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Yesterday — 31 May 2024Main stream

How to Recover Deleted Files and Photos on Android and iOS

31 May 2024 at 11:00

It's not a great feeling, realizing you've accidentally deleted an important photo or document on your phone. Maybe you've picked the wrong file, or you've tapped the wrong button, but it's easily done—and it's not the kind of mistake you're always going to notice right away, either.

The good news is that Android, iOS, and the apps that run on top of them now come with safety nets built in. There's a decent chance you're going to be able to get that deleted data back—it's just a question of knowing where to look, and that depends on the app you used to do the deleting.

If you can't get your files back using the methods we've described below, then you're going to have to dig deeper—perhaps into your phone backups (which you should have set up, in case your phone gets lost or stolen).

Google Photos (Android and iOS)

If you use Google Photos to manage photos and videos on your phone, open the Library tab, then tap the Trash folder. Tap on a file then Restore to undelete it; or, press and hold on one file, then select multiple items, then tap Restore. Google Photos will keep deleted photos and videos in the Trash folder for 60 days before erasing them completely.

Apple Photos (iOS)

Over on the default photos and videos app for the iPhone, deleted files can be found by going to Albums then Recently Deleted. Here, deleted files are kept around for 40 days (you can see the days remaining on each item). Tap a photo or video then choose Recover to bring it back, or use the Select button to pick multiple items to restore at once.

Samsung Gallery (Android)

If you're using the Samsung Gallery app found on its Galaxy phones to manage your photos and videos, open the app and tap the three horizontal lines (bottom right), then pick Recycle bin to view and restore files. You might also see photos and videos deleted by third-party apps here too, depending on how you've set up integrations on your phone.

Google Photos
Restoring files in Files by Google. Credit: Lifehacker

Files by Google (Android)

In the default file manager on Android, tap the three horizontal lines (top left), then Trash. Any files that have been sent here will be kept for 30 days before being erased completely, and they're listed in groups based on when they were originally deleted. To bring any of the deleted files back to their original locations, select them and tap on Restore.

My Files (Android)

If you're on a Samsung Galaxy phone, you might be using My Files rather than Files by Google to manage locally stored data. Open up the app and you'll see a Recycle bin link on the front screen for viewing and restoring files—as with the Gallery app, you'll possibly see files deleted by other apps in here, depending on the file type and syncing options.

Files (iOS)

If you've deleted something from your iPhone, you might find it inside the iOS Files app, up to 30 days afterwards: Open the Browse tab, then tap Recently Deleted to view and restore files. Note that the Files app can also manage your various cloud storage accounts (like iCloud), so there may be some crossover with the other options mentioned here.

iOS Files
Restoring files in Files on iOS. Credit: Lifehacker

Google Drive (Android and iOS)

Any file deleted from inside Google Drive or synced to it is recoverable for 30 days afterwards: From inside the mobile app, tap the three horizontal lines (top left), then Trash. You can browse through the files just like any other Google Drive folder, and if you tap the three dots to the right of any of the files listed, there's a Restore option.

iCloud Drive (iOS)

If you're using iCloud Drive in addition to the Files app on iOS, you've got an extra layer of protection when it comes to accidentally erasing your stuff. You can either get at your deleted files from the Browse tab in the Files app as described above, or through iCloud Drive on the web—just click on Recently Deleted in the side panel on the left.

Other apps (Android and iOS)

If you're using some kind of cloud-based storage alongside your phone, you should have an undelete feature to fall back on. Dropbox, for example, keeps deleted files for 30 days (or longer on paid plans), but you need to go to the desktop web interface to find them: Click Deleted files in the left-hand pane to see a list of files and bring them back if needed.

Microsoft OneDrive has a built-in safety net to make use of as well, and it's called—you guessed it—the recycle bin. From the mobile app, tap Me and then Recycle bin to see files that have recently been wiped from your OneDrive account. To restore any of them back to their original locations, tap the three dots (on the right-hand side), then Restore.

Before yesterdayMain stream

The 10 Best Free Educational Apps For Kids

22 May 2024 at 17:00

Summer vacation is fast approaching, meaning your child's screen time will most likely increase exponentially. That doesn't mean, however, that their moments glued to their tablet can't offer some value. There are plenty of apps available at no cost that you can feel good about and, in some cases, even help them avoid the summer slide.

