Kellen
This morning, HTC and Keeper Security announced a new partnership that will allow the password locker company to pre-install their Keeper app on your newly purchased Android device. If you are at all like me, you just read that as “HTC has partnered with Keeper to pre-load more bloatware on your new phone.”
By pre-loading Keeper, HTC is giving their customers a chance to get in on the password locker game, which means prompts to save passwords, create stronger ones, or autofill forms. It also means that your passwords are all stored in one place and are accessible from anywhere. Password lockers are actually quite useful (I use LastPass multiple times per day and love it), assuming you don’t mind a 3rd party outfit having every single one of your passwords kept behind supposed lock and key.
In today’s announcement, HTC also says that when a customer with a Keeper-loaded device opens a website or app, they will be prompted to sign up for Keeper. Hopefully, for everyone’s sake, that only happens once and isn’t a prompt that continually shows up.
Look, password lockers like Keeper are quite useful to those interested in them, but bloatware is bloatware. And bloatware that prompts you to use it isn’t something anyone is asking for. I don’t mind partnerships between manufacturers and app developers – they just better make it clean (allow uninstalls) and not spammy.
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