Interestingly, I just checked the QR code scanner app I have on one of my Android devices (A Samsung S6Edge abandoned and unupdateable from Android7 - without jumping through some hoops I've not been inclined to do yet).
As soon as I opened it, it popped up a dialog box with non ascii text in it (Arabic or maybe Thai script?) with yes/no options, for all I know asking fro permission to steal my contact list... I just closed the app and uninstalled it.
It was "QR code scanner free" by Application4u. It does disclose "Contains ads". 4.5 stars, 10million+ downloads. Has some expected permissions (camera) and a few less expected ones (storage/sd card) and a few very suspicious ones (full network access, prevent phone from sleeping, connect and disconnect from wifi, view wifi connections - I guess maybe these are needed for the ad serving in the free version? Seems like over reach to me...)
As soon as I opened it, it popped up a dialog box with non ascii text in it (Arabic or maybe Thai script?) with yes/no options, for all I know asking fro permission to steal my contact list... I just closed the app and uninstalled it.
It was "QR code scanner free" by Application4u. It does disclose "Contains ads". 4.5 stars, 10million+ downloads. Has some expected permissions (camera) and a few less expected ones (storage/sd card) and a few very suspicious ones (full network access, prevent phone from sleeping, connect and disconnect from wifi, view wifi connections - I guess maybe these are needed for the ad serving in the free version? Seems like over reach to me...)