PBS KIDS Games

A favorite of both of my children, the game app boasts over 250 educational and entertaining games for toddlers and older kids from various PBS KIDS properties, including Wild KrattsSesame Street, and Odd Squad. My youngest is a fan of the Scribbles and Ink drawing game, which brings his art to life. 

iOS/Android

Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame

This app was created to help children find ways to become calm and mindful when their feelings start to become overwhelming. It features five activities involving a monster who must settle down to help them think of solutions to seemingly enormous problems. Parents can personalize the app with supportive phrases to encourage children to step back and peacefully find a resolution, along with a section to help caregivers reiterate the lessons the app teaches in their child's life. 

iOS/Android

GoNoodle

My family watched many GoNoodle videos during the pandemic to get the kids moving around, and we would catch each other singing catchy songs like "Banana, Banana, Meatball" constantly. When my kids returned to school, their teachers would play the videos in class, only for them to come home belting out "Purple Stew." These videos are about physical activity and having fun, and they never seem to get old. It's nice to have GoNoodle's library of over 300 songs and exercises in one place so my kids can discover their next favorite or find a classic like "Clap It Out."

iOS/Android

NASA

This app will quench your kid's curiosity about space with updates from ongoing space missions and the International Space Station. It also offers free access to podcasts, NASA+ videos, interactive augmented reality experiences, galaxy tours with actual astronauts, and over 20,000 images direct from the space agency.

iOS/Android

Aardman Animator

While my family eagerly awaits the arrival of the next Wallace and Gromit movie, we're hoping to learn more about the process used to bring the beloved duo to life with this easy-to-use app from their studio. There are plenty of tutorials to get kids started, and the easy-to-use tools, including a dialogue and sound effects recorder, will have them unleashing their creativity and crafting stop-motion animation masterpieces in no time. 

iOS/Android

Duolingo

Learning a new language doesn't have to be boring and repetitive, as evidenced by how this popular app has gamified the process of studying and understanding Spanish, French, and German. Duolingo has some drawbacks—it draws most of its revenue from advertisements. Still, its little lessons are a good jumping-off point for children (and adults) just beginning to communicate in a different tongue.

iOS/Android

ScratchJr 

Designed by Tufts University, the MIT Media Lab, and PBS Kids, this app will not teach your five- to seven-year-old code. Instead, like its counterpart developed for those eight years old and above, it will introduce and reinforce programming concepts to create stories using drag-and-drop puzzle pieces that control their characters. Parents who've used the app say parents should work with their children when they first start building their narratives, but once they catch on, they'll have a ton of creative fun.

iOS/Android

Sushi Monster

If players don't want the titular monster to get angry, then they must feed it the numbered sushi plates to reach the creature's assigned number. It takes someone with excellent math skills to reach the next level in this addictive game, but children can always ask for a hint if they get stuck. 

iOS

Khan Academy Kids: Learning!

Are you a parent who wants to give your toddler a head start on their education? Or maybe you're looking for a fun way to reiterate the reading and math lessons your first- or second-grader is learning in school. If so, many consider this the standard in educational apps. A bear named Kodi and her friends guide users through over 5,000 games and activities that teach reading, writing, and numbers. There is also a library of books about dinosaurs, vehicles, and other kid-friendly topics, all without ads or subscriptions.

iOS/Android

Pick Your Plate!

Developed by the Smithsonian, users travel with a magical plate around the world to learn about food and create healthy meals. While planning their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, children can discover baobab fruit or how the Finnish prepare reindeer. They'll also learn about the music and monetary systems of countries like Cambodia and Argentina. 

iOS/Android

Use These Apps to Find an Online Book Club

22 May 2024 at 10:30

There are many ways to find interesting books to read, maybe on your Kindle or Kobo. Thanks to the advent of BookTok and BookTube, suggestions for books can come even when you aren't looking for them.

But just because book influencers are talking about a book doesn't mean you'll like it, or even want to read it. Thankfully, there is another way: joining an online book club.

Join a book club using the Fable app

Exploring and joining book clubs in Fable.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Fable (available for iPhone and Android) is a place for readers to get together and talk about their favorite books. It's an all-in-one platform where you can track books, buy them, read them in tandem with other book club members, and then discuss the books in a forum-style interface that's redesigned for the smartphone.

But most importantly, it's a place where you'll find a plethora of book clubs, some extremely niche, some more mainstream, that are all run by real, passionate readers. A good book club that's based on a genre or a theme can both help you discover books that you want to read, and help you form a habit of actually reading through those recommendations.

