APK Apps: Advantages and Risks Of Installing Them

Today, everybody uses a smartphone for communication and entertainment purposes. According to various sources, almost 85% of the world’s population, i.e., 6.93 billion people use smartphones worldwide. Your mobile phone is useless until it doesn’t have the right apps for your use.  Applications are software and interfaces that perform various tasks. For example, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, are some of the most popular apps. However, sometimes an app is paid or is not available in your country. In this case, people download APKs or Application Packages from third-party sources and then install them on their phones to use the app. However, downloading an app from a third-party source has its own caveats. In this blog, we will discuss APK Apps: Advantages and Risks you must know about. 

What Are Apps?

The first thing to discuss in this APK Apps: Advantages and Risks blog is what are apps. Applications are a type of software that has a set of functions and services it offers. Apps generally use the hardware of your phone to cater their services. If you ever download an app through your Google Play Store, your smartphone downloads, app bundles and then extracts them to install the apps. Android App Bundles or aab, are small in size and use specific codes to offer their users specific features, according to their choices. Moreover, AAB also offers improved performance as it can better understand the hardware of the device and act accordingly. 

What Are APKs?

Now that we know what apps are, the next thing to take a look at in this APK Apps: Advantages and Risks blog is APK. Android Application packages or APKs are, as the name implies, information and data packages of applications. An APK contains all the necessary files and data an app needs to run on a device. When a person downloads an APK, they download the whole application package that contains all the data. This makes sure that the application has all the features, regardless of the features you want. You can also get modified APKs of different apps from websites like Happy Mod, World Box Mod and many others. 

Some APK Apps: Advantages and Risks

There are many advantages to downloading APKs. However, there are many risks, too. Now, without wasting any time let's get through APK Apps: Advantages and Risks. 

Advantages of APK Apps

1. Lets You Install Apps Unavailable On The Play Store

A major benefit of downloading APKs is that you can download all the apps not available on the Play Store. For instance, Fantasy betting apps are not available on the Play Store in India and the only way you can download them is through third-party sources. However, you can download APKs Like Dream 11 APK and install them on your smartphone to start betting. 

2. Lets You Install Discontinued APP

Another benefit of using APKs is that you can download APKs of banned apps and still use them on your devices. Sometimes, countries ban specific apps. For example, India banned various Chinese apps like Shareit, TikTok and many others. However, you can still use Shareit by downloading its APK. Just go on Google Chrome, type ‘ Shareit APK Download ’ and press enter. There you will see multiple websites from where you can download your APK and then install it on your smartphone. Moreover,  if WhatsApp gets banned from India today, you can just go on the internet and download WhatsApp APK. 

3. Download Pro Versions Of Apps

You might have seen many developers on the Android Play Store offer a pro version of their apps, which usually comes with new and enhanced features. However, in most cases, you have to pay a one-time fee or a subscription fee to use those features. This is where APK comes in. You can download APK of paid apps and use those apps for free. These APKs are often called Mod APKs or Cracked APKs. For example, the video-playing app, MX Player, offers a pro version which costs around Rs. 480, but you can download MX Player Pro APK for free from sources on the web. 

Disadvantages And Risks Of APK Apps

Now that we know the advantages of APK Apps, let’s go on to the next thing in this APK Apps: Advantages and Risks blog and take a look at a few disadvantages of APK Apps. 

1. Untrusted Third-Party Source

Downloading and installing APKs is very easy and straightforward. However, sometimes the source of the APK is the thing in question. Third-party sources are risky and can affect your device’s security and leak your personal information. If you are planning on downloading an APK, make sure you do it through a trusted and credible source and always use a VPN to hide your IP and personal information. Also, if the source shows too many pop-ups or redirects you to a different website multiple times, it is better to not use that source. 

2. Malicious APKs

One of the main risks of downloading APKs that we need to discuss in this APK Apps: Advantages and Risks blog is this. Sometimes many sources trick you by making you download a malicious APK. You will think that you are downloading the APK of your choice, but in reality, you will be downloading malware onto your device. Let’s say that you want to download Whatsapp APK or MX Player Pro APK, you click on download and the download starts. However, the download that has started is not for WhatsApp or MX Player, but a malware that will corrupt your device and leak your personal information. 

3. Decreased performance

When you download an Android App Bundle from Google Play Store, you download the most compatible and the most safe version of that particular app. However, in the case of APK downloads from third-party sources, there can be some compatibility issues. If the app is even slightly incompatible with your device, it will severely affect the performance and the safety of the said application. This is why people download APKs from third-party sources only if the app is paid. 

Should You Download APK From Third-Party Sources?

In this APK Apps: Advantages and Risks blog we learned that downloading APK from third-party sources has both, advantages and disadvantages. However, how you download an APK and from where you download it make a significant difference. Always use credible and trusted websites to download APKs. There are many trusted websites to download APK from like APKpure, Softonic, ModAPK, Happy Mod and many others. We hope you liked this ‘ APK Apps: Advantages and Risks ’ blog. Comment and let us know which blog would you like to see next.