Most of the time we see our friends use various Facebook apps like ‘top 5 friends’, ‘Your crush’, ‘people who have visited you profile’ etc. Sometime these apps are fun and sometime quiet annoying too.
We use these apps just for fun and once we get the result we often forget about it. But have you ever wondered why someone out there spent lots of time create the app ? That too without any profit ? Well there are many profits.
Why These apps are created?
1. To earn money from ads
Whenever we try these apps, we are redirected to their websites which most of the times are filled with multiple ads. This is one of the main reason why these apps are made. These apps developers want users to go to the site so that they earn from the ads that are present in their site.
2. Earn money from affiliate
Also these sites are filled with affiliates as they know the interest of the visitors so they can easily sell target based products and earn from it.Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
3. Steal your personal information
This apps are mainly used to steal personal information. Whenever you try these apps they will ask for authorization which looks something like this.
Now most of the time they ask for little permission which are not actually required and giving them these permission can be very dangerous. For example if an app asks permission to access your inbox, it can be very dangerous as they can read all your messages and can also send messages on your behalf.
4. Spread malware
Once these apps get permissions like ‘they can post on your behalf’, ‘they can comment on your behalf’, these apps starts too spam with the help of your account. You might have seen in the comment section of some popular pages which are filled with recharge site links. These comments are actually done by these apps via user’s account.
How to protect yourself from these apps?
There are many apps available which promises to do fancy stuffs. Always be careful while giving permissions to such apps. If an app requires permission to access your inbox, albums, phone number, status update, chances are there that its a fake app and they are just collection information about you and will use your account to spam others. Never use 3rd party apps which are not required.
But if you are already affected by any of such apps then follow these steps to recover your account.
1. Go to your account and click on settings
2. Now click on the apps option present on the left side of the page.
3. Now you will get the list of all apps that you are using. Remove the apps which you are not familiar with.
Once you’ve removed the app or game, it should no longer post to your Timeline. If you still see a past story, you can remove it manually.
As an added security measure, you should also change your password and do a quick scan of your computer with a reputable up-to-date anti-virus solution just to make sure the app didn’t leave any other baddies on your machine.
Conclusion
Facebook apps are great, they can make most of the work easy for us but many people are using these feature for a wrong purpose so we need to be very careful while using these apps. Also most of the time we use unnecessary apps. If you want to know who are your best friends you don’t need any Facebook app to tell you that, do you ? Just go out and talk to your friends you will know it your self. Do you really need to use an app to know who is your crush ? I don’t think so. Always use apps which are made by trusted sources.
