Is the Android virus warning to remove a virus from the Samsung 6 real?

[AC Question]

The last two days I've had a scary looking Android pop up message on the phone. It says my phone has a virus and should be removed. I god rid of the pop up on both occassions. I'm just wondering if it's a real message and should I follow the instructions to remove the virus?

 

[SpookDroid]

Most likely it's an ad being pushed to your phone. If it's the real deal, it should pop up AND appear as a notification in your notification bar. If it's there, you should be able to tap and hold on it to get info on the app that's making it appear. If said app is an antivirus app you installed, then it might be real. If not, it's an ad, and I'd recommend you install Lookout's Ad Network Detector to see which app is pushing them.

 

[Crashdamage]

It's probably bogus, thrown up by software trying to either:

A. Scare you into buying more so-called 'security' software. Turn your money into theirs.
B. Scare you into installing some sort of malware. Again, to turn your money into theirs.
C. Both of the above.

Have you installed any task killers, RAM memory optimizers/boosters, battery savers/repairers, cache cleaners, antivirus, etc? If so, uninstall them immediately! Hopefully, that will stop the warnings.

Android since v1.0. Linux since 2001.