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The Windows App Store is Full of Pirate Streaming Apps (torrentfreak.com)
Ernesto Van der Sar, reporting for TorrentFreak: When we were browsing through the "top free" apps in the Windows Store, our attention was drawn to several applications that promoted "free movies" including various Hollywood blockbusters such as "Wonder Woman," "Spider-Man: Homecoming," and "The Mummy." Initially, we assumed that a pirate app may have slipped past Microsoft's screening process. However, the 'problem' doesn't appear to be isolated. There are dozens of similar apps in the official store that promise potential users free movies, most with rave reviews. Most of the applications work on multiple platforms including PC, mobile, and the Xbox. They are pretty easy to use and rely on the familiar grid-based streaming interface most sites and services use. Pick a movie or TV-show, click the play button, and off you go. The sheer number of piracy apps in the Windows Store, using names such as "Free Movies HD," "Free Movies Online 2020," and "FreeFlix HQ," came as a surprise to us. In particular, because the developers make no attempt to hide their activities, quite the opposite.
Is Microsoft still trying to push some kind of app store on Windows users? Has anyone really been there yet?
And how many of these DOESN'T contain malware?
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Perhaps Britain should declare war on Windows the same way they have on Kodi. It would make at least as much sense.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I think the news here is that someone actually browsed the Windows Store
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Proof that nobody bothers with the Windows app store. If even the RIAA/MPAA don't bother with it, you know it's dead.
(An advertisement for Windows?)
Still not going to run Windows on my PC.
Got rid of that chain 10 years ago. Not going to shackle myself again.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
The thing is, Microsoft have a TV and movies section to compete with iTunes/play/amazon.
Pirate apps would thus deprive them of revenue.
If the RIAA/MPAA aren't filing takedowns on this software, then the only two reasons that make any sense are:
A. Nobody browses the Windows Store, even the RIAA/MPAA orMicrosoft's 'content monitoring' team.
B. These apps are up there to provide a source of illegal services so that Microsoft's remoting monitoring and anti-piracy services can flag the end users in order to send more of those copyright infringement shakedown letters to people who are both stupid enough to still be using windows, and doubly stupid enough to be using 'free video' apps from the Windows store (no doubt being mentally handicapped enough to be unable to install software the old fashioned way, or do install steam, gog, or another media download service that already provides alternatives.)
There's also apps called 'browsers' who can be used to buy knives, guns, viruses, chemicals, bomb-building materials, cars to run people over..., not only apps violating some imaginary 'intellectual' 'property'.
That's good news. Usually, the malware is inside Windows ; now it's outside.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
That the term "blockbuster" and "The Mummy" appeared in the same sentence together. That movie received much hype from the studious but absolutely none from anyone else. To be honest I forgot it existed. Maybe it's mentioned in the pirating apps because that is the only way anyone would ever want to see it?? hmm..
[citation needed]
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
That the Windows app store still sucks badly.
I can't even find a decent epub reader for Windows. Sadly the Windows version of FBReader seems to be abandonware, and about the best I see is the Kobo app, which naturally wants me to connect to the Kobo bookstore (I have an account but haven't bought anything off of them in about three years). For my 8" Windows tablet I'm relegated to using the Nox Android virtual machine so I can actually have access to some decent apps.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I beg to differ, they hid them in the best place possible, the MS App store! Guaranteed to not be seen by anyone!
I would have posted this on my Lumia 635, but as the browser keeps crashing, as it's ALWAYS done, had to post my Mint laptop.
How did "Torrentfreak get shut down"? TorrentFreak is a news site about file sharing and Internet privacy. It hosts the featured article, and this article is still viewable in the United States.
Might you have confused TorrentFreak with a site that actually hosts, links to, or tracks infringing torrents?
Piracy has always been microsoft's biggest ally...
They may pay lip service to anti-piracy efforts, but were it not for piracy microsoft wouldn't be in the position they are in today. Microsoft depend on lock-in and inertia, and a huge proportion of those users who are locked in got that way with pirate versions.
If you couldn't pirate windows or its applications, then millions of users would have found something else that they could obtain for free, which would likely have resulted in millions more linux users. Many users can't or won't pay for software, and in eastern europe, asia and africa pretty much all software is pirated.
If there were that many active linux users, there would be very little (if any) windows specific software out there, it would be much easier for users in the west to switch away from windows and many would do so. windows if it still existed at all would end up as an expensive niche brand, rather like osx is, running on expensive niche hardware.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
their modeling seems backwards doing things like Windows 10S before creating a livable store for apps.
How many apps were available when Apple's App Store launched alongside iPhone OS 2.0?
