HappyMod is an online app store where you can get modded versions of applications and games you download from the authorised Google Play Store or App Store. This means that you can have access to features that are usually behind the pay firewall for free.
Naturally, folks are interested in this website and visit to download their favourite apps and games. But is HappyMod safe to use? What are the safety implications? In this article, we’ll answer these questions in detail.
What issues can you face while downloading from HappyMod?
There are several issues that you might face if you download apps from HappyMod or such websites:
- Malware: As we will see below, many apps on this platform contain malware that can harm your device or steal your private information, such as location, chats, passwords, and camera or microphone settings, among others. Furthermore, the malware may also show you pop-up advertisements, redirects or other notifications.
- Account ban: Many developers and companies will ban your account once you start to use a modded version of the original app. Usually, people download modded versions to cheat while playing games. The gaming companies have special policies in place to tackle this menace.
- Legal and ethical issues: Modded apps are not legal, and the company can sue you. However, it is quite difficult to sue a person in another country or sue thousands of persons using the modded apps. The other question is the ethical consideration. The government enforces laws, but some ethics are personal. Sometimes, listening to one’s inner voice could help make the right decisions.
- Performance issues: Many people have commented that after they downloaded certain modded apps, their devices suddenly started to perform less than optimal. Many modded apps have compatibility issues and they can affect the OS as well.
Also read: Is Steamrip safe?
Is HappyMod safe?
As per the website, it has a repository of about 10,000 exclusive apps along with more than ten million applications and mods.
The website also claims about one million volunteers check the uploads for malware and other malicious activities. The volunteers also report and remove the fake or malicious app as soon as it is flagged.
Moreover, the website claims that “all uploads are scanned by an anti-virus system seriously.”
Furthermore, the website says the ads are limited to enhance the user experience.
Virustotal
When we checked the website’s link on Virustotal, we found one vendor flagged the website as malicious while one flagged it as suspicious.
threatYeti
Next, we headed to threatYeti website intelligence and found that the website was placed in a high-risk category.
However, there was an ambiguity with the ratings when we checked with other security vendors, such as Cisco Talos Intelligence, where HappyMod was given a favourable rating.
Comodo Valkyrie
Another security vendor, Comodo Valkyrie, has flagged the happymod.com domain for having at least one phishing URL. Also, the vendor found that the website contains URLs that direct to several phishing files.
Trustpilot
To gauge the audience’s mood, we headed to Trustpilot, where the customers can rate the website. We found that HappyMod has a rating of 3/5 based on 46 reviews, which can not be considered accurate but is only decently right.
Nonetheless, out of these 46 reviews, the majority are 1-star, challenging the high claims made by the website. The 1-star reviews range from scams to apps containing malware and viruses. A few users also complained about slow downloads or stuck download problems.
However, the 5-star reviews are contrary to the above ones. These reviewers are quite happy with the apps they downloaded from HappyMod.
So, you may be confused as to why some vendors give a favourable rating to the website while others flag it and why some customers are favourable while others are not. It could be that some apps are riddled with malware while others are not. Even with tight security, threat actors might sneak a couple of malware-laden apps on the website.
Privacy policy
Finally, we analyse HappyMod’s privacy policy. We found that the website does not collect personal information such as your name or credit card number. However, it does collect cookies that do not directly identify the user, such as analytical cookies, marketing cookies for ad personalisation, a few necessary cookies and social sharing cookies.
If you want to delete your data, you can contact the admin.
However, certain gaps do exist.
- Firstly, the website doesn’t mention the data retention period.
- Moreover, the policy does not elaborate on the data practices of other third-party marketing partners.
- The policy also does not specify security measures in place to protect the data.
- The policy is also silent on the initial consent obtained by the customers.
- Finally, the contact information is generic (a Gmail account) and is not directly linked to the organisation hosting the website.
In conclusion, we have provided evidence that the apps may contain viruses and other harmful programs that can harm your computer. Even then, if you want to download from HappyMod, you should first run the software in a sandbox and after careful analysis, install it on your computer.
Also read: Is RoPro safe?
