Fake version of Samsung Good Lock app shows up on Play Store

Samsung tends to experiment and try out new stuff throughGood Lock, a suite of apps that has become essential for any Samsung phone owner serious about advanced customization. The company recently released a very interesting module calledDropShipforOne UI 5phones. It’s an app that lets you share files with other smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Now, a “DropShip” app has made it to the Play Store, but you probably shouldn’t download it.

A new DropShip app has appeared on the Play Store, carrying the same icon as the original Samsung DropShip app and even the “com.samsung.dropship_client” package name. However, it doesn’t seem to come from Samsung. The developer is “Assert Studio,” a developer that has released a handful of other shady apps, including what also looks like a fake Nothing Ear app for theNothing Ear 1earbuds with almost no downloads. There’s a real possibility that Samsung could occasionally publish official apps under a different developer name, but it most certainly wouldn’t be publishing a fake Nothing Ear app, so that story doesn’t check out.

Downloading the app doesn’t even give you a functional app, or even something that pretends to be functional. Opening the app, all you get is a splash screen that says “This app needs to be updated!” You get no functionality besides that. Aside from that fake Nothing Ear app, the developer has a “mobile version” of the Paradox Interactive gameVictoria 3and another app called “Assert Studio Testing Tool” on offer. We’re not quite sure what these apps are about, or if they’re any similar to what this fake DropShip app is, but frankly, we’d rather not find out.

Right now, you can only download the real DropShip from the Samsung Galaxy Store, like the rest of the Good Lock modules, and it’s still only available for South Korean users. The Play Store is mined with fake and shady apps despite Google’s efforts to combat them, so this goes to show that you should always check the developer an app comes from before downloading it.

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