[SOLVED] Full screen pop-up ads

[kirnkorner2001]

My wife and I are both having a lot of full screen pop-up ads on our phones. She is using a Samsung Galaxy S8+, an I am on a Pixel 2 XL, so its not a specific device or manufacturer problem.

There is no consistent way these are popping up, doesn't seem to be app specific. We can be typing along, and an ad comes on that takes up the whole screen. Sometimes when we go to unblock the phone, a full screen ad pops up, this is happening before we even have a chance to launch any apps. Truly annoying.

I have done many searches, and nothing I have tried is working. I have gone in and turned off Google advertising and opted out of everything I could. Most of what I have read says its a waste of time to system wipe, so I haven't gone that far yet, and would like to avoid that if possible.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Javier P]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Most likely this is caused by an app that you both downloaded. You could try this, next time the ad pops up open the recent apps overview, long press the small icon top left on the last card and then tap the info icon. See which app it opens.

 

[kirnkorner2001]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Thanks Javier!
I did the suggested steps, and found it was a compass app we both had installed. There must have been an updated in the past few weeks that changed the behavior. So far no popups after removing the app from my phone.

FWIW, the app is getting negative reviews recently due to popup ads.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trangapp.gpscompass.compassforandroid.findgps

 

[Javier P]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Thanks Javier!
I did the suggested steps, and found it was a compass app we both had installed. There must have been an updated in the past few weeks that changed the behavior. So far no popups after removing the app from my phone.

FWIW, the app is getting negative reviews recently due to popup ads.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trangapp.gpscompass.compassforandroid.findgps

Excellent! Glad you managed to find the culprit and thanks for the follow up! It'll be very helpful for other members with a similar issue.

I'm going to edit your title and add 'solved' for future reference.

 

[Golfdriver97]

I was tempted to report them for excessive ads. The developer policy seems to indicate that this may be plausible.

https://play.google.com/about/spam-min-functionality/spam/made-for-ads/

 

[randyjaco]

Most likely this is caused by an app that you both downloaded. You could try this, next time the ad pops up open the recent apps overview, long press the small icon top left on the last card and then tap the info icon. See which app it opens.

How do you get to the Recent Apps Overview?

 

[Javier P]

How do you get to the Recent Apps Overview?

What device do you have?

 

[randyjaco]

Samsung galaxy tab s2

 

[Javier P]

Samsung galaxy tab s2

I think in most Samsung devices you can open the recent apps with the button to the left of Home in the navigation bar.

 

[GH-plasma]

Thank you! This fix finally worked for me. I've suffered with this problem for a couple of months, and spent a lot of time searching the web and trying things (short of a factory reset) that didn't work. Here in this post I will add some key words that I was previously searching for to try to fix the problem, to hopefully help others find this fix of how to delete malware apps with no name or a hidden name or that appear to be a hidden app.

The symptoms I faced were that a malware app was randomly showing full-screen pop-up ads on my phone, including loud music an inopportune times. I knew to go to the "Recent Apps Overview", which on my Samsung Note 5 was a button at the lower left, to the left of the Home button. But the app that was showing the ads apparently had no name. (It had a name, but it was being hidden). It would only display for a few seconds and then disappear, so I couldn't use other tools to try to find what it was. I looked through my list of apps, and didn't see any with no name. I tried turning off notifications for most of my apps but that didn't fix it.

As stated above, the trick is that when one is in the "Recent Apps Overview", do a "long press" on the icon of the malware app, to the left of where the name should be. Then the correct name will be revealed, and an "info" icon will appear to the right. Click on the info button, which takes you to the Application Manager, for that app. There you can disable the app and uninstall it. But before doing that, at the bottom, of that page, it indicates that it was downloaded from the Google Play Store, but clicking on it to go to the Google Play store just gives the error message "Item not found, retry". This is because when these malware apps were discovered and made public sometime in the past 6-12 months, Google deleted them from the Play Store. (You can google for ["qr reader" compass android malware] to see these news items.) However, these malware apps are apparently still on ~500,000 phones that originally downloaded them. There is a "Google Protect" feature in the Play Store app, but it claimed that all of the apps on my phone were fine and did not complain about this app that had been removed from the Google Store as malware.

The key: do a "long press" on an icon in the "Recent Apps Overview" to reveal the true name of the App to be able to delete it.

 

[Robert1983]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Most likely this is caused by an app that you both downloaded. You could try this, next time the ad pops up open the recent apps overview, long press the small icon top left on the last card and then tap the info icon. See which app it opens.

