When it comes to offering apps that are safe and secure, Apple does a better job than most at weeding out the bad from the good. But no company is perfect and it’s a good idea to exercise caution when it comes to the apps you are downloading to your device. Simply put: some apps are complete and utter battery hogs, while others are the ultimate offenders when it comes to snatching your data and compromising your privacy. And, every once in awhile, you encounter an app that carries all of these red flags. Tech experts say you should delete this one app on your iPhone to protect your privacy.
There’s a reason why the most common answer to this age-old app question always seems to yield the same answer: Facebook is a thief in terms of data and battery and continues to be at the top of most tech experts’ lists of do-not-download apps.
“Facebook is a data hog,” says Max Shak, CEO of Abtron. “In addition, its affiliate apps, Instagram and WhatsApp, steal data and power, violate privacy, and intrude into areas where they have no business. You can save more battery and data on your iOS device if you disable location services, background app refresh, and Facebook data services than just about anything else you can do. However, if we’re comparing the amount of resources needed vs the amount of resources taken, Facebook is the clear winner.”
Tech Expert Jason Cordes, founder of Coco Loan, says Apple Is more strict than Google, but that doesn’t mean you should openly trust them to provide only apps that are safe and secure. “They are very selective in the type of app allowed in their App store,” Cordes says. “Some of these apps are helpful, while some are very frustrating.”
With that said, Apple continues to allow the Facebook application, despite the fact that it uses a scary amount of battery on the iPhone, Cordes notes. “The annoying fact about this is how constant it runs in the background and automatically syncs contacts and other phone-related things,” Cordes says. “You can stop this application (Facebook) from draining your phone battery by limiting your constant usage of the phone. The FB company has confirmed that it drains the battery. They have been facing an unexpected issue with how their application runs in the background even after switching off your phone.”
Tech companies will continue to allow Facebook and Facebook-like apps to be offered in their stores, which means it’s more important than ever to be selective about the apps you download and how much you use them.
