Remove These Hidden Android Apps Immediately From your Device
If you have any of these 15 sneaky apps on your Android device, it’s time to go on a digital hunt and delete them. According to Sophos, these adware apps are doing everything they can to hide themselves on your device and inject crappy advertising into everyt…
If you have any of these 15 sneaky apps on your Android device, its time to go on a digital hunt and delete them. According to Sophos, these adware apps are doing everything they can to hide themselves on your device and inject crappy advertising into everything you doand more than 1.3 million devices worldwide have at least one of these apps installed.
The apps in question are:
- free.calls.messages
- com.a.bluescanner
- com.bb.image.editor
- com.cc.image.editor
- com.d.bluemagentascanner
- com.doo.keeping
- com.e.orangeredscanner
- com.hz.audio
- cos.mos.comprehensive
- com.garbege.background.cutout
- com.hanroom.cutbackground
- com.jiajia.autocut.photo
- com.jiakebull.picture.background
- com.fruit.autocut.photo
If youre more of a visual learner, heres a roundup of what they looked like on Google Playcourtesy of Sophosbefore Google removed them.
Whats most damning about these apps is the creative techniques they used to bury themselves on your device (to make it easier for you to forget them and trickier for you to remove them). For example, an app might appear in your app tray at first, and when you launch the app, youll get a bogus warning about it being incompatible. When youd go to look for it in your app tray again, however, the apps icon will have disappeared.
These malware apps might also use different names to refer to themselves when youre trying to find (and uninstall them) via your Settings app versus when theyre actually running.
The name of the game is confusion: The more they can make you work to find and uninstall them, the more likely it is youll give upor be unable to.
Going forward, the best way to ensure you dont get hit with crafty adware like this is to make sure youre downloading apps that youve heard of (or have been independently reviewed by others), rather than any ol thing you find on Google Play. Additionally, check the Google Play reviews for apps before you download them. If a lot of people are reporting than app is a scam, or adware, you probably wont want to put it on your device.