Javier, hi

I have exactly the same problem with random popup ads appearing on my screen. How do I open the recent apps overview on my Pixel XL? Or you mean a current apps which I call with swipe up? I run the latest version of Android 9.

thank you!

 

[Javier P]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Javier, hi

I have exactly the same problem with random popup ads appearing on my screen. How do I open the recent apps overview on my Pixel XL? Or you mean a current apps which I call with swipe up? I run the latest version of Android 9.

thank you!

Welcome to the forums. Yes, the gesture is a small swipe up from the bottom of your screen.

How to use the new app switcher in Android Pie https://www.androidcentral.com/how-use-new-app-switcher-android-pie

 

[Robert1983]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Welcome to the forums. Yes, the gesture is a small swipe up from the bottom of your screen.

How to use the new app switcher in Android Pie https://www.androidcentral.com/how-use-new-app-switcher-android-pie

Thank you! I have already identified the malicious app Insta Save & Repost and deleted it. Much appreciated your help!

 

[Javier P]

Re: Full screen pop-up ads

Thank you! I have already identified the malicious app Insta Save & Repost and deleted it. Much appreciated your help!

Excellent! Glad you managed to fix the problem and thanks for the follow up. See you around the forums.

 

[Thorgull]

Hello everyone,

first of all, thanks for the tips and help in this thread, and sorry to unearth a Solved case.

I just got a new Nokia 7 plus, made the update to android 9 and installed all my previous apps with which I never had any issues, plus some new to replace old apps that were not maintained (utilitarian, like a kitchen timer).

And now I have the same issues as described here, either popup ads or fullscreen ads appearing while doing my everyday things on the phone.
Following the advices found here I managed to have a glimpse of the offending app in the app switcher, however it disapears before I have the time to click the icon.


I tried looking for apps with similar icon but it took the System UI icon so that's a deadend for now.


I tried using malewarebyte (the scan find nothing) and addons detector to check the apps with permissions to overlap things and uninstalled each one by one, but the ads keep coming.

So my best bet would be to be able to identify the app with the app switcher, but with the app disapearing too fast I don't know what to do.

So I'm now here, hoping any of you have any suggestion for me.

Thanks in advance for the help.
If you think I need to create a new thread, please tell me and I'll do it.

 

[Javier P]

Hello everyone,

first of all, thanks for the tips and help in this thread, and sorry to unearth a Solved case.

I just got a new Nokia 7 plus, made the update to android 9 and installed all my previous apps with which I never had any issues, plus some new to replace old apps that were not maintained (utilitarian, like a kitchen timer).

And now I have the same issues as described here, either popup ads or fullscreen ads appearing while doing my everyday things on the phone.
Following the advices found here I managed to have a glimpse of the offending app in the app switcher, however it disapears before I have the time to click the icon.
View attachment 296299

I tried looking for apps with similar icon but it took the System UI icon so that's a deadend for now.
View attachment 296300

I tried using malewarebyte (the scan find nothing) and addons detector to check the apps with permissions to overlap things and uninstalled each one by one, but the ads keep coming.

So my best bet would be to be able to identify the app with the app switcher, but with the app disapearing too fast I don't know what to do.

So I'm now here, hoping any of you have any suggestion for me.

Thanks in advance for the help.
If you think I need to create a new thread, please tell me and I'll do it.

Welcome to the forums. Some apps make things more difficult and you'll need some extra steps to find the culprit. See this guide.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=901497

 

[Javier P]

Also, that IU System app looks a bit strange. Select it, scroll all the way down the screen and see what you get under 'app details'. If it says 'installed from the Play Store' tap that option to get more details.

 

[Javier P]

This one.

 

[Thorgull]

Hello Javier P,

I followed you link and the advices on it, and after a while I am fairly certain I have identified the culprit since it's been 4 or 5 days I haven't seen any ads.

So the culprit was Zingbox, an manga reader app I have been using for many years without any issues of the kind -_-

By the way after looking on the web for it, IU Système seems legit.

Thank you again for your help

 

[Javier P]

Hello Javier P,

I followed you link and the advices on it, and after a while I am fairly certain I have identified the culprit since it's been 4 or 5 days I haven't seen any ads.

So the culprit was Zingbox, an manga reader app I have been using for many years without any issues of the kind -_-

By the way after looking on the web for it, IU Système seems legit.

Thank you again for your help

Excellent! Glad you managed to identify the culprit and thanks for the follow up! See you around the forum.