this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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It’s a Chinese app that lets people “scan” a document using the camera on their phone. It was “free” for a long time, turns out it was dropping injected adware on people’s phones.
To be honest, Microsoft lens has had the same features for a long time, but didn’t have “scanner” in the name and most app searches are piss poor so people just literally searched “camera scanner” and got the adware result. Microsoft has their own long and shady history, but dropping an adware payload wasnt part of that.
I use it a lot during my study. But when CamScanner started serving ads, intrusive ads, "cloud backup"...i tried searching for alternatives and use microsoft lens. TBH, microsoft lens is shit compared to camscanner. The detection is slow, janky, cant do multiple pages scan and a lot more troublesome to use. CamScanner detection algorithm was way better at that time. So i bite the lbullet and just use it until end of my study.
Thank you!
I'm not so sure that's true anymore with Windows 11.
Showing in app ads is one thing. Installing a Trojan specifically meant to circumvent App Store ad requirements is another. Windows 11, and most MS products at this point are ad delivery platforms, but they still follow the rules of app stores with the basic requirement of “shows in app ads” and “won’t try to inject a Trojan that beats your phone’s app sandboxing”