Bitcoin Forum

Don't blindly follow rating/reviews - these stats can be easily manipulated.

For example, look at this app - Scam app - Don't download (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.talken.wallet)

50T downloads, 6T reviews and 4.9 average rating, sounds perfect.

Then you look at 1 star/negative reviews and come to know the reality.

Disregard artificial stats, always check negative reviews first, if no reviews don't bother.

To be safe, firstly people should visit official websites to get links for downloading applications.

However, before doing so, let's ask yourself and answer a question, why do you need that application? Is the website, service is legit and well to use? If not, stop thinking of application download, from any source.

It's the point. Total number of review makes sense because we need to have a big sample size of review to have an overview. Small number of review can easily be faked.

Massive negative review is not good in general that is a signal to stop thinking of application download.

In addition, don't rely on application review only but let's double check with search engines by key words such as scam accusation, phishing app, etc. If all info gives you a negative overview, let's forget that service and application.

If you have ever been scammed by a website and checked its Trustpilot reviews, you would of known reviews are not something to trust.  They can easily be faked and before you know, you have downloaded a malicious app on your phone and now it may be all compromised.

This is why I do extensive research about user opinions before downloading an app for real.  Bitcointalk threads, Reddit threads, Trustpilot and app store reviews, maybe YouTube reviews of the app.  If there are only few reviews overall, for me it is a no go.  If there are plenty of reviews and I can find positive public discussions about the app, I consider downloading it.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

I honestly low-key want to get wallet software banned on the Google Play Store so people would actually be forced to do a bit more research on what wallet to install lmao. Because it's a safe assumption that a lot of people just search "bitcoin wallet" or "crypto wallet" and install one of the top #3 results(which are sometimes ads).

I was mildly surprised seeing '50T' reviews, which refers to 'Trillions'.
 I have personally not seen a website with trillions of downloads, that would be weird as we have only a couple billion people in the world.
It's actually '50K' downloads, referring to 50 thousand and 5K+ reviews.

In reality, those numbers does not sound perfect at all. Such amount of stats are very easy to fake, and I wouldn't use a website which is not very popular to get lots of credible information on it, especially if it's related to finance and assets.

And downloading should of course be done via the appropriate source. Extra marks if it can be verified.

It's good to always read reviews before downloading but the most important thing is never use any app or crypto wallet that's not even well popular in crypto space, what's talken wallet lol I've never heard of this wallet before so there for I will never store any asset in such wallet.

Looking at the 1 star reviews isn't enough to say the apps is scam or fake, you need to have another research on different factors too. Let me ask you, which wallet, platform, exchange or anything that you use and don't have any problem until now, does it's really doesn't have any 1 star reviews? I don't think so.

We're already know Electrum is non custodial wallet and open source, many experts do not have any problem with it. But if you check on google play, there are so many stupid people giving random 1 star reviews just because his own fault (e.g. lost his seeds, malware on his device).

To be honest why does people need to install many unknown wallet? You only need one and it's enough for you.

Tip : Don't rely on random people reviews, it's useless. I only rely with experts reviews on various forum e.g. Bitcointalk, reddit etc. Much better if you are tech savvy person, you can check the code yourself.

Both @libert19 and @Despairo are both potentially right. Since apps may incentivize giving good reviews (some of the comments in the OPs link state so) per se, and anyone is entitled to providing feedback, the ratings may be rigged to a certain degree, despite the fact that the app has near to 6K ratings.  On the other hand, the Electrum app has crappy ratings, and if you read through the one star ratings and base your decision solely in them, there is no way one would go near it (despite the solid support the Desktop version has community wise).

One should stick to those that are well known and have a good track record, but even so, besides making sure that the app is legit, one should contrast reviews from different sources to get a general idea of the product. The more serious and respectable the sources of the reviews, the better.

The best way to safely download an app and to be sure it's legit is to visit it's official website (type the address into the address bar, don't click on Google link) and to download an app from there. Never trust Google ads or someone else's rating.

I mean you can judge from reviews, if the review says, 'stupid app, I forgot the seed now app won't let me in' - it's of course person's fault.

If the reviews say, - 'this app needs unnecessary permissions', 'support is non existent', 'asking for 5 star reviews for monetory gain', 'asking for mnemonic' - you can say app might be shady.

True, reviews can be manipulated, so don't trust one platform only about the review, you can search for reviews outside google play as they are more independent and probably more reliable, for example, a reputable forum, youtube review videos, and etc.

It would make things worse.  People would just go for 'trust wallet apk download' Google searches instead.  I do not think banning software makes you more aware about what you are downloading if you never cared about researching in the first place.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

One thing which I always do before downloading any Android app is to read the about app information. It will not only provide the details about the app but also the website link and social media links. It becomes easy to verify an apps authenticity by verifying the website details and checking the updates being shared on social media by them.

