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Microsoft's Windows 8 App Store Is Full of Scamware
Deathspawner writes Windows 8 brought a lot to the table, with one of its most major features being its app store. However, it's not a feature that Microsoft seems too intent on keeping clean. As it is today, the store is completely littered with misleading apps and outright scamware. The unfortunate thing is that to find any of it, all you have to do is simply open the store and peruse the main sections. Not so surprisingly, no Microsoft software seems to be affected by this, but many open-source apps can be found at the store from unofficial sources that have a cost, or will lead the user to download a third-party installer. It's only a matter of time before malware sneaks its way in, if it's not there already.
This is a pretty bad example of clickbait. The linked bog basically says "There is junkware. Microsoft's Trademarks are protected but others, like iTunes and Firefox, get scammed by repackagers, same as any search engine.
Lacking evidence to the contrary, it seems Microsoft actively approves this state of things. They have a human performing certification and content compliance, which involves actually installing and verifying these applications:
"Content compliance: Our certification testers install and review your app to test it for content compliance. The amount of time this takes varies depending on how complex your app is, how much visual content it has, and how many apps have been submitted recently."
With that statement, they must be 100% complicit in these scams, because it makes them money when someone bites, and because it keeps the number of apps in the app store up.
They wanted so badly to be Apple, taking a cut of every software sale by being the only vendor for their own system.
What they neglected is that people don't want brainless "apps" for true multipurpose computers. So their brainless store got filled with brainless garbage to take advantage of the brainless users who'd use it.
but many open-source apps can be found at the store from unofficial sources that have a cost
FSF says it's perfectly fine to distribute free software for a fee, so long as the license is followed.
But platforms relying on a single app store have in the past made copyleft license compliance difficult or impossible. The GNU General Public License, for example, defines "source code" to include what GPLv3 calls "Installation Information" and GPLv2 calls "scripts used to control compilation and installation". When a platform requires all code to be digitally signed, a signing key is part of this "Information" or these "scripts". And the terms for obtaining a code signing certificate tend to forbid developers from sharing the private key with the public. This is why GPL software like VLC can't be on Apple's App Store, nor can ScummVM be on the Wii console.
I don't know about other users but I've had an ASUS Windows 8.1 desktop for almost a year now and have never downloaded or installed ANY apps from the Microsoft "store" and have only once clicked on the App Store tile itself once by mistake. I avoid their "store" like the plague on a desktop environment. I don't have the need or want to Skype or play Angry Birds on the desktop I guess...who uses the Microsoft App Store and for what purposes? I'm genuinely curious...
Not quite, Mr. Summary. There's nothing legally wrong with selling open-source apps if the license is followed. And ethically? Consider this:
Why would anybody find this useful? If there's a particularly obscure but useful open-source app that updates irregularly, or it's difficult or cumbersome to install, or maybe Grandma just doesn't want to mess around with MSI and EXE installers, then the new publisher would be adding value and providing a service in providing the open-source across the Store interface; reducing the fuss needed to get the software working, updated and safe.
There's nothing stopping the original developer / copyright holder / copyright assignment entity, or indeed any other legally allowed entity, from putting up the software on the Store for gratis (assuming the Store allows that) alongside New Publisher's paid for version, but if they haven't or don't want to that is their own problem. If the New Publisher has monitised the service they provide in packaging the OSS app, then bully for them.
This is all in a fantasy land where said 'good' publishers existed and actually worked to keep the software updated regularly, I know.
Apparently Microsoft is putting major service packs for Windows on the Windows Store now. For example, the upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 is offered without charge through the Windows Store application. But if you waited until Windows 8.1 to buy your laptop, this upgrade was already done for you.
But you don't see the Android marketshare suffering do you?
Vonal Declosion
I think we have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Microsoft has, and does, willfully provide false information. They do this deliberately and indiscriminately, even to judges while under oath. Maybe you forgot about the claims to a judge that "If you remove Internet Explorer the Operating system stops functioning.". Even though a judge was smart enough to remove IE and show they were lying, nobody went to jail. So the trend continued.
Now what possible motivation would MS have for lying about approving apps? Easy, it's a numbers game. If Apple has half a billion applications how can MS fudge numbers to look relevant and not appear to be deliberate liars? Easy! Let people dump all kinds of crap into their app store so they can claim "look how many applications we have!' and "Look at our growth rate, thousands of new apps every day!". Both are technically true, though based on a lie about monitoring.
MS further can easily blow off the lie about approving content. Expect something along the lines of "Our people were not trained properly" with some bogus "we were hacked" charges sprinkled in for FUD and sympathy.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The question runs deeper: Does anyone actually use Metro?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Could someone bus the table, please? I got work to do.
That is the whole problem. Windows 8 is not designed to produce anything, only consume stuff produced by others. Probably another reason it has never caught on with businesses, you can't actually do anything useful or productive with it.
But why should I get Win8 when I have to get it and then jump a few hoops to get what I already had with Win7?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The biggest scam was getting the suckers to buy into this failed ecosystem in the first place!
I'm going to throw an assumption out there: very, very few people are doing this. Yes, you could - in theory - "dock" your phone/tablet and do productive things with it. But a really top-notch phone is going to cost you $600+ and a really low-end computer that can kick the shit out of it will cost $200. I think that anyone who can afford the monitor, keyboard, and high-end phone will probably not sweat the cheap cpu too much.
So in the end, while I'm sure there are people in the fringes doing productive things on their phones and tablets, for the vast majority they are toys. This is not meant to be a disparaging comment - I have a smartphone, I have tablets... but I don't do anything more productive on them than take short notes and check email. Mostly they are consumption devices.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I knew I hated hipsters. Everyone knows that you need Notepad++.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
What could possibly be important enough to put up with Metro?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Take the absolute lowest Intel and AMD quads, the Atom and Jaguar respectively, and put it against the most expensive top 'o the line ARM quad and what happens? the ARM gets a curbstomping
Wrong, you can see the Atom chips getting smashed by the Exynos 5 chip.
And here in monte carlo and FFT benchmarks.
And here in h.264 encoding, zip compression and PHP compilation benchmarks.
Also here it's more of a mixed bag but the Atom gets thoroughly beaten and the Tegra4 and Jaguar trade the lead.
I understand running a business that depends on PCs is where your obvious bias comes from but the facts don't lie, this isn't to say that ARM is better than x86 but in some cases it is and it most certainly isn't the "curbstomping" you claim it to be.