Warning: this could be a fake listing on the Store

Jul 23, 2018 05:11 GMT  ·  By

LibreOffice, which right now is considered the top alternative to Microsoft Office, landed on the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 devices, though the listing seems a little bit bizarre at first.

The Document Foundation rolled out LibreOffice as a completely free productivity suite, yet on the Microsoft Store, it is offered with a $2.99 price tag.

There are several signs that this may be just a fake listing from someone trying to make some money out of LibreOffice’s popularity.

While the $2.99 price tag is said to be used for donations only, the name of the publisher isn’t The Document Foundation, but a developer called .net. Furthermore, there’s no official announcement on TDF’s website, and the Microsoft Store listing has only two reviews, despite this being the most popular Office alternative and it’s offered free of charge.

No official word on it yet

Somewhat surprising is that getting this alleged LibreOffice for Windows 10 actually downloads the productivity suite, so you’ll end up using Writer and Math just like when downloading the Win32 installer. The app is offered as a trial, hence the $2.99 price tag, but users are said to be allowed to continue running it even when the offer comes to an end.

Without any official announcement in this regard, I recommend you to avoid downloading this version from the Store, or if you do, at least don’t pay for it. LibreOffice is completely free of charge, and you can always get the Win32 installer to enjoy all its features without spending a single cent on it.

We have reached out to Microsoft to ask whether this is a fake listing or not, and if it is, expect it to be removed shortly. This wouldn’t be the first time someone tries to capitalize on the popularity of a well-known app, but with Microsoft focusing so much on quality and less on quantity, a fake LibreOffice version in the Microsoft Store would be quite unexpected.