 per cent of the energy used by free versions of Android apps is spent serving up ads or tracking and uploading user data.” So while you’re playing Angry Birds, the game itself is using up tons more battery life by sending your location to an ad server and downloading ads in the background. The connection stays open for a few seconds even after the download is finished, and that uses up even more batteries.
They can have surprisingly annoying ads
Most mobile ads are just banner ads. Others are the equivalent of pop-ups and Flash ads, at least in terms of how annoying they are. Like Airpush’s ads, which drop items into your notification bar and make you pull it down to deal with them. And Airpush isn’t even an app; it’s a company that serves up these ads to numerous apps.
You can download the free AirPush Detector app to see which games and apps are causing the ads to appear. It’s open-source, so if you have the technical knowhow you can verify that it’s not doing anything bad to your system; and since it’s an Android app, it has to list all the “permissions” it needs before you can install it anyway.
The ads can be dodgy and misleading
Not all mobile apps serve reputable ads. PCWorld’s Tom Spring reported last October about the Android equivalent of “Your PC is infected” ads: Advertisers telling you to upgrade your battery by downloading an app. (If there ever was such a thing as a battery upgrade, it wouldn’t work that way.) Tapping one of these ads, even by accident, started the “battery upgrade” app downloading and showed instructions for how to install it. Once installed, it would send out some of your personal info, and show you Airpush-style ads.
The best way to avoid scams like this is to stay as far away as possible from dodgy apps … and dodgy ads serving up malware apps.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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