Book clubs in Fable pick a book to read each month, which are voted on by the book club members themselves. You can join any book club you want, and join multiple book clubs as well. The app search feature can help you narrow down on specific genres, too. For example, I'm really getting into cozy fantasy right now, and Fable was an easy way to find a couple of fascinating book clubs and book picks.

Book club discussion and milestones in Fable.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

The core of Fable's interactive experience can be found in the Discussion and Schedule sections. The Club Lobby is a chat for the entire group, where you can get a Discord-style chat room for everyone in the club to contribute and ask questions, discuss books, and pick upcoming titles. The sections below these are defined by the book club owner and can be used to discuss particular chapters or sections of the book.

If you're not the kind who likes discussing books, you'll still find value in Fable book clubs because of the Schedule feature. Here, the book club owner can set a pace and milestones for the book, helping you stay on track. The milestones (finishing chapter six by May 10th, for example) are only suggestions—you're free to read at your own speed.

Storygraph is a Goodreads alternative book club app

Storygraph book club meetings.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Storygraph earned its reputation by being the antithesis of Goodreads. The app is free of ads and is run independently. Plus, it has features like half stars for more nuanced ratings, and reviews can be far more detailed than in Goodreads. Now, Storygraph has also added book clubs to the mix. You can now run or join a book club directly from the website or the app.

Storygraph has native support for picking books and voting on them. The book with the most votes gets selected, and the book club manager can create a meeting for discussion of books or particular parts of them. There's also a forum interface where people can discuss the book and ask questions.

While the book clubs feature is live, it's not added to the main website yet. You can join and create book clubs, but it all happens via links. You can't search for book clubs like you can in Fable, but that shouldn't stop you from exploring. This Reddit megathread has plenty of great Storygraph book clubs to join.

Find a book club on Discord

Book club on Discord
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

On Discord, you can find a community for anything, including books. You can use the book club tag on the Disboard website to find all publicly listed Discord servers related to book clubs. If you're looking for a specific genre, use the Search field. Discord book clubs are organized in channels, and they are a great place to discover and discuss books with like-minded people.

Join in-person and online book clubs with the Bookclubs website

Book club options on the Bookclubs.com website.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

The Bookclubs website is dedicated to book clubs, both virtual and in-person. Here, you can find hundreds of clubs that meet in-person once a month. If there's nothing around you, don't worry: You can still join online groups for monthly meetings. There are also some clubs that don't do virtual meetings, too, preferring to discuss using the website's forum.

Use WhatsApp’s 'Chat Lock' Feature to Hide Your Sexts

20 May 2024 at 11:00

It’s stressful to hand your unlocked phone to someone else—you never know what’s going to happen. Maybe they’ll stick to the single photo of your dog you’re trying to show them, or maybe they’ll see a private message you’d rather keep to your eyes only. While many messaging apps can’t help with that, WhatsApp can: “Chat Lock” allows you to hide any chat you want and keep it safe from prying eyes.

Chat Lock works exactly as you think it does: When you lock a chat, it hides it from anyone who happens to be looking at your WhatsApp. Not only that, it blocks notification previews for that chat as well. That means you’ll need to check in on those chats from time to time to see exactly what was sent, but you’re not at risk of someone seeing an embarrassing or compromising notification from one of them either.

You can lock any chat, including individual conversations as well as group threads. The feature pairs nicely with WhatsApp’s Screen Lock feature, which requires secondary authentication before opening the app in the first place.

How to lock any chat in WhatsApp

To start, tap the chat in question, then tap the name of the chat at the top. Here, you’ll see the new “Chat lock” option: Once you tap it, you’ll need to authenticate yourself to complete the lock. This will be how you unlock the chat in the future: If your phone uses a fingerprint scanner, you’ll scan your fingerprint. If it uses Face ID, you’ll use a face scan. You can also use a PIN if you prefer.

Once you lock a chat, it moves to a new “Locked chats” folder tucked away in the main screen. Tap this folder, authenticate yourself, and you’ll be able to access any chats you locked.

How to sync Chat Lock between linked devices

For the past year, Chat Lock's one major flaw was that it only worked on your primary device. When switching to a linked device to pick up your WhatsApp conversations, you'd find all threads out in the open, including the ones you locked on your main device.

That's changing: According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is currently beta testing the ability to access Chat Lock across linked devices. This feature works as of WhatsApp beta version 2.24.11.9: If you enroll your Google Account in the WhatsApp beta program here, you'll be able to download the latest beta versions as if you were simply updating the app.