They do wrote it :)
https://i.ibb.co/qYRxX3D/electrum-fake-review.png  https://i.ibb.co/G0LpKZQ/electrum-fake-review2.png

Let's say I'm newbie and don't know how to pick good wallet, then someone tell me a good wallet doesn't have shady reviews on google play. If someone suggest me to use this wallet, I'll avoid at all cost and tell him electrum is bad due to buggy websites, insane fees, can't send Bitcoin, can't import seed phrase, ask to connect different server etc. Pretty sure he will laugh at me and call me stupid.

Not sure this is a reliable way to do it.  I do not think Google Play developers are required to validate the websites with their accounts in any way.  Any developer could probably put any link out there in their app information.

And this is why I typically read about them on multiple websites.  Bitcointalk will definitely not recommend you to avoid Electrum and will definitely not recommend you to use Freewallet.

We have to take into consideration two more things.  Some people send 1 star reviews just because they want to troll or out of frustration and where there is fake positive reviews, I would imagine some Electrum competitors would pay to lower down Electrum's average rating.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Really very low score for one of the most popular Bitcoin wallets, whether it is a desktop or mobile version, there are differences of course - but it is quite a solid wallet for those who understand how it works. Somehow it seems to me that in the future this rating will be even worse, because these new generations of crypto warriors want all in one app for all their altcoins with as many options as possible, and it does not matter that most will not need 80% of that what this app offers.

There are so many services that offer fake ratings and everything is subject to manipulation, so I always take good and bad reviews with great reserve.

I reported dozens (if not hundreds ) of fake wallets on Google Play and I know for a fact that they don't verify that info at all. Those that submit fake apps can write anything they want there which of course they are exploiting as much as they can.


Keep in mind that people are also more prone to leave a negative review than a good one (you know, why would I bother with writing a review if everything works good) so you get somewhat distorted feedback how good some application actually is.


That's also a possibility, given how easy and cheap is to get fake reviews and ratings, and how slow Google and inefficient Google is when it comes to removing those.

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Rule of thumb; 4,9-5 rating on Google Play= fake app/fake ratings

In most cases people who have no knowledge only care to read some of the reviews and some don't even bother to look at it download these apps on mobile or desktop which comprises their funds and they come to know about it when the hackers plan is executed.Reading about the reviews is fine but over the top it's important to download the accurate apk files or from app/play store as there are already scam copies over the internet.

Talking about reviews then you can add as many possible reviews yourself with the user ID so trust them but with different formats.

That's good if you make some extensive research but as said in case of wallets then hardware wallets like Trezor or Ledger Nano S are best options but you can also find malicious apps registered under their name from which you need to be safe also.Going through lot of ways automatically increase your chances of being safe with extra layer of securities.But i would suggest users not to download any apps on the advice of these new fake youtubers shilling their crap knowledge about the bitcoin as paid promotions from these scam apps.

Undoubtedly there are many and do this job for minimal payments as we have seen in some case the scam projects creat their hypes through these fake reviews so trusting them is hard but you should take into consideration both positive and negative aspects.The users face difficulties due to which the ratings are bad but it doesn't imply the wallet is not legit.So we should have the mind open.

The decentralised world has put peer responsibility on us to decide how to manage and keep our funds safe so be sure for every move you make.Learning snd and growing will keep your survival possible.

I have encountered apps like this with manipulated fake reviews and ratings (maybe hiring social media providers to boost ratings and publish fake reviews, etc.). I almost ended up convincing myself to download the app, but good thing that my conscience and instincts tells me that I should have second thoughts.

From then on, I always go to the official website on where the app can be downloaded instead of just searching manually on Google Play Store, just to be sure that my phone cannot be compromised in any way.

I've knew about this in a long time now, some apps have fake reviews the scammers intentionally create fake reviews for the app saying good things about it and ranking it up too that's why I don't believe any reviews on playstore.

After many fake android apps approved to be listed, I can't trust the reviews in just one place including on the playstore itself without comparing with the rather honest reviews elsewhere (in my opinion). I also heard a lot of shill review services that are willing to fulfill all the official social media accounts of the app. The shill service can also give good reviews with a score of 1 star to drown out other bad reviews.

Honestly no I don't really like installing a new crypto app on my phone unless I use the service on the desktop version.

With the fact that so many things could be bought and sold these days,  it becomes really difficult to go with what the ratings as per downloads and number of reviews says. This is just so wrong but its happening and I suggest T&Cs should apply at this point. Perhaps Playsore or Appstore should look into a way to verify all these.

From what is out there, it seems the site just picked a package that seemed to them Hugh enough, coming with all fives (5s). 50k downloads, 50 thousand and 5k reviews. How could that be a coincidence, to have got ratings from everyone who ever made a download....

Sticking to companies original website and popular once at that like Upgrade00 said would be the best way yo safety.

