Do NOT install Words with Friends (Installing Images in Your Gallery w/o Your Permission)

[OstrichSaK]

A while back I installed this game on the advice of a buddy. What a fun game it ended up being. Then, some time after installing I had a random folder in my gallery with images from the movie Thor. After some digging I found it in a folder called millenniamedia and promptly deleted both of them. I didn't give it much thought because I thought maybe I accidentally downloaded it somehow while browsing although that doesn't seem like a mistake I would make. Then a short while later I notice not only is it back but I now have another folder with advertising crap from the TV show Sons of Guns. Now I know something is up and I narrowed it down to most likely being the app WwF since I don't have a lot of games installed nor to I play them very often but this was the latest one installed plus the most often I played a game. I deleted those only to find another one with Winnie the Pooh installed a while later. I wanted to get to the bottom of this because this IMO is some awfully shady marketing and if you want to have ads in the game (which it does) then fine, that's understandable to bring a free product to users. Even those can be overly obtrusive and make people to not want install/use their apps. To me there's a thin line and whoever has done this has crossed the line.

To get to the bottom of this I Googled millennialmedia and came across this website discussing how to install the advertising into applications. I then took the apk of WwF from my /data/app folder and copied it to my PC to be able to poke around in it. I renamed the .apk file to a .rar and unzipped it to examine the files. After doing so I did a search for the MMAdView.jar file mentioned in the MM website and wouldn't ya know it... there it was! It was a file found in \res\values called: attrs.xml and had the following text:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
- <resources>
- <declare-styleable name="MMAdView">
<attr name="apid" format="string" />

<attr name="acid" format="string" />

<attr name="adType" format="string" />

<attr name="refreshInterval" format="integer" />

<attr name="accelerate" format="string" />

<attr name="ignoreDensityScaling" format="string" />

<attr name="age" format="string" />

<attr name="gender" format="string" />

<attr name="zip" format="string" />

<attr name="income" format="string" />

<attr name="keywords" format="string" />

<attr name="ethnicity" format="string" />

<attr name="orientation" format="string" />

<attr name="marital" format="string" />

<attr name="children" format="string" />

<attr name="education" format="string" />

<attr name="politics" format="string" />

<attr name="goalId" format="string" />

</declare-styleable>


</resources>

Right near the top. So I think it's safe to say that Words with Friends is the culprit and Zynga has made my boycott list as a result. I encourage everyone to do the same and spread the word because this sort of pervasive marketing should NOT be accepted by the end users. Keep in mind that devs will do whatever WE allow them to get away with. I used to love Angry Birds by Rovio until they blindsided users with updates that included pop-up video w/loud audio that is not only intrusive but even caused some devices to crash losing game progress.

I pay for some apps and I don't pay for others. Not paying for an app doesn't mean that I want to relinquish all control of my device to an application developer and it's awfully arrogant of these unscrupulous developers to take it upon themselves to do so and I'm sure there are good devs out there that agree with me and feel this is something that gives a black eye to the entire dev community. If making money is the most important thing to you and you can't find a way to make some money with standard advertising then you need to find something else to do.

I feel awful that several people installed this game after my recommendation and now have all sorts of garbage in their gallery they didn't put there and I shouldn't have these kinds of feelings about suggesting a friggin Android video game app.

 

[MerpsMom]

Words with Friends crashes my phone when I try it. So I deleted it from the phone but have it on my iPad.

Sneaky snots shouldn't be allowed.

Wish I knew even a small portion as much as some of the posters on here: what fun to poke around in a phone's innards.

MM

 

[frodub]

splendid work. thank you!

 

[chrlswltrs]

Words with Friends crashes my phone when I try it. So I deleted it from the phone but have it on my iPad.

Sneaky snots shouldn't be allowed.

Wish I knew even a small portion as much as some of the posters on here: what fun to poke around in a phone's innards.

MM

I'm doing the same thing, I rarely play on my phone anyways since I got my iPad. I just wish the android version of this app was as good as the iOS version

 

[Tye]

I personally don't use WWF but I have to just say well done on getting to the bottom of this. Great work.

 

[mplevy]

Odd, I use WwF on my Iconia and have no unexpected images in the gallery.

 

[OstrichSaK]

Thanks to everyone for the supporting words as well as to those who clicked the little 'Thanks' button.

Odd, I use WwF on my Iconia and have no unexpected images in the gallery.

This is the puzzling part because you're not the only one who has said this. It appears as though MM has also figured out a way to randomize the files installed, the frequency they're updated and even the users who get them. How they do this I don't know but they why is exactly what we're discussing here. Makes it a LOT more difficult to track down an app when it's sporadic because some install this app and don't see any files or at least not right away because it's not like they install at the same time as the app. Pretty crafty and I can appreciate the ingenuity but when that ingenuity is to con the end user that's simply not cool and their actions should be made public for everyone to see.

