The original Barcode Scanner app, seemingly mistaken for malware, is getting review-bombed
One of the first Android apps - ZXing Team's Barcode Scanner, an app that predates the first official release of Android itself - is currently getting review-bombed on the Google Play Store. Hundreds of users are leaving 1-star reviews claiming a recent update spews unwanted ads, while nearly 200 more have come to the app's defense with 5-star reviews of their own.
It's not quite clear what's going on here, but the prevailing theory is that the 100 million-download strong app is getting mistaken for another one with the same exact name - one that might have been a clone of ZXing's app and one that did add malware in a recent update, according to digital security firm MalwareBytes.
MalwareBytes seems to be aware of the confusion; it...