Once you have the latest beta version of WhatsApp installed, you should see the "Locked chats" folder appear on all linked devices. However, in order to access them on other devices, you'll need to set up a "secret code" on your primary device. If you don't do this, you'll receive an alert telling you as much when tapping on the folder on your link devices.

To set up the secret code for locked chats, go to WhatsApp on your primary phone, open "Locked chats," then tap the three dots in the top right and choose Chat lock settings. Here, tap Secret code, then set up your code. Once set, you should be able to punch this code in on linked devices to access your locked chats.

secret code settings
Credit: Jake Peterson

Eventually, WhatsApp will likely roll this feature out to all users. For now, however, it's limited to beta testers, so stay on the beta if you want to continue keeping your locked chats secure on other devices.

Eight Meditation Apps That Are Cheaper (and Better) Than Headspace and Calm

20 May 2024 at 10:30

Headspace and Calm are the juggernauts in the meditation apps sphere, and both have done an impressive job bringing mindfulness-based meditation to the masses. Their apps make it easier for anyone to pick up the skills they need to help them relax, and even deal with more pressing issues like anxiety and depression.

But at $100 per year, they certainly do cost a lot. And because they are so popular, their programs can be quite generic.

If you’ve tried Headspace or Calm before and found they didn’t work for you—or you simply found them too expensive for what they offer—there is a whole world of niche meditation apps for you to explore. Here are eight of my favorite alternatives, so you can test them out and see which one works best for you.

Smiling Mind

Smiling Mind meditation app.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

If you’re looking for a free alternative to Headspace, start with Smiling Mind. It’s developed by an Australian not-for-profit organization, and the app is completely free (there’s not even a premium tier on offer).

The app offers structured programs for learning mindfulness meditation, sleep, relationships, stress, eating, and more. The “Intro to Mindfulness” course is a great place to start. You can also use one-off guided meditations that include breath and sounds meditation, body-scan meditation, sleep meditation, and more.

Smiling Mind is available for iOS and Android.

Pros:

  • Completely free, run by a non-for profit organization.

  • Great collection of basic, repeatable meditations that you can depend on.

Cons:

  • Design can be slightly convoluted, and occasionally hard to use.

  • The app's programs library isn't as extensive as some of the other apps on the list.

  • New feature additions are quite rare.

Plum Village

Plum Village Meditation App.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk who started a monastery in France called Plum Village. He is also the author of many popular mindfulness books, including No Mud, No Lotus. Plum Village has hosted many mindfulness programs, workshops, and talks.

The Plum Village is a completely free app that lets you explore this wealth of information from your smartphone. You get access to meditations (some by Thich Nhat Hanh himself), talks, text resources, and videos.

The Plum Village app is available for iOS and Android.

Pros:

  • Mindfulness bell helps you bring yourself back to the present, across the day.

  • A huge library of programs led by monks and nuns from The Plum Village.

  • Meditations are easy to follow.

  • Free!

Cons:

  • The app is quite unreliable, and suffers from freezes and random shutdowns.

  • Practices are limited to only the ones taught in the Plum Village tradition.

Medito

Medito Meditation app.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Medito is another popular free option. It, too, is run by a not-for-profit organization and has a zero-ads policy. The app starts you off with a Medito course that can help you learn mindfulness, compassion meditation, and insight meditation. There are also options to learn gratitude practice.

The app also has a whole section dedicated to Sleep, featuring sleep meditations, sleep stories, and music. Medito also offers a simple silent meditation timer.

Medito excels in its simplicity: The app only offers programs, lists, and meditations. That is all: No need for an account or a complicated UI. The downside though, is that means you can't really bookmark anything or create your own lists of exercises you find helpful.

Medito is available for iOS and Android.

Pros:

  • Completely free, no ads.

  • Incredibly straightforward, and fast app.

  • Covers beginner meditation, compassion practice, and sleep meditation.

Cons:

  • No way to bookmark or save meditations.

  • The catalog, while simple, is quite limited.

Insight Timer

Insight Timer Meditation App.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Insight Timer is a community-based mindfulness meditation app and website. In an app like Headspace, you essentially have access to one or two meditation teachers. On Insight Timer, there are thousands of meditation teachers to choose from. You can even enroll in communities that practice mindfulness and meditation together.