 

[Mostly Harmless]

I will stick with WordFeud, but excellent work protection the consumer.

 

[nyydynasty]

Odd, I use WwF on my Iconia and have no unexpected images in the gallery.

I'm with ya on this one. I dont have problems like this and i've been running WWF since it was initially released.

 

[Copenhagen69]

I'm with ya on this one. I dont have problems like this and i've been running WWF since it was initially released.

+3 ... only been running it for a week or so, but I checked after reading this and my gallery of images is the 4 pictures I have taken since I got my phone ...

 

[nyydynasty]

i stand corrected. I didnt have any additional pictures in my gallery but I did have a "millennialmedia" folder on my sdcard.

 

[alostpacket]

Just FYI this is part of how Android works by defualt.

The MediaScanner built into android that maintains the "gallery" database, will scan the whole SDcard for images.

That's why they show up in your gallery.

However, developers are supposed to put an empty text file named .nomedia in the folder that they want the MediaScanner to skip.

You could put this file in the folder yourself too, just create it on a pc (make sure it's not named .nomedia.txt) and put it in the folder.

But really Zynga and that ad company are being IRRESPONSIBLE and LAZY (possibly even intentionally so) for not creating the .nomedia file. It only takes 5 lines of code to write it into an app.

 

[mrsbelpit]

^zynga can't even get notifications correct, I'm thinking 5 lines of code is way too much for them.


Wow, I used WWF for the first time on my tablet 2 days ago, and yesterday found a gallery image for some game or something (I don't really remember what it said)

Thanks for the tip.

 

[OstrichSaK]

Just FYI this is part of how Android works by defualt.

The MediaScanner built into android that maintains the "gallery" database, will scan the whole SDcard for images.

That's why they show up in your gallery.

However, developers are supposed to put an empty text file named .nomedia that they want the Media scanner to skip.

You could put this file in the folder yourself too, just create it on a pc (make sure it's not name .nomedia.text) and put it in the folder.

But really Zynga dn that ad company are being IREESPONSIBLE and LAZY for not creating the .nomedia file. It only takes 5 lines of code to write it into an app.

I realize this is how Android/Linux works to scan all storage folders for images for display in the image Gallery. What ISN'T natural is the way Zynga is exploiting this using WwF to imbed advertisements that show up in the users gallery. This was no mistake or an oversight IMO.

 

[alostpacket]

I realize this is how Android/Linux works to scan all storage folders for images for display in the image Gallery. What ISN'T natural is the way Zynga is exploiting this using WwF to imbed advertisements that show up in the users gallery. This was no mistake or an oversight IMO.

Could be intentional, could be laziness - I don't know. Zynga is both (imho) ruthless and really lazy with their Android app

 

[raynoldsk]

I checked, and there it was.

If they spent half the effort to make the game actually work on Android as they did trying to be clever with their spam, the game might be decent.

As it is, the game is rarely accurate as to the latest moves in the game, the notifications are sporadic at best...but boy, can't they sneak ads in?

Deleting from my phone!

 

[alostpacket]

It seems it's also "misplacing" my games -- what's the other one people like? WordDroid? gonna try that.

 

[OstrichSaK]

It seems it's also "misplacing" my games -- what's the other one people like? WordDroid? gonna try that.

Someone in post #9 mentioned WordFeud although I've never personally installed or played it. Just passing along the info.

I will stick with WordFeud, but excellent work protection the consumer.

 

[Hightech]

Just an FYI.....

The ORIGINAL Scrabble is now available in the market for cross platform play.....

 

[OstrichSaK]

Just an FYI.....

The ORIGINAL Scrabble is now available in the market for cross platform play.....

That sounds promising. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[mplevy]

Scrabble was released July 11 with no honeycomb support? Thumbs down in my book. I'll have to keep an eye on it but not installing it at this point.

 

[raynoldsk]

If someone would develop an app that blocks those jokers I would gladly pay for it.

 

[Desire D]

Wordfeud is fantastic, and much easier on the eye in my opinion than Words with Friends, I've been playing it daily for over a year.

 

[daveoneeighty]

Wordfeud is fantastic, and much easier on the eye in my opinion than Words with Friends, I've been playing it daily for over a year.

This.

Sadly all of my friends are Words with Friends drones and I'm forced to watch as WordFeud sits unused, with its sharper graphics, better scoring system, and better functionality.

Oh yeah, and it doesn't install Captain America, Honda Fit, or some crappy tequila pictures in my gallery.

 

[chrlswltrs]

This.

Sadly all of my friends are Words with Friends drones and I'm forced to watch as WordFeud sits unused, with its sharper graphics, better scoring system, and better functionality.

Oh yeah, and it doesn't install Captain America, Honda Fit, or some crappy tequila pictures in my gallery.

Same here, I like wordfeud better also but everyone I know uses words with friends so to play against my friends I have to use that.