Candy Crush Saga advertising shenanigans

[Nick_1020]

I've started to notice some rather annoying ads/popups that sometimes appear after closing Candy Crush Saga. They seem to relate to an app called CM Game Booster which I don't have installed and have never used for that matter.

Now, I appreciate that developers rely on advertising revenue (as well as the insanely overpriced addons and upgