'Tis the season to delete all those apps you don't use

When it comes to your privacy, the worst apps are the ones you stopped using.

If you have an Android phone, you have something in common with everyone else who has an Android phone, no matter how different you might be — you have at least a handful of apps installed. Google Play is filled with well over a million apps and there are some that you like and use every day. Others you thought you might like but for one reason or another didn't use them. Everyone here at AC does the same thing. Super-cool-fun-time app looks freaking amazing and we all install it, then some of us realize we just aren't into its super-cool-fun-stuff. No biggie, since most of them are free.

Except, nothing in life is ever really free. You're trading a bit of personal information about yourself instead of currency to get those free apps.

You might have read folks saying that it's often not a great thing to have apps that collect your data. Sometimes that's true and there are apps that are just a front for some malicious data collection designed to get the information you would never freely give. But most of the time, you're trading things like where and how often you buy coffee, the length of your daily commute, what music or video services you use, and other relatively mundane data, for a "free" app. Only you can decide if the trade is worth it, and I like to think that for most people it is and they read what an app can when they install and grant permissions.

In any case, all that goes out of the window when it's an app that sits on your phone and you don't use but it's still gathering that data about you. Maybe you still don't care if it knows you went to the barber on Saturday or that you shop at Target. But do you care that you're paying for something you aren't using? I'm guessing the for most people, the answer is yes.

I know that plenty of people never think about their online privacy and that despite all the horror stories you might read (true or otherwise), companies like Google, Samsung, and the small independent developer that made your favorite app aren't trying to steal your identity or funnel money from your bank into theirs by tricking you. (The jury is still out on Facebook.) Data collection is a legitimate business and as long as both parties know what is changing hands — your giving data and getting something in exchange — it's not much different than any other sort of transaction. Read the terms, make the decision, and enjoy the service.

Exceptions happen, though. There will always be people who leverage the promise of some great tool or game or any other sort of app you want but are really only trying to get your information and sell it off to the highest bidder, or even use it themselves to do something horrible. Hopefully, you haven't been unfortunate enough to stumble across any of these developers during your hunt for the best apps. But if you did, you definitely don't want their apps hanging around when you're not using them. You also don't want an app you forgot about being installed if there happens to be some sort of data breach inside the company that developed it. Even better — if you know you'll never use an app again, before deleting it go into the settings and see if there's a way to close your account and purge your data.

I don't want to inject any doom and gloom into your holiday times, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. Take a few minutes to look through your app drawer and uninstall everything that you don't use, or disable everything you don't use if you can't uninstall it. And if you happen to get a new Android phone as a gift, be extra mindful about the apps you reinstall. You never know when you'll read something that makes you really glad you did.

Here's wishing you a happy holidays, and good times all around!