I'm not sure about awesomefreesoftware.example.com, but download.com, tucows.com, etc used to be hugely popular sites and they had similar automated publishing

I'm not sure about awesomefreesoftware.example.com, but download.com, tucows.com, etc used to be hugely popular sites and they had similar automated publishing mechanisms (I published my first shareware app that way, i apologize for that). Some of those had much worse problems, albeit leaning towards bloatware and annoyware for sure. Caution is a good policy, but it shouldn't cripple your usage of a device. Use reviews and word of mouth to gauge the legitimacy of an application. Steering clear of "free tv shows free" makes sense, but not installing Facebook or Twitter seems silly overreaction.