The $3.99 app, which had over 30,000 downloads and gained five-star reviews despite doing nothing, was uploaded in error

The developer behind a "fake" Android antivirus app that was downloaded thousands of times has told the Guardian it was a "foolish mistake" and that users will be refunded.

Jesse Carter, whose Deviant Solutions uploaded the app on Sunday 28 March, insisted that "we never intended to scam our customers on Google Play" with the non-functional app.

Called "Virus Shield", the app shot into the Google Play paid charts. It sold for $3.99 and was downloaded more than 30,000 times between being uploaded on Sunday 28 March and being taken down on Sunday 6 April, according to app store monitoring firm Appbrain.

Ostensibly, it searched the user's phone for viruses, while also promising not to affect battery life. But in fact the app did precisely one thing: it changed its icon when pressed, to make it look like it was active. When Android Police examined the app, they found it didn't even contain any code to do anything else.

The app vanished from the store, but it's unclear whether that was due to action by Google - whose developer terms state that that apps "must not contain false or misleading information in any content, title, icon, description, or screenshots" - or Carter, who told the Guardian that the decision was his.

"One of our developers simply made a foolish mistake," Carter told the Guardian. "The app version that was decompiled by AndroidPolice was not intended to be released. It was an early placeholder that our ui designer created. There was a mix-up between the version that contained the antivirus code for our app."

He added: "After reading the article created by AndroidPolice, we immediately unpublished our app from the marketplace to upload the intended version. However, our Google Play Developer account was suspended before we could make said amendments. We have not withdrawn any earnings received from Virus Shield and intend to refund all purchases. We may possibly upload the intended version of the app for free to everyone."

The app was pulled from the store before the 15th of the month, the date when Google processes developer payments. That suggests that Carter won't receive any of the funds.

Google declined to say what action it would take over the app. It does not proactively review apps before they appear on the store. When asked why Virus Shield had been removed, a spokesperson for Google said: "We remove applications that violate our policies, such as apps that are illegal or that promote hate speech. We don’t comment on individual applications – however, you can check out our policies for more information."

Daily Tech reports that Carter is a 17-year-old Texan, who made a name for himself hacking popular MMORPGs such as Runescape. But Carter says that "the information posted about me on most of these news articles is all false, by the way."

Despite not protecting users against viruses, or doing anything at all, the app was the third most popular paid app on the entire Google Play store, and the most popular new app.

It even received high marks from users: its average star rating was 4.7 out of 5. Like the Tornado Warning app parodied in the popular XKCD cartoon, users apparently responded well to the "benefits" of the app, such as low battery usage, no advertisements, and very fast operation – without being overly concerned that it didn't get rid of viruses.



Although users can get refunds for apps within 24 hours of downloading them, it's unclear how many did so. Since Carter has not withdrawn any money, and says his developer account was suspended, the $90,000 from its sales will remain in Google's bank account until refunded.

• Millions of Android app downloads infected with cryptocoin-mining code

