Spam websites wont stop opening regardless of browser/clearing data/etc

[Android Central Question]

I've dealing with this really awful experience that started maybe like a week ago? I would be on chrome and suddenly spam websites would pop open. Consumerdirectx is one of them but it'll pull up a variety of spam websites like this. I checked settings, all popups were blocked, I forced stop and all the recommended stuff. It wouldn't stop so I just gave up and downloaded the free adblocker browser that had high ratings on the play store.
I'm in some other app and I get a notification saying that one of these spam sites is ready to be looked at or something in this new app. It's even happening with a completely different browser application!
I did the scan with the play store security and no issues were found. Looking up this spam site doesn't even bring anything and every iteration trying to describe my problem brings up the same advice, so I don't even know how to search for a solution to this problem.

Anyone else dealt with whatever this is????? Or recommend what to do??

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Do the popups happen only when you're on certain websites?

Apart from clearing the cache/data from the Chrome browser app, also clear all browsing data (in the Chrome settings) "from the beginning of time", and do the same on your desktop Chrome, in case anything is syncing over.

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[smvim]

The source of the problem might not be something to do with just the Chrome app, it could also be something more pervasive where some exploit is running in your user account so no matter what you do to just the Chrome app, it just gets compromised again after you try to 'sanitize' it. I'm not a big advocate of Android anti-virus/anti-malware apps but you might want to install something like the Malwarebytes app or the Bitdefender app, do a scan, and see if something gets revealed and hopefully fixed.

A more serious exploit might involve something that infects the installed Android operating system itself. Keep in mind that an exploit infecting your user account is just running with user-level permissions. That also means when you install some anti-virus or anti-malware utility from the Play Store, it also is going to run with only user-level permissions, or in other words, that utility will have full access to anything and everything within the user data partition but only very limited access to anything residing on any of the system partitions (where the operating system is stored). Because of that system-level permissions issue, if some exploit is in the operating system, you need to re-flash with the appropriate, stock ROM. Flashing the firmware on an Android device is essentially the equivalent to using a Restore disc on a desktop PC to replace the OS with a 'clean' version. But most exploits are at a user-level, only more sophisticated malware has the capability to get into any of those protected system-level partitions.