antivirus app for android

March 16, 2020 4:16 PM

How can I stop pop ups/virus/malware on my Samsung galaxy S7?

A few months ago all of sudden my phone started getting popups. Popups with things like you have a virus, you are the billionth person on google, etc. It happens when I'm on chrome but also happens when I'm on other apps...even just talking on the phone and it happens. I've spoke to Verizon and they recommended removing recent apps which I did. They also had my put the phone back to original settings(not a full clean reset) but just the settings. None of it has helped. Can anyone recommend a safe antivirus app for android or perhaps another solution other then doing a full clean re-install on the phone? Thanks in advance!

posted by ljs30 to Technology (3 answers total)

On your android device, these popups are called "notifications", and you have to allow apps permission to make them. If you go into your settings and search for "notifications", you can get to the "apps & notifications" setting page. There, you can see a list of what apps have recently given notifications. If you do this right after receiving a spammy pop-up, it should be easy to spot the culprit.

The app pushing the spam notifications is probably something that you downloaded because it was free and seemed useful or fun. I would uninstall the culprit because it is probably doing other scummy stuff with your private data, but you could just turn off its ability to send notifications if you think you really need the app.

I'm recommending trying this yourself because downloading and running un-vetted apps (like a random "anti-virus" app) got you into this in the first place. In the future, don't automatically answer "yes" when apps ask you for permissions. Many free apps will ask for lots of permissions they really don't need, and then do unethical stuff with those permissions.
posted by agentofselection at 4:34 PM on March 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also - as soon as you get a pop up hit your app list and sort my most recently used. The offending app will be on top - used 2 seconds ago - which may help you track down the source of the pop ups.
posted by COD at 8:17 PM on March 16, 2020

Can anyone recommend a safe antivirus app for android

Maybe malwarebytes (note: I've personally used it on windows but not android).
posted by trig at 6:09 PM on March 17, 2020