There are two different practical meanings of "copyright infringement".
The mainstream media often uses the term "piracy" for the former but not the latter. What unbiased term would you use to unambiguously refer to each of these two different shades of copying?
Windows doesn't require its users to use a centralized repository the way that iOS does.
Windows 8 did not. Windows RT did. Windows 10 does not. Windows 10 S does.
It would not make any sense at all for Microsoft to be "screening" the software on the Windows store. Users don't care about it, and on a platform with such low standards, nobody is asking for it. There simply isn't any incentive at all.
The incentive for "screening" is to avoid liability for contributory and/or vicarious infringement on the part of developers who publish their apps to the Store.
There's a difference between something like rsync, which *can* be used to download pirated content, and "Free HD Movie Player" which is designed specifically to do so.
You are spot on about the quality aspect, windows is extremely poor quality software and its users have very low expectations as a result. Regular crashing and malware outbreaks are considered normal and unavoidable...
But windows *does* badly need a properly vetted store, because it is *claiming* to be suitable for average users when clearly this is not the case.
If you're an android, ios or (most distros) linux user, you don't need much knowledge to be able to install software - you select what you want to install from the repository provided to you by the system and you'll be safe.
If your a windows user, you not only require significantly more effort/knowledge to find the installation files and manually run through the installer, but you also need to be sufficiently clued up to verify the source of those files.
My grandma can manage to safely install software on an ios, android or ubuntu... She wouldn't be able to do it safely on windows.
People say this about linux all the time, but truly it's windows that's not ready for the desktop. It's only suitable for geeks who understand what they're doing.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Just use the Kobo app. You have an account but don't need to buy anything to read other ebooks. Just load the ebooks onto your device and have Kobo search the device for ebooks then import the ones you want into Kobo. This is what I have been doing since I got my tablet (admittedly I have an Android tablet but I can't see the Windows Kobo app being all that different).
If you have bought books from Kobo in the past they will probably want to load onto the device as well but you can just delete them after they are loaded.
I went there once. I was using the new calculator and wanted to report how much it sucked, so I tried the feedback button. Then windows told me it didn't know how to handle it and told me to check the app store. The app store couldn't find anything to do either, so I eventually found the windows 7 calculator from a 3rd party source
So you're saying that even with giving Linux away for free, people prefer to pirate Windows.
That's an odd thing for an advocate to be asserting.
By "all the app stores" you mean it really only mean the Windows app store. I fail to find pirate apps among the top 10 free apps in Google Play where it is a mix of different types or iTunes where it's also mostly games. But feel free to live in your alternate reality.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You shouldn't have tried to install Linux on your Lumia 635. Now it's buggy and unstable.
You are simply an ideologue shilling your propaganda.
It gets tiresome. Just settle down and enjoy using what you prefer and stop proselytizing to the rest of the world.
I can't even find a decent epub reader for Windows.
There's the Nook app in the Windows Store. I think Microsoft maintains it itself.
Breakfast served all day!
Calibre's content servers has a built in reader now, you use the browser and can open the book inside the browser and read in a very functional interface.
Cheap storage VM.
Is Microsoft still trying to push some kind of app store on Windows users? Has anyone really been there yet?
I've been there - both on the PC & phone versions of the store, & both are equally worthless. Most of the popular apps that are advertized are not there on either, and the ones that are happen to be pretty worthless!
Not only is Windows 10 Mobile dead, I suspect the same is almost true of Windows 10 on the desktop. My next desktop/laptop will be a Mac.
If you couldn't pirate windows or its applications, then millions of users would have found something else that they could obtain for free, which would likely have resulted in millions more linux users. Many users can't or won't pay for software, and in eastern europe, asia and africa pretty much all software is pirated.
Nonsense, at least when it comes to Windows proper. Pirating Windows 7 involved binary hacks and crap like unplugging the internet during activation, and blocking certain patches that would have negated it. MSFT did a pretty thorough job.
Like any anti-piracy scheme, it's a cost benefit tradeoff. How much engineering time do you want to put it, and how much can you inconvenience your users? Whatever you do, if there's a will, there will be a way.
I suspect the same is almost true of Windows 10 on the desktop
If you play PC games, you run Windows. There's no change to that on the horizon.
Whooooosh.
What do you think that loader does? You know, computers are good at automated steps, especially when it only involves writing data to files.
Why help the copyright cartel.
To help build outrage in the general public as a means of encouraging them to make their own movies instead of relying on those produced by the cartel.
That the Windows app store still sucks badly.
That hasn't been news for the last 5 years.