In the age of technology, we all love to beautify ours pictures by using some random photo editing apps before posting them on social media. Well, this could be harmful for you as well as your smartphones. There are several photo editing apps available on Google Play that guarantees transformation of everyday pictures into extraordinary photos. But, not all of these beautifying or photo editing apps are not safe to use. According to the recent report, Google removed about 29 malicious apps that were spying on the users, which was confirmed by Trend Micro. Google Highlights These Simple Steps To Remain Safe on Internet.

The security firm confirmed that these 29 photo editing applications on Google Play pushed intrusive screen ads as well as managed to steal information such as private pictures. Moreover, it is important to note that certain Android apps were downloaded millions of times by the users, which is a huge number of download particularly from India.

As per the report, the users will be able to find any inappropriate things on these apps at the time of installation. However, the apps starts behaving weirdly when the user attempts to delete these apps and could never do so. After being launched, these apps create a shortcut which is generally hidden from the app drawer, thus it becomes difficult for the users to uninstall them from the smartphone. Google Deletes 29 Apps that Steal Users' Information

Some applications pushed full screen ads on the phone screen like spam content as well as porn images via phone browser. It is also reported that some applications also redirected the users to fake websites seeking private details such as phone number and address. The report further highlighted that a paid online pornography player was downloaded when clicked on the pop-up.

Other set of these beauty apps were found stealing photos of the users. The report claimed that these apps uploaded the images of the user to a private server instead of a designated server. Later on, these images were used for pornography websites or making fake social media accounts.

Here are these 29 malicious photo editing apps that were removed from the Google Play Store by Google -

1. Pro Camera Beauty

2. Cartoon Art Photo

3. Emoji Camera

4. Artistic effect Filter

5. Art Editor

6. Beauty Camera

7. Selfie Camera Pro

8. Horizon Beauty Camera

9. Super Camera

10. Art Effects for Photo

11. Awesome Cartoon Art

12. Art Filter Photo

13. Art Filter Photo Effcts

14. Cartoon Effect

15. Art Effect

16. Photo Editor

17. Wallpapers HD

18. Magic Art Filter Photo Editor

19. Fill Art Photo Editor

20. ArtFlipPhotoEditing

21. Art Filter

22. Cartoon Art Photo

23. Prizma Photo Effect

24. Cartoon Art Photo Filter

25. Art Filter Photo Editor

26. Pixture

27. Art Effect

28. Photo Art Effect

29. Cartoon Photo Filter

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 04, 2019 07:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).