7 Things You Should Do Before Downloading App From Outside of App Store

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here's what you need to do before you download any app from outside the Mac App Store. 

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Now there is a ton of Mac software out there. At lot of it is in the official Mac App Store. You can get those through the App Store app on your Mac. But not everything is there. Developers have various reasons for providing their app outside of The App Store. If you're going to download an app from outside The App Store you should be concerned about security and privacy. Is the app a security risk? Is it going to keep any information you provide it private? Here is some steps you should go through before deciding to download and install an app from outside of The App Store. 

First, check The App Store. See if the app is in there. There are two cases where you can suddenly find the app that you're looking at outside the app store in the app store. One is the developer may actually be providing it through The App Atore. Most developers have their own website anyway and if you actually click to download you go to The App Store and get it from there. So great! You don't have to worry about the rest of this. But sometimes developers have it both in The App Store and outside The App Store. Sometimes they do that just because they can update their app more frequently outside The App Store. So providing some updates in The App Store and all updates outside. Sometimes they can have more functionality outside The App Store. If that is the case read about what the differences are and just decide which one to go with. Going with the one inside The App Store is usually a good idea. I particularly like how easy it is to get updates through The App Store. But if there is some good reason to get it outside of The App Store then you should continue following the rest of these steps to determine if that is a good idea. 

Now before I get too far in this list you should really think about whether or not you really need this app. A lot of people get in trouble with downloading apps and installing things they shouldn't on their Mac. What's really sad about that is a lot of times people don't need the software. It is just something they are curious about or something that looks neat and they download it and get into trouble. They could have just skipped it. It wasn't something important. They don't need it for work to get something done, to boost their productivity or something they are really going to enjoy using on their Mac. Think about that when you download something. You could lower your risk considerably by downloading less software. I think a lot of people who get in trouble with malware on their Macs download a lot of software and they eventually hit something that is bad. If you're somebody that occasionally, maybe a few times a year download something, then you're at much less risk. 

Now if you're going to go download a piece or software you should trust the software and the developer. But that's not always possible because maybe you've never heard of that piece of software until now when you think you need it. So what do you do? Well, just start simple with a web search. Search for the name of the software. Go and search for things like is it good, for reviews, just see what comes up. You're not looking for any one site or source specifically. You're looking to get a general idea. How many different publications talk about it. How many have reviewed this. Are there any mentions of trouble. Look for different sites, especially ones that you might recognize and trust and see what they have to say about it. 

What they have to say about it is maybe talking about a technique that is interesting in the app or some little thing that it is good for. It is good maybe to see a mention from three years ago saying this app is useful in some case. That shows that it has got a history and that some other site and people trust it. Also, look for it in Wikipedia. If software has been around for a long time and a lot of people use it chances are there is a Wikipedia page for it. You could be sure that if people have security and privacy problems that somebody probably has mentioned it here. If it is just a simple description of the product and maybe a little bit of history then that is a good sign. 

Then also do specific searches for safety and security. Search for the name of the app and security issues or privacy issues. Now finding a couple of bad things here and there may not mean that you have to completely avoid the app. If an app has been around long enough and it is popular enough then probably there have been issues over time. If you can find out the developer has addressed them that's actually a good sign. Apps are kind of like people. If they get to be famous and really popular they are going to get a lot of people saying nice things about them. But they are also going to get some haters. So keep that in mind when searching. 

Next you should go to the developers website. Find the official site for the developer and for the app. Check it out. See what is there. Look for privacy policies. Look for support pages. Look for contact information. Look for blog posts. Look for instructions about how to uninstall for instance. You can gain a lot of trust by seeing what the developer has put on their site. Another good reason to look for the developer's site is you should only be downloading from the developer's site if you are not doing it from The App Store. Sometimes if you search for an app, an app that you may have heard of before and trust, you could find that there are tons of download sites. Download sites should have gone away a long time ago. But there are still a lot of them there. Places you can go to and download the app. There really is no reason to ever go to a site like that. Go to the official site for that developer which hopefully should be near the top of the listings. Download only from them. One of the main ways people get in trouble is when they trust the app but they then download from a site that they shouldn't trust. What they are getting is not really the app. It is an altered version of the app or maybe not the app at all and they have just installed malware. 

Now if your research shows that the app isn't that popular, maybe you don't find that much information about it, maybe you still don't trust it even after searching around, one of the things you can do is look for an alternative. Just because you've discovered an app that doesn't look interesting doesn't mean it is the only app that does that. Maybe look in The Mac App Store and find out if there is another app that does that. Search the web too. Maybe there is a really popular app that's easier to trust that does what you need. 

Finally, ask your peers. If the app is for a specific industry, like say a graphics app and you're a graphic artist, or say a music app and you're a music creator, then ask the other people in your industry. You probably have places online that you go to talk to other people that do the same things that you do. You can get advice from them. You can see what they're up to. Ask them about the software. See what they have to say. If nobody has ever heard of it that's not a good sign. But if a few people have you may be able to get a recommendation from somebody you trust that says, yeah I've been using that for years. Go ahead and download it. Or maybe suggestions for alternatives. 

So I hope this gives you some idea of how you can do your research to make sure that third party software, outside The Mac App Store, is safe and secure before you download it and install it. Thanks for watching.