It seems these days, everyone and their grandma wants you to install their app on your phone.
It doesn’t matter whether that app adds any value to your life or not, just install it, so that the company can send notifications after notifications to your device while clogging up your phone’s storage and slowing it down by running in the background!
I have a simple policy that I follow when it comes to my desktop computer, which I have carried over to my mobile phones as well.
When it comes to software or apps, fewer the better!
Having fewer apps not only helps you keep your phone free of junk and those pesky notifications. It also helps you reduce the risk of your phone and associated accounts being compromised by a malware.
Because not every app is built keeping security in mind. In fact, malware authors these days are coming out with quirky apps that end up compromising over a million users worldwide, while still others try and inject malicious code into other’s app or use unpatched vulnerability to hijack the app and through it, your phone.
Due to this reason, when it comes to installing any apps on my mobile phone, I err on the side of caution. In fact, I rarely install an app, unless I cannot do without it.
On my mobile phone, apart from the usual suit of Google and Xiaomi apps (I have Redmi Note 3), I have only 19 apps installed. These are:
Facebook
Facebook Messenger
Twitter
WhatsApp
Instagram
Tapatalk
Google Home
Google Play Books
Wynk Music
PayTm
Uber
Ola
Goibibo
Notes
TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris)
Foodpanda
SJCAM HD
Sky Map
True Caller
Many of these apps too come preinstalled on just about every mobile phone, including mine. And they are, what I would term as quite useful for my mobile phone usage.
Even though I could easily remove Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter and Tapatalk, and use them instead in my browser. However, owing to my usage pattern, it wouldn’t really be a feasible thing.
At the end of the day, nothing is ever going to keep any internet connected device safe. However, by not installing every other app we come across, we can at least try and make our mobile phones and our various accounts, harder to breach.
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