google play and apps gone weird

[Di x]

Hi. Yesterday I downloaded a music app and a security app was suggested so I downloaded that too. Foolish of me as I think it may have been a bug. Now my google play will not work. Apps like whatsapp are not working properly. And my phone keeps going really slow. I kept getting a message that google play is not responding even though I wasn't using it. I tried to delete it and it says it put it back to the basic app. I cannot use it at all now. I've tried to find the security "thing" I downloaded to try to delete it but I can't find where it is saved. Im assuming it is this that has messed my phone up. Can anyone help? Im not very techie so plain English would be good.
Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Ugh. I assume you downloaded the music app from some place other than Google Play or Amazon Appstore. I know this is after the fact, but always remember that downloading apps or any other files from 3rd party sites puts you at significantly higher risk for malware.

The "security app" that you were encouraged to install may have changed its name after installation if it's malware, so it'd be helpful to get a full list of all installed apps (which you can find under Settings/Apps/Downloaded) to see which ones sound suspicious. Either type them all in a post or take a bunch of screenshots (hold power and volume button down at the same time until you hear the screenshot sound) and post them for us to look at.

 

[Di x]

Hi. Whilst doing screen prints I notice the download manager has been disabled. Im enabling it now and google is doing lots of updates so think it might sort it. Thanks for the advice and I will make sure I only download through play in future. Fingers crossed there is nothing nasty in there.
Thanks again.

 

[B. Diddy]

I run into a lot of posts from people who had their Download Manager disabled somehow. I imagine most of the times it's due to people trying to save memory and battery, disabling a whole mess of system apps, and mistakenly or unwittingly disabling Download Manager. Glad that solved one of your problems.

Can you tell us what security app you downloaded? If it's a legit one, no problem. If it's not very well-known, it'd be a good idea to uninstall it, if possible.

 

[Di x]

I couldn't tell you snd it looks like it hasn't downloaded so assume it was coincidence that my phone started acting strange. Looks like the download manager was somehow disabled at the same time this tried to load? Im sure I didnt do it. Anyway fingers crossed it all seems ok now. Lesson learnt for me.
Thanks again.

 

[bartyboy73]

I have had a problem almost the same..........not sure if I have downloaded something but when I switch my phone on it wont go past the screen where it says " Samsung GALAXY SIII GT-19300 " in white text on a black background.

It just sits on that and wont move on so I can not fiddle with the settings or anything. I did keep getting a message about Google Play store not working last night and it had been a bit slow for a few days.

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated!!!

Cheers,

Simon.