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Seeing ads in my notification bar?

Read this thorough and helpful post about how to protect yourself from these and other threats.

Download software that will help you identify some of the apps that are pushing this aggressive type of advertising to your phone.

These include AdDetector, AirPush Detector, Addons Detector, and more.

I downloaded these very helpful tools, ran them all, and identified one app in particular about an hour ago. (the hour before I'd been pulling my hair out with these annoying ads and indiscriminately uninstalling recent installations.

I haven't had a problem since. I hope that with these kind of tools, more and more android users will be identifying, "outing," and voting down the apps that are deploying these aggressive ads.
 
I had the same problem some weeks ago, I installed Frog Volley and notification ads started to appear.

When I went to it's description page in the market (to leave them a very bad comment) I saw that they got an "add blocking feature", and free!

So I went to the game settings (a dialog appeared) and simply followed what they asked and ads are gone since then. I think I've read somewhere that they block ALL airpush notifications, of all apps! I can't proove that, but I haven't found more notification ads.
 
I had two applications on my phone, all of which were detected with AirPush Detector.

One was "Steelers Clock"
Another was "Steelers Live Wallpaper"

Pretty dissapointed someone used my love of the Steelers against me! lol
 
I used AirPush Detector and found that the app that was causing my advertisements to pop up of this "Star" sort was "Fresh Network" by MCStealth. This is also called "Network Signal Speed Booster" by google play. Of course a Free and Pay version are available. I can tell you that the "Free" version comes with Airpush.
 
Yes it is - now called PinMyPhoto - STILL airpushes ads! How annoying since many like Pinterest - I'm emaiing a complaint to them.
AddOn Detector detected the malicious app. I donated a mere $1.99 and now AddOn Detector scans every app I download :>)

Thank You to THIS FORUM for telling me what to do about these unwanted notifications!
 
I had the thing happening and downloaded Addons Detector and it found it was my MP3 Music Download App. Uninstalled and sent developer a rant. I have downloaded 3 other music apps and they all 3 had the spam notification air push crap. Hate them and gave all of them a low rating before I uninstalled.
 
Thanks Harry. I didn't end up trying your advice because I didn't need to. I just ran a scan again with Addons Detector and it cornered the offending app (I hadn't read the bit in Addons that states it only scans notifications received in the last 48hrs which is why I mistakingly thought it couldn't detect the offending notification - told you I was a NOOB!)
Here's the weird bit however....Addons id'd the app as 'TANK 2012'. I have never installed that app (or even searched for it on Google Play). I don't know where it came from unless it managed to piggy back in to my phone through the original offending app 'Helidroid 3D'.
Anyway, I've used Addons to uninstall it now and will see if that has stopped it. Have a nice day!
Rob.

can you tell me how you got the app to scan less than 48 hours? there is no option to do so in the app? it keeps on saying nothing is found in the notification monitor, i registered to get help on this i have the speech bubble with the green smiley face and i've tried all the recommendations on these forums to remove it but nothing can detect it, i think the last resort would be to delete everything and start again but i hope i don't have to do that.

found the culpurit!

it was go keyboard! i used the "Addons Detector" to look through my apps, and i remember recently updating go keyboard too, under the apps it said "push notifications" and a game name, as soon as i uninstalled go keyboard the green smiley face disappeared and i had kept the thing there all day too to try to identify what was causing it to pop up, i will gladly not install go keyboard in the future, it's so laggy anyway and i advise anyone to not install this program even if its free!
 
If you have this spam icon in your notification bar, did you try to use the phone's log (logcat) to catch the culprit app ?

At this thread was the culprit app successfully catched with a logcat :)
http://androidforums.com/showthread.php?p=4559226

Edit: Ah, I see in your updated post that you have found your culprit app with 'Addon Detector'.
Glad to hear :)

Harry
 
Eww. No way airpush or leadbolt is getting my imei number. My offender, oddly enough wasn't either. It was either quattro or Mobfox. No way of knowing which, but my ads are gone! Yay. I think it is terrible when they don't warn you that they are going to spam you. I had to live with these ads for like a month. Forced advertising should be illegal.


Damn straight. There is NO way I would put that kind of info into those dirtbags hands. Not only is this kind of advertisement unethical, but the ads they are sending are shear garbage spam/scam/trojan sites. I got one of these yesterday and one today, I hadn't installed anything I didn't already have so I thought it was AT&T doing it. Turns out I had installed a free wallpaper that I had not even used or looked at yet. I'm abou tto go give them a serious tongue lashing.

I had a (spam) push notification from Leadbolt in my notification tray. Used Addons Detector and found out it was coming from Nightfall Live Wallpaper Free. Uninstalling it and leaving a negative review.


DING DING! That's what did it to me. :mad:
 
Hi

what is the big problem???
So you get an ad in your notification bar, once in a while.

All the apps i have published are serving notification ads. When the ad show up, all you have to do, is to open your notification bar and press clear and the ad is gone. very simple. The next ad will show after 36 to 48 hours and again press clear and it is gone.

The thing is, that the banner ads gives a very low income, so low that its not worth doing the work of programming.
Even with the notification ads, it is difficult to make it worth the time spent on making free programs for you.
If you want to avoid thse ads, you could make the apps/games yourself.

kind regards
jmich
 
When people install your app from the market, does the description tell them that it will serve notification ads?

Speaking personally (i.e. not in any way representing the forum), I think it's fine if people are told before installing. Then they can make a choice, and if they discover that they don't like the ads they know what to uninstall. Offering a choice of free or paid is even better, though I appreciate that many people will not pay for apps (or cannot, depending on where they live). But many developers are including push advertising while giving no indication to customers that they are doing so. In these cases the app is being placed without the owner's consent, and that is clearly a different matter. Go Keyboard, which was being discussed here, is a case in point.
 
I know most existing phones won't get the Jelly Bean update, but FYI Jelly Bean gives you the option to prevent apps from displaying notifications, so if you find an offending app in JB, you can keep the app installed but ditch the adware.
 
OK my wife has been getting these stupid notificaitons now for about 2 weeks. I have installed Addons Detector and Airpush Detector and nothing is found under notifications. The things come at all hours of the day.

Any idea on finding who is sending them? She is on 4.0.4 atm.
 
My main guess would be that its an app. Which one could it be I don't know. You could ask when they started happening and if it started after a specific apply was installed.
 
OK my wife has been getting these stupid notificaitons now for about 2 weeks. I have installed Addons Detector and Airpush Detector and nothing is found under notifications. The things come at all hours of the day.

Any idea on finding who is sending them? She is on 4.0.4 atm.
At this thread the culprit app was catched successfully with a logcat :)
http://androidforums.com/showthread.php?p=4559226

Another option to catch the culprit would be to install the app 'Notification History'.

Harry
 
I ended up with some kind of ad crap from clicking on a video demo in the play store. A small box at the bottom of the screen said something about being put on my home screen and when I closed play store there were 3 New icons. I deleted them and there are no new apps but the stars appear randomly.

I went back to the store to figure out what app it was and it was the video for the paper camera app.
 
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