The free version of the app offers more than 100,000 meditations,with access to live events where you can practice mediation with people from around the world. The app organizes meditations in different categories, and you’ll find different meditations for dealing with anxiety, stress, sleep, and so on.

The best thing about Insight Timer is the fact that it doesn’t restrict you: You can explore and find teachers and courses that suit your current needs.

The "Timer" part of the name comes from the fact that the app has a neat meditation timer built-in. If you're moving on to non-guided meditation practice, the timer can help you with interval bells and custom timers. They have a really nice collection of bells, gongs, and chimes as well.

Insight Timer has a Member Plus program that gives you access to more than 1,000 exclusive courses and offline downloads for $60/year, but it’s not necessary to pay to get a lot out of the app. (Unfortunately, you'll see a lot of ads for it during regular use.)

Insight Timer is available for iOS and Android.

Pros:

  • Plenty of free, community guided meditations.

  • An intuitive and customizable non-guided meditation timer.

  • Easy to use interface.

Cons:

  • Too many promotions for the Member Plus program.

  • The sheer number of programs, teachers, and meditations make it overwhelming, and time-consuming, to find something that will work for you.

Ten Percent Happier

Ten Percent Happier Meditation App.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Ten Percent Happier is not a cheaper alternative to Headspace or Calm, exactly—the annual membership is $99—but it’s certainly better than both of those options when it comes to targeted meditation training. The app curates a selection of diverse teachers, that help you practice mindfulness. There are more than 500 guided meditations in the app.

What makes this one stand out is its 1:1 meditation teaching program. If you tried Headspace but weren’t able to meditate, perhaps learning directly from a meditation teacher can help.

Ten Percent Happier is available for iOS and Android.

Pros:

  • A good place to start with stress management and improving sleep.

  • Live group classes offer time for Q and A.

  • Easy to use app, with media and helpful videos.

Cons:

  • Membership cost is still high, falling between Headspace and Calm.

  • Not that helpful for advanced practitioners.

Waking Up by Sam Harris

Waking Up Meditation App.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Waking Up by Sam Harris is a different kind of meditation app. It’s actually more like a meditation course. It’s based on Sam’s book of the same name, in which he talks about awakening your spirituality even if you are not religious.

Waking Up takes the elements of Buddhism, Stoicism, and mindfulness meditation to create a 28-day long course. All you have to do is spend 10 or so minutes on the practice every day. The $99/year membership is not cheaper than Headspace, but if you’re trying to explore the mindfulness meditation space, you can try out the 28-day beginner’s course—you can use the program for one month for $14.99. The membership also includes multiple programs taught by many reputable teachers in the field of mindfulness and psychology.

Waking Up is also quite good with supporting people in need, so if you can't afford the app, write to them to see if you can get it at a discount, or even for free.

Waking Up is available for iOS and Android.

Pros:

  • A great beginner-friendly program.

  • Fully secular, and scientific approach to mindfulness meditation.

  • A easy-to-use app, and variety of programs to deepen into the practice.

Cons:

  • The only downside is the price.

Zenitizer

Zenitizer iPhone App.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak

After you've learned a few mindfulness techniques, the best way to practice, and grow, is to do so on your own, without any guided audio—but you still might want to set a timer, and perhaps add a nice bell to start and end the meditation, or add interval bells. It would be nice if there was a daily streak too, just to keep you motivated.

Zenitizer is an app from an indie developer that can help you with all that. The app is minimally designed, and there are no ads, even in the free version. In my experience, it works more reliably than Insight Timer.

You can set a custom timer, interval bells, a warm-up, a start sound, and an end bell sound. The free version comes with a couple of presets, but if you choose to pay for it, you can create your own presets, and you get access to interactive widgets. The Zenitizer Premium costs $19.99 per year, or $2.99 per month. You can buy a lifetime subscription for $79.99.

Zenitizer is available for iOS.

Pros:

  • Minimal design, easy to use, and no bloat.

  • Custom routines, support for Shortcuts automation.

Cons:

  • Many of the customization features are behind a paywall.

  • Lack of guidance can be alienating for beginners.

YouTube

Don’t want to pay for an app subscription to meditate? You don’t have to. YouTube is filled with wonderful resources to help you meditate. Just search for meditations for relaxing, anxiety, or stress. YouTube is also a great resource for learning breathing techniques, and for listening to mindfulness talks.

Reddit has some advice for finding good channels, and here are some of our favorites to help you get started:

Pros:

  • Free and easily accessible.

  • Variety, and better chances of finding something that will work just for you.

