Is BlueStacks Safe? Answering All Your Questions and Concerns regarding Safety
Since its origins as a gaming platform, BlueStacks has been committed to providing its loyal userbase a reliable, secure, and above all, a powerful alternative to experience Android games. A platform that does away with costly devices and that doesn’t force users to conform to using subpar controls in order to enjoy their favorite Android games. A platform that takes everything that your PC has to offer, and uses it to bring even the most demanding mobile titles to life on your computer monitor, and to play them using your mouse and keyboard. This is the original idea behind BlueStacks.
However, as a platform that is completely free to download and use, it’s reasonable to assume some users will remain skeptical about what we have to offer, and what we ask for in return. Some people even jump directly to asking “What’s the catch?” And to be frank, we really can’t blame them! There are plenty of scary things on the internet, with lots of other things ending up being different than what they originally seemed like. In BlueStacks’ case, many users might question the safety and security of BlueStacks, especially when considering that it’s available for free for everyone to download.
“Is BlueStacks safe?” “Can I get banned for using BlueStacks on certain games?” “Does BlueStacks have malware?” “I Installed BlueStacks and now I have a cryptocurrency miner on my PC!” All of these things are just a small sample of misconceptions and myths that revolve around our platform on a daily basis, and which we aim to address in this article, simply because they’re not true and we want to put these matters to rest.
Simply put, we, as a company, work tirelessly to provide the best service to all our users. That much is certain and is what most would learn by taking a look at our homepage, which is where you can download the latest version of BlueStacks. However, what most people don’t know is that, compared to other emulators, we do this by collaborating closely with the largest hardware and software developers in the industry to do so. Therefore, it would do us no good to promote cheating and shady practices since there’s more than just our image at stake here.
But that’s just the logical reasoning behind why BlueStacks is safe for everyone to use. In the following paragraphs, we’re going to go over the most common questions regarding the safety of our Android emulator, including the ones we mentioned above. We hope that, through this article, we can put all your doubts and concerns regarding BlueStacks to rest.
Q1: Is BlueStacks Good?
A: Starting off with one of the most common questions about BlueStacks, which really has nothing to do with the safety and security of the platform itself, but that is quite important when it comes to functionality: “Is BlueStacks good?”
Well, we can’t really answer that without defining what “good” entails. An emulator that can successfully emulate software intended for one platform on another completely different one can be considered “good” since it achieves what it set out to do. However, there’s more to being good than just providing the bare minimum. If a platform goes above and beyond and provides compatibility across a wide variety of computers and setups, with good performance in each, and even offers a plethora of tools to enhance the player’s experience, then it could definitely set the bar for what “good” really means.
This is exactly what BlueStacks does. It’s not only good because it can emulate the vast majority of Android games on your PC, but it’s also great because it has plenty of features and perks that can significantly improve your enjoyment of each game. Whether it’s the Keymapping Tool, the Macro Recorder, the Instance Manager, or the Multi-Instance Sync features, among many others, our emulator offers features that you won’t find anywhere else.
And because we know you care about performance, well, BlueStacks is objectively better in that regard than every other emulator, too. Compared to the most popular alternatives, BlueStacks performs better in terms of CPU/RAM usage, frames per second, load time, and app compatibility. Feel free to read the article in this link if you want to learn the details but, to summarize, our results proved the following:
Using a PC with an 8th Gen i7 CPU, a GTX 1060 6GB GPU, and 32GB of DDR3 RAM (which is, frankly, overkill), we decided to perform a few tests. After running the Antutu Benchmark and performing thorough testing, we obtained the following results:
- BlueStacks: #1 with a score of 1,650,000 points.
- Nox: #2 with a score of 121,410
- KOplayer: #4 with a score of 115,339
- Memu: #5 with a score of 114,561
Don’t take our word for it; the results speak for themselves!
Q2: Does BlueStacks Require a Beast PC to Run?
A: This is the best part of BlueStacks. While some Android games require having a powerful and expensive phone in order to run properly—with some even preventing you from cranking the graphics to the maximum settings unless you have a specific phone model—BlueStacks doesn’t require a costly nor powerful PC. In fact, if you’ve purchased a new PC in the last decade, it’s very likely that you’ll already have everything you need to run BlueStacks.
For future reference here is our minimum requirements for running BlueStacks 4:
- OS: Microsoft Windows 7 and above.
- Processor: Intel or AMD Processor.
- RAM: Your PC must have at least 2GB of RAM. (Note that having 2GB or more disk space is not a substitute for RAM)
- HDD: 5GB Free Disk Space.
- You must be an Administrator on your PC.
- Up to date graphics drivers from Microsoft or the chipset vendor.
