Mystery icon on Android home screen

November 17, 2021 3:50 AM

This mysterious icon appeared on ms flabdablet's Huawei Y5 phone this evening without her having done anything to put it there on purpose. Neither Google Image Search nor TinEye can tell me what it is, and no app whose name begins with "Secure a hacke" appears in the Apps list under Settings. Anybody recognize it?
posted by flabdablet to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

I think it's some sort of web shortcut. For example, in Chrome on Android, I can go to the three dots menu and choose add to desktop and it puts the shortcut on the desktop. Lowercase title is possible and happens. My shortcut icons also have a chrome logo, but if there's a different browser that behavior might be different.

Also in my build of Android, if I long press an icon one option is "app info" - maybe that's worth checking for this mystery icon.
posted by papayaninja at 4:01 AM on November 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

I don't know if this will help, but a different icon was added to the home screen after my phone had been upgraded to Android 12. After a lot of research, I was able to turn it off under Settings > Accessibility > Downloaded apps.
posted by davcoo at 4:11 AM on November 17, 2021

Best answer: Looks like a mobile browser shortcut, saved to the desktop, for the Google page "Secure a hacked or compromised Google Account"
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:49 AM on November 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: When I visit that page on my own Android 10 phone and tell Chrome to add it to the home screen, the resulting icon is a similar white G on orange background. but with a smaller corner radius and a Chrome logo badge overlaid bottom right. Doing the same thing with Firefox gets me a white S on an otherwise plain blue icon, slightly bigger and with even sharper corners, and a Firefox logo badge.

I think ms flabdablet uses Chrome, but it's possible she's still on whatever horrible default browser Huawei chose; I know she uses their horrible default launcher. Next time I have her phone in my hands I will try deliberately saving browser shortcuts to see what happens, but I think there's a fair chance that's it. Thanks, NotMyselfRightNow.
posted by flabdablet at 5:12 AM on November 17, 2021

It might be a diferent looking version of Getty contributor.
posted by Oyéah at 3:36 PM on November 17, 2021

Response by poster: Seems Huawei's default launcher doesn't add browser badges to home screen web shortcuts, so NotMyselfRightNow has it. There had been some mysterious incognito tabs opened in Chrome as well, so this looks like a case of cats operating a phone left unlocked on the charging table. Thanks again.
posted by flabdablet at 7:03 PM on November 17, 2021 [2 favorites]