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Random apps keep installing by themselves

shalmu said:
codesplice, they are actually installed, downloaded and if I accidentally stare to my screen at the very moment, I can see how antivirus scans it! And yes, it is in applications, and I need to uninstall it.
Some of them are:
* mobogenie (I hate this one especially, because I remove it and it keeps installing again and again)
* Du Speed Booster,
* One "kind of" antivirus, don't remember which, an icon with a blue shield.
and lots more.

I think it's a black method to increment the "downloaded" number on Play, moving it to the top, isn't it?
Click to expand...

I am late to the movie, been on M/C vacation for a month.

Look to see who the developer of mobo genie is. Now look at the "new random app".
Are they both from the same developer?

Would not be the 1st time a dev has slid stuff under the table. When I find that kind of activity, I report it to Play Store and also make a review on the app. This you should be able to do as it installed on your device.
 
I seem to think this has to do with Amazon app store adding Amazon Underground. I get apps appearing on my home screen (taking up the whole screen). I can't uninstall Underground but I tried to uninstall the updates to Amazon Appstore hoping that would get rid of Underground. Let's see what happens....
 
Hackers leverage off exploits in the stock android system. Monkey Test (ey, are they testing for monkeys?) and Time Service, Measure, IKeypad (holy polony, are they recording key strokes?), Adode Air and others. I had similar problem, hopefully solved. I think I will avoid android devices that never update their os's to remove in situ exploits. I hate apple, but I found myself considering getting one. At any rate, I would never do banking on a android device.
 
Hi. I am also facing same problem, I have a samsung grand 2 duos.
And apps like
  • cm cleaner,
  • one second song,
  • *****************
  • and another app that looks like a blue infinity symbol
will install themselves in the background. There's also this popup that keeps showing, (active app name) recommends a funny application for you (yes/ignore) buttons, i keep ignoring but it comes back).​
One more thing, a folder com.skymobi.lockframe.iphone and random apk files keep coming back even after i deleted whenever i view files and folders in myfiles....
I've also tried both hard and soft reset, even used new memory card, but it still came back. Please help...
 
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mikedt said:
It is in the ROM.
Chinese phone with a Chinese app store sold by a Chinese vendor.

You can disable and hide it from the app settings, so it won't bother you again.
Click to expand...
First thing I did was disable Samsung apps after I reset the mobile, thinking that it was the source, but I am still having similar problems as others.

I even tried using the Kaspersky internet security free trial, it does detect an adware most times and uninstalls the app, but it is only AFTER the app was installed
 
Dotz said:
First thing I did was disable Samsung apps after I reset the mobile, thinking that it was the source, but I am still having similar problems as others.
Click to expand...

This thread is about malware apparently pre-installed in Chinese phones, not Samsung. Unless you got a Chinese knock-off Samsung that it?
 
shalmu said:
It's awful, but it has an excellent pure and fat sawtooth wave, just what I need to do a "talkbox" - while playing the note, I snuggle my lips to the phone loudspeaker and articulate it. Sounds almost as my big HeilSound TalkBox!

By the way, I made a factory reset. Nothing downloads anymore, so quiet, so calm...
Click to expand...
Factory reset didnt help me.... Please, anyone, help me?
 
Is your phone rooted? On a Samsung that's reset to factory defaults there just should not be any malware in there, well nothing like what's been discussed in this thread.
 
OK, I just re-read your prior post to the one I replied to, "cm cleaner, one second song, one privacy guard i cant recall name (icon looks like a shield with a blue lion shape)". Yeh, that sounds like Cheetah Mobile crap, which is Chinese. And unfortunately that stuff does indeed come with Samsung phones now. And I believe the only way to completely get rid of it, is to actually root and delete it. That's if you can't disable it from Application settings.

FWIW this is a reason why I'm never buying another Samsung.

FYI this thread was originally about Mobogenie(Chinese) being pre-installed on a Lenovo(who now own Motorola) phone, and that can just be absolutely full of malware, spyware and adware.
 
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mikedt said:
OK, I just re-read your prior post to the one I replied to, "cm cleaner, one second song, one privacy guard i cant recall name (icon looks like a shield with a blue lion shape)". Yeh, that sounds like Cheetah Mobile crap, which is Chinese. And unfortunately that stuff does indeed come with Samsung phones now. And I believe the only way to completely get rid of it, is to actually root and delete it. That's if you can't disable it from Application settings.

FWIW this is a reason why I'm never buying another Samsung.
Click to expand...

Im not tech savvy to do the root thing. :(
 
I think I may have solved the issue on my samsung grand 2 duos, i did both the soft and hard reset... But i noticed there was also option to delete cache partition, I did that as well...

Then after reboot, and setup, i didnt connect to internet, disabled samsung apps from app settings. So far, almost a day without the popups and apps installing by itself...
 
I also experienced that until yesterday. I even did factory reset and formatted my sd card then rebooted my phone but the apps still came back. Then i found out that my phone was unroot which i didn't do anything to unroot my device in the first place. then i rooted my device and thankfully auto download and installation stopped happening.
 
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So, i found this thread interesting.
I had not the same scenario, but very similar to this one.
So, my wife had a phone LG L Bello.
Lets say its decent phone.
Few days ago she got brand new LG Spirit from her father.
So she gave Bello to our older son and took Spirit for herself.
My son is 6 years old, going to 1st class and phones, tablets, notebooks are very interesting to him.
He loaded it with many games in just two days (mostly Minecraft) he is crazy for it.
But today he told me he is having some strange issues with that phone.
Getting some nude images, word sex and adult advertisements.
So I took it to check.
I noticed 10-ish strange apps are installed.

Please look at the pictures

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Tried to uninstall them, but they cannot be uninstalled as regular apps.
They are not in the list of the apps at all.
I checked android administrator apps and they were not there.
So I got idea to reset the phone to factory settings and get rid of it.
Done it and I was happy with it for about 5-6sec then I saw this

65aa722c2029c1f9ebd4a8a2480c4969.jpg


fcf31800268c50764adb5bbd2e89dfa0.jpg


ca11ca3e70c2262e05f55eb0ba3f55e1.jpg


b4b66183e4bf152e4407eb9620cf8b77.jpg


So, a question for android experts.
How they (apps) could survive factory reset?
And start wakening as phone starts to boot for first time after reset.

I changed gmail password to get protected (read it up in some post).
Done reset 2-3 times againd and the same thing was happening again every time.
So I rooted it, put Titanium Backup on it and found the apps.
Uninstalled them and the problems gone.

Thia ia very strange, isnt it?
 
Not strange at all, because you stated:

He loaded it with many games in just two days (mostly Minecraft) he is crazy for it.

Turn off installing from unknown sources.

Set up a gust account for your son with only those apps you have pre-approved.
 
Now, as @glc says, you need to make sure he doesn't just reinstall whatever installed the malware in the first place. Because that's how this stuff got there: your son will have installed at least one that contained malware (it's quite possible it was just one, and it installed all of the rest). Limiting installs to the Play Store will be a start, but prob. best get him to check with you before installing things, and you check that they look reasonable (e.g. check permissions make sense for what it does).
 
Can you tell me how can I stop google apps installing by themselves? I don't use them, but when they are installed I can't delete them.
 
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