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HomeNewsIs Snaptube Serving Us Invisible Ads and Charging Us a Premium Purchases...

Is Snaptube Serving Us Invisible Ads and Charging Us a Premium Purchases We Did Not Require?

This famous video downloader app for Android has a problem: it generates fake ad clicks and even unauthorized premium purchases, as per a security firm.

SnapTube has about 40 million users and is that app that allows you to download videos or music directly from YouTube, Facebook, or any other major video platform.

The app was developed in China, and it is not found on Google Play. A third-party app store claims that SnapTube has been downloaded more than a billion times so far. The developers assure us that the app is safe to use.

However, people from the Uptream security firm said that it does cost users. Guy Krief is the chief executive of Uptream. He says that the app has invisible ads that run silently on the device, without users actually knowing, in order to generate ad revenue. They use a lot of data and a lot of battery power. The app also comes with the same background click technique, in order to charge for premium purchases which were never requested.

According to Krief, you can see if you’re being used that way: see if the device gets warm, if the battery runs out faster than it usually does, or if your mobile data usage increases.

Who’s to blame here?

The company stated that a third-party software development kit (SDK) code is to blame – Mango – which is placed inside the app. VidMate also used Mango, and 4shared, too, which are two other downloading apps that were accused of ad fraud behavior.

As per Uptream, this third-party code kit kept downloading components from a central server in order to do this activity, and it is using redirections and obfuscation in order to hide the entire deal.

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