Question : I see on the Web that there is much about Binary Options and related services plus lots of free Apps for them. What are they and is FairOption suitable for them?
Binary Options are more akin to gambling than to the financial options used in investment management or as risk-reducing instruments used in hedging strategies. With Binary Options you 'wager' an amount, and you commonly either loose all of 'that bet', or otherwise can benefit by a fixed amount, or sometimes by an amount by which the option may end up 'in-the-money' at expiry.   The total payout on Binary Options for 'clients' over time is commonly negative overall. (Just as with playing on a roulette wheel in a casino over time.)
To try and explain it in a different way:- The reward is commonly less than the risk taken in terms of the likely total outcome over time. (And in such circumstance, is not fair to 'the investor'.) It 'goes without saying' that the marketing spiel of Binary Options sites may well not expound this 'virtue'.
Binary Options have commonly been unregulated and open to fraud and are numerously banned by regulators throughout the world. A large concentration of unregulated binary options 'brokers' operate out of Israel even though that jurisdiction (/Security Authority) has banned Binary Options recently from being sold to their own Israeli customers. As of late 2016, no such ban from that jurisdiction exists for sales to foreign customers though, . . maybe on account of the trade contributing about 0.4% to Israel's total GDP?
Although normally unregulated, in the United States binary options have been approved to be traded on the main US regulated exchanges. However even in the US, there has been numerous warnings and examples of fraudulent schemes related to binary options trading sites. Also complaints and reports concerning manipulation of software to the detriment of customers, identity theft, and failure to register with regulators. And in the case of one Israeli firm, a report of it pretending to be in the US, but whilst not actually trading on any US exchange. And despite in 2013 that Cypriot-based firm being banned from selling 'binaries' to US customers, the firm still continued online, selling binary options to many other countries. With the internet, it is obviously extremely hard to ban such unregulated transactions across borders and when based 'offshore'.
With a binary option you commonly have no possible way of selling that option before expiry (i.e. it is purely binary, having only two possible outcomes and even then, only at expiry. i.e. very like 'a bet'). Therefore FairOption is not suitable for such. The prominent links or apps you refer to, many of which are 'Free' in terms of apps that you see specifically designed for binary options, commonly do also have in-app purchases for related services. The operators obviously make their money from these additional customer purchases and services to people who are enticed by this low-level invitation 'to invest'. The operations are slick and they may also offer a 'free lunch' similar to the way casinos have traditionally offered similar 'punters' over time, or in terms of a free initial deposit (commonly with onerous withdrawal conditions). From what has been observed, they frequently describe or even emphasise that their operations are fair.
With FairOption there is no such related service and you get a powerful tool that is capable of the much more numerous and intensive calculations required to value traditional exchange-traded options that can be exercised at any time up until expiry, and can be freely bought and sold at any time before expiry, on regulated markets . These traded, non-binary options always have a close and direct link to the physical underlying security (and whether that be a stock, market index, commodity, or currency.)
At the end of the day, it is about personal choice. Many of us may like 'a flutter' on 'The' National Lottery and also probably like the fact the related proceeds go to good causes. However, it is abundantly clear that there are havens to which binary option firms gravitate, and then numerously operate to the serious detriment of decent, trusting, and well-intentioned investors. (This is a time of hardship in the world. Profiteering from poorer members is the last thing required.)
Scotland is another location where it is widely reported there are many unregulated binary options brokers allowed to use loopholes and Scottish Limited Partnerships as 'shell firms' to supply these products thus avoiding tax, but whilst actually having little or no real presence in Scotland. The UK Financial Conduct Authority has given numerous signals and issued a formal warning that such Binary Options broker firms must register with the Gambling Commission and cannot register as investment companies.
France has proposed a hard ban on binary options and Belgium has implemented a full ban.
So 'in short', the developer of the app neither wishes to contribute to, or encourage anyone into becoming involved with Binary Options.  Nor does he wish to supply any app where the customer needs to then spend additional money to be able to use main app features, or just for the 'privilege' of being exposed to binary options.
Update Sept 2022: The developer of FairOption does not agree with the promotion, or 'pushing of' gambling in any form. The view has always been that it commonly profiteers from, and takes disproportionate advantage of the situation and hopes of the most disadvantaged, desperate and vulnerable individuals in our society. The developer has never approved of binary options and now welcomes Apple's decision in 2017 (in section 3.2.2 of Appleās guidelines for developers) to ban apps which facilitate binary options from the Apple App Store.