One of my routine tasks is to open the Play Store and have a look at these. most downloaded apps. This helps me get an overall picture of user habits and uncover a few hidden gems from time to time. Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram. There are always the usual suspects.

And today it’s time to talk about these usual suspects, and it looks like there’s no way cleaner apps are disappearing from the top of the Play Store. this cleaners Y amplifier they are useless and in most cases, achieve the opposite effect. I sacrificed myself for science, built one and didn’t turn out well.

The cleaners are more alive than ever and it’s dangerous

Already in 2020, Google has completely banned the famous Clean Master and its entire empire of applications. Again, cleaners livelier than everAccumulate millions and millions of downloads, many of which are among the top 50 most downloaded apps on Android.

Initially, cleaners were born out of the need to free up space and RAM on Android. There was a time when it was normal to have 8 or 16 GB of memory and the 2 or 3 GB of RAM our phones had didn’t go very far. Taking advantage of the lack of resources, these apps became popular but they continue to fight to this day.

Housekeepers grew up in functions and now they have everything. Their functions are so great that they even promise what they can’t do. They’ve gone from clearing cache and remaining files to “cooling the CPU” of our phone, adding antivirus protection, saving battery or “boosting performance” of the phone.

I typed “cleaner” in the Play Store and downloaded the first one that came out. It has 10 million downloads and 4.8 starsso for the average user all indicators are in the right direction.

As soon as I open the app, it asks me for notification permissions. I understand it will be to remind me that my phone is dirty, but when I give you that permission, it won’t be today. At that time, it says my phone is not running at optimum speeds” (“how not?”, if it’s a Pixel 6!) and it gives me a solution to speed it up.

The solution is, as usual in such applications, Make sure to close all open applications. This is all it will get is these apps reopening after a few seconds and consuming more battery than saved. But I continue.

After “optimizing” my phone by closing 20 apps, the app shows me a message saying there are multiple apps that are “seriously” draining my battery. So I hit repair. Takes me back to the same menu to close apps and since they are all turned off, it invites me to enable accessibility permission, which is the most dangerous of android. I decided to exit this menu as all applications are already closed.

On the left, the temperature of the app cleaner. In the center, the actual temperature as measured by the CPU temperature.

I’m looking for “cooling” in the phone functions list. Upon analysis, it determines that “my processor is overheating”, reading 41.4 degrees. A quick check on the CPU monitor tells me the CPU is at 35 degrees, so the data is completely wrong. To cool the device, the solution is to close all apps.

In short, a mix of misinformation, dysfunctional functions, and among these, Lots of promotions. There are dozens of them on the Play Store, like this app, which is just one example. It’s still allowed and they continue to make the Play Store a slightly worse place.