I used to fall into such trap in the past until I started reading about scam accusations on Reputation thread here. The shocking thing is that some of the app companies now pay to get positive reviews. That got me too. I also liked to look at the number of downloads an app got and felt it was a good sign that it was genuine if it got many download. That's not true. It's a hoax. My formula now is to read the worst reviews on an app if I have doubt. That's how I guage it. Nobody pays a reviewer to write them a bad review. So, I sieve through the bad reviews and pick out the genuinely written ones because I know there are certain idiots who mischievously like running others under a bus by writing bad reviews without a genuine assessment. I expect people to evaluate apps through this (my) method. It helps a lot.

Is this possible on the IOS?  When I download a new app, I usually look at how many downloads it has and then look at some of the recent reviews.  But the most important thing is the number of downloads.  So could that be manipulated or not? 


Because the fake apps you would see very few downloads and few reviews.

It's possible on any store. All stats can be manipulated.


Exactly, beautifully explained .

I don't think rating is the best way to identify a scam app, because rating can be manipulated by the owner of the app, have seen some bounties before from this Bitcointalk forum which will ask the bounty hunters to download and rate thier apps 5 stars on app store before they can get their rewards. Some of those apps are fake but some  bounty hunters don't care, they only care about what they will pay them and at the end they endup not receiving payments and putting other people in danger. I believe if you want to download any app the best thing to do is that visiting the project official website and getting the link to the app from thier website.

Has there been cases where apps are have tons of views/ratings to make it look like legit?

Just similar when I browse in online shops here in my country. A cheap Iphone with 5 stars ratings like give me a break, lol. Once you looked into the negative ones, you will a single comment with plenty of upvotes.
It is easy to get paid reviews now these days especially that people are willing to do it.

There are plenty.  Even today there still are websites that pay you to publish fake reviews.  Getting a fake positive rating is very easy as long as you have money.  It is as easy as buying likes and retweets for Twitter Cryptocurrency 'send us money we send back double' kind of scams.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Then how do you know an app is legit then?


How do you do this with new apps that you never downloaded ever then?

True, that was kind of inspiration behind this post too.


Read comments, plenty tips given already.

Actually its kinda scary now to download some apps that even have a lot of ratings or an insane one. This could be a bar on choosing but a scam wouldnt not be guaranteed safe and may be post a risk even with this stats. So Im lessen downloading some apps that arent useful or not officially announced with the one Ive following.

We can't simply trust the ratings of any app and download it because they can be paid reviews also and sometimes less rating app is also good to use so we can say it's not determining factor to decide which app is good or bad.Sometimes scam ones also have good reviews in the starting but later on turned out to be non legit.So be sure to have proper check on them before doing anything as funds are stored there.

Because with the current update of scammers now phishing the original website of a reputable company just in other to lure people of their hard earn money, everybody now needs to be extremely careful and look beyond just a playstore reviews, because at times, those reviews can be bought from a CPA hosting site.

But as for me, there is one strategy I always use to know if a site is scam or not, but I'm not here to brag or tell you my strategy has always been 100% but at least above average, and has prevented me from lots of scam, and they are:

1. Social media presence: That is, is this website on social media? Because in this era you hardly find a legit company who is not on social media. (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & YouTube)
     

2. Verified social media account: That is, do this site have a verified social media account, because if they don't. They are likely to be a scam


3. Number of followers on social media: That is, how many number of followers do they have, because a good site should have at least 10k followers on all social media.


4. Critic on social media: That is, what are people saying about them in social media, is it good? Or bad.

And many others.

So, I think with these tips you should be able to avoid being scam again. Thanks.
👍👍

Google seems not yet improved its audit system in regards to scam applications. They are so strict on gambling apps but they are allowing scams like this to be freely listed in the play store without any screening on the functionality. This issue of rating manipulation is already a known problem in every listing market that has review features. It's better to always check the critical ratings first before we download and install an app. But there are some instances that critical comment is just a negative from competitors so make sure to do the right judgement.

If you are going to rely on the feedbacks and ratings left by random people on the Internet (you don't even know if they are really humans), it is better to start with negative feedbacks, and only take into consideration the ones in which the person shares his experience with the application and contains details that only a person who has alrwady used the application would know.

There is no perfect apps that will please and satisfy the needs of all users. So if you find ann app with thousands of downloads and without a single negative feedback, you should know that something is wrong.

Yah? The number of subscribers as an indicator of the authenticity of the project? Have you heard about account cheat services? What about bots? By saying what is an indicator for you that people believe in this project, you put a mine on newcomers. This does not work. Fake accounts with a long registration date are also easily sold online. In the same way, it is very easy to buy reviews on other sites that will tell you what a cool project is and how to rush to shell out your money.
I know one thing. Social media is evil. You should never rely on social media opinion. I will not tell you how information wars are waged in our time. Therefore, only your mind and sober calculation can help you avoid falling into another trap.