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These days there are so many apps infested with spyware or adware, and it almost seems as if the stores themselves are promoting them in exchange for a cut. And some apps that start off clean get "updated" to include ads and spying. How do you find free apps that aren't infested?
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TOO BAD YOU CAN'T BUY a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin
real fast and freak everybody out.
-- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @07:08PM
wipe out your Windows install [...] and install Linux
First, it would have been good if the submitter had mentioned what OS he is actually using.
No more viruses, spyware, adware, bloatware, etc.
This far into The Decade of Linux on the Desktop, yours is sage advice.
It is the rare app these days that doesn't have a Linux-compatible port|equivalent|replacement.
In the cases where that is not so, installing ($0, FOSS) VirtualBox and installing Windoze inside that virtual machine can handle the cases of must-have Windoze-only apps (no dual-boot/rebooting necessary).
Once done, make a snapshot of that virtualized OS install as a backup in case the usual expectation of Windoze occurs.
Should something undesired happen, nuke the install inside the VM and restore from the snapshot/backup.
It really is odd to imagine someone running Windoze on bare metal these days.
.
Fristy hit the bullseye pointing to the software repository of your Linux distro.
Looking back after leaving MICROS~1's stuff behind, it always amazes me how Windoze users run code they have downloaded from some site without even doing a checksum on that to assure that what they got is what they -think- they got.
If what you need isn't in the (well-vetted) repo of your distro, in the Ubuntu ecosystem there are also PPAs. [wikipedia.org]
Visiting your distro's help forum periodically will expose you to folks mentioning such things.
Look there for folks who have already solved the problem|filled the need that you have and can vouch for the PPA.
If your repo doesn't contain the desired app, compiling your software from source code is another option--and that is the ultimate in assuring that you are getting what you expect.
.
If the OS is Android, Cyanogenmod is Step 1 for proper permissions/security and Step 2 is Xprivacy (or Pdroid).
The Little Red Robot [google.com] is even farther in the direction of freedom than that--but fewer devices are supported. [replicant.us]
Airplane Mode has already been mentioned in this thread.
-- gewg_