And here are the recommended requirements:
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10
- Processor: Intel or AMD Multi-Core Processor with Single Thread PassMark score > 1000 and virtualization extensions enabled in the BIOS. Click on this link to find the single thread Passmark score of your PC’s processor.
- Graphics: Intel/Nvidia/ATI, Onboard or Discrete controller with PassMark score >= 750. Click on this link to find the Passmark score of your PC’s graphics controller.
- RAM: 8GB or higher
- HDD: SSD (or Fusion/Hybrid Drives)
- Internet: Broadband connection to access games, accounts and related content.
- Up to date graphics drivers from Microsoft or the chipset vendor.
As you can see, BlueStacks runs on basically anything, including the infamous “toaster PCs.” Sure, while the systems that are on the lower end of the requirements might struggle with some of the most demanding games, they will still be able to run them with acceptable performance, especially since you can configure BlueStacks to accommodate any type of system. However, the same can’t be said for the older phones since those wouldn’t be able to even install the games, to begin with.
Q3: Does BlueStacks Have Malware?
A: We take the security of our platform very seriously, and malware, spyware, or any sort of additional software with malicious intent is NEVER something that we will package with our BlueStacks executables. This question is quite common, and we’ve never actually considered why since, from the very beginning, we’ve been nothing if not transparent regarding what we offer to our players when they download and install BlueStacks.
When downloaded from official sources, such as our website, BlueStacks does not have any sort of malware or malicious programs. However, we CANNOT guarantee the safety of our emulator when you download it from any other source. Our research has shown that those who suffer from spyware, keyloggers, or other negative consequences as a result of downloading BlueStacks, have done so from third-party websites.
To demonstrate our claims, here’s what we get from running a VirusTotal scan of the BlueStacks installer:
For your safety, please look to our website when you want to install or update your BlueStacks client. Alternatively, we also have several official Discord servers where you can interact with your fellow gamers and stay apprised of the latest news about our emulator.
Q4: Is BlueStacks Safe for Mac and Windows?
A: BlueStacks is developed considering what are currently the most popular operating systems in order to reach the largest audience possible. In other words, our Android emulator is designed to work perfectly on both Mac and Windows systems. However, the large differences between these development environments, coupled with the fact that a vast majority of our users are on Windows, make it so that implementing updates to this version is a priority for us.
Nevertheless, this isn’t to say we don’t work for our Mac users—they will eventually receive all the features we implement in the Windows version; it just takes a bit longer to get there! Regardless, BlueStacks is completely safe for use in any system, regardless of if it’s a Mac or if it runs on Windows.
Q5: Is BlueStacks Safe for Your Google Account?
A: Yes, BlueStacks poses no risk whatsoever when linking your Google account to it. In fact, BlueStacks is, quite frankly, an Android emulator that is faithful to the source material. In this sense, the process of linking your Google account, installing new games, and even troubleshooting issues with your account is done in the same way as on your phone.
As soon as you launch BlueStacks, you will be prompted to link your Google account so that you can get access to the Play Store and all its features, much like booting an Android phone for the first time, which is completely safe. If for any reason you still don’t believe us, you could create an alternate Google account and use it instead of your main. You’ll be doing this regardless if you’re thinking of using the Instance Manager since it requires a unique account for every active instance to work.
Q6: Is BlueStacks a Cryptocurrency Miner?
A: Similar to our answer in the third question, we will never pack any sort of malicious software or cryptocurrency miners with the executables that you download from our website. However, we can only vouch for the clients you download from our website, and can’t take responsibility for the ones downloaded from third-party sources. With that being said, you can see for yourself that BlueStacks is not a cryptocurrency miner by checking the app’s resource consumption in the task manager:
We’ve been running BlueStacks for about 4 hours now and it’s sitting pretty at a measly
We hope we were able to provide you clear answers to some of the questions you may have had about safety, do let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Q7: Will BlueStacks Sell Your Data?
At BlueStacks, your privacy is key to us and the identifiable information we collect as part of the registration process such as your email, or the information that is transmitted to us from third-party secure forms such as Google Play, Facebook, Twitter, etc, which are necessary for us to provide our service, are never shared with anyone outside BlueStacks. Other non-identifiable information, such as anonymous geographic locations and usage data, can be used by advertisers to better target you with personalized ads that you may be interested in.
All of the information collected, either as part of registration processes, cookies, or other methods, is used for improving our services, and to provide a much better platform for you to game on. Moreover, the information shared with advertisers and merchant partners are not identifiable in any manner, and does not expose your identity to any third parties. You can rest assured that your information is safe with us.
You can learn more about how BlueStacks collects and uses your information by reading our Privacy Policy.
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