Windows 10 has a huge market share, which also means that it does attract a lot of third party software which can fool Windows user to speed up their PC, fix problems, and even recover deleted files. While there are legit programs, but seems many rouge developers are taking advantage of rolling out paid software, and are unnecessary, and unwanted.
In an official blog post, Microsoft shared about this problem, and are updating their evaluation criteria so these apps can be removed from the Microsoft Store so users can be safeguarded from making a purchase. The best part of these malware or unwanted programs is they don’t tell anything to customer apart from a happy ending messages.
Here are the detailed & updated evaluation criteria:
Unwanted behaviors: coercive messaging
Programs must not display alarming or coercive messages or misleading content to pressure you into paying for additional services or performing superfluous actions.
Software that coerces users may display the following characteristics, among others:
- Reports errors in an exaggerated or alarming manner about the user’s system and requires the user to pay for fixing the errors or issues monetarily or by performing other actions such as taking a survey, downloading a file, signing up for a newsletter, etc.
- Suggests that no other actions will correct the reported errors or issues
- Requires the user to act within a limited period of time to get the purported issue resolved
That said, even if the program bypass the criteria somehow, Windows Defender and other Microsoft security products will start hunting for them. In the recent build of Windows 10 Insiders, Windows Defender has dedicated setting for “Apps, and Browser control just for this.
Microsoft remarks:
Millions of computers are exposed to the threat of unwanted software. In the first six months of 2017, an average of six million computers encountered unwanted software every month. Browser modifiers make up 66% of all unwanted software encounters. Software bundlers and adware account for 27% and 6%, respectively.
The company has opened up the option for customers where they can submit programs that exhibit unwanted behaviors related to coercive messaging, or other unwanted or malicious behaviors in general. More here