Cons:

  • YouTube ads can dampen the mindfulness experience.

  • Too many choices can be overwhelming.

AI chatbots’ safeguards can be easily bypassed, say UK researchers

All five systems tested were found to be ‘highly vulnerable’ to attempts to elicit harmful responses

Guardrails to prevent artificial intelligence models behind chatbots from issuing illegal, toxic or explicit responses can be bypassed with simple techniques, UK government researchers have found.

The UK’s AI Safety Institute (AISI) said systems it had tested were “highly vulnerable” to jailbreaks, a term for text prompts designed to elicit a response that a model is supposedly trained to avoid issuing.

Continue reading...

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© Photograph: Koshiro K/Alamy

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© Photograph: Koshiro K/Alamy

Grant Shapps orders review into plane shortage before 80th D-day anniversary

19 May 2024 at 08:24

Defence secretary says RAF’s fleet stretched owing to conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East, but expects aircrafts will be found

The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has ordered an urgent review after it emerged there is a shortage of planes for a mass parachute drop to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day.

The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have left the RAF’s transport fleet stretched and defence officials are scrambling to find more aircraft for next month’s commemorations in Normandy.

Continue reading...

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© Photograph: Cpl Tim Laurence Raf/Reuters

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© Photograph: Cpl Tim Laurence Raf/Reuters

‘Personalising stuff that doesn’t matter’: the trouble with the Zoe nutrition app

18 May 2024 at 08:00

The wellness project claims to help users make ‘smarter food choices’ based on ‘world-leading science’. But many scientists claim its fee-based services are no better than generic advice

“Your body is unique, so is the food you need.” This is the central credo of personalised nutrition (PN), as professed by its leading UK advocate, the health science company Zoe. Since its launch in April 2022, 130,000 people have subscribed to the service – at one point it had a waiting list of 250,000 – which uses a pin prick blood test, stool sample and a wearable continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to suggest “smarter food choices for your body”.

Like other companies working in this space, Zoe has all the hallmarks of serious science. Its US equivalent Levels counts among its advisers many respected scientists, including Robert Lustig, famous for raising the alarm about the harms of refined carbohydrates such as sugar. Zoe is fronted by King’s College London scientist Tim Spector and claims to be “created with world-leading science”.

Continue reading...

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© Illustration: Guardian Design

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© Illustration: Guardian Design

Free VPN apps turn Android phones into criminal proxies

1 April 2024 at 13:58

Researchers at HUMAN’s Satori Threat Intelligence have discovered a disturbing number of VPN apps that turn users’ devices into proxies for cybercriminals without their knowledge, as part of a camapign called PROXYLIB.

Cybercriminals and state actors like to send their traffic through other people’s devices, known as proxies. This allows them to use somebody else’s resources to get their work done, it masks the origin of their attacks so they are less likely to get blocked, and it makes it easy for them to keep operating if one of their proxies is blocked.

An entire underground market of proxy networks exists to service this desire, offering cybercriminals flexible, scalable platfroms from which to launch activities like advertising fraud, password spraying, and credential stuffing attacks.

The researchers at HUMAN found 28 apps on Google Play that turned unsuspecting Android devices into proxies for criminals. 17 of the apps were free VPNs. All of them have now been removed from Google Play.

The operation was dubbed PROXYLIB after a code library shared by all the apps that was responsible for enrolling devices into the ciminal network.

HUMAN also found hundreds of apps in third-party repositories that appeared to use the LumiApps toolkit, a Software Development Kit (SDK) which can be used to load PROXYLIB. They also tied PROXYLIB to another platform that specializes in selling access to proxy nodes, called Asocks.

Protection and removal

Android users are now automatically protected from the PROXYLIB attack by Google Play Protect, which is on by default on Android devices with Google Play Services.

The affected apps can be uninstalled using a mobile device’s uninstall functionality. However, apps like these may be made available under different names in future, which is where apps like Malwarebytes for Android can help.

Recommendations to stay clear of PROXYLIB are:

Victims of novel attacks like PROXYLIB might notice slow traffic, because their bandwidth is in use for other purposes. And at some point their IP address may be blocked by websites and other services.

The researchers included a list of applications they uncovered as part of PROXYLIB. If you installed any of the apps on the list before they were removed from Google Play you will need to uninstall them.


We don’t just report on privacy—we offer you the option to use it.

Privacy risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep your online privacy yours by using Malwarebytes Privacy VPN.

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