More Free Apps!

Since everybody loves free apps, here’s another way to get some free Android goodness into your phone.

There’s a website called 4Shared.com that is a general online file repository, which is a fancy way for saying a place where people can upload files online and leave them for others to download.  It consists of all kinds of files, but we’ll be focusing on the Android apps.

From your phone’s web browser, go to 4Shared.com.  You will be presented with a basic search bar.  Here you’re going to type the name of the file you’re looking for, but you have to be very particular about how you type it.  Android apps all end with the extension “.apk” so you have to type the filename followed by the “.apk” extension.  For example, if you were going

4Shared Home Page

to look for Z4Root you would type z4root.apk (don’t worry about capitalization).

Sometimes you still won’t get a hit on the file which means you’ll have to try some different variations on the filename.  Typically, this means putting an underscore ( _ ) in between some of the words in the title.  So for example, if angrybirds.apk didn’t come up, I would try angry_birds.apk.  Since 4Shared.com is just a big warehouse of apps, it can’t really interpret what you’re looking for as well as if you were searching in the Android Market.  This just means you have to have a little creativity in trying out file names.  Of course, if nothing is working, it could also simply mean that that file has not been uploaded to the site.

Search Results

When you find a file you’re looking for, you may find a whole list of files that have been uploaded.  Usually they will have a number near the name indicating the version of the app.  Typically, it would be beneficial to download whichever one appears to be the latest app.  Just keep in mind that if you download the file and it doesn’t seem to work right, you may be better off uninstalling it and going back and downloading an older version.  Sometimes different versions were originally intended for different models of phones or different versions of Android.  Also, when selecting a particular file, you an also see the number of times it’s been downloaded.  I’ve found that the versions with the higher number of downloads are usually a safer bet.

Waiting for Download Link to Appear

After you click on the file you’re looking for, the next screen will show a message saying “Your Download will be ready in 20 seconds” and have a count down timer.  Sometimes that countdown can be up to 320 seconds.  They only do this to slow you down so that you will buy a paid membership to the site and be able to download without waiting.  Once that countdown ends, a link will appear.  Click on it and your download should begin.

One of the benefits to using  a site like 4Shared.com is that you can find apps that aren’t in the Android Market.  For example, Z4root is not (at the time of this article) on the Android Market so the only place you will find is in file sharing sites such as this.

As is the case anytime you’re installing apps that did not come from the Android market, make sure you have some kind of spyware and malware security installed on your phone because you never know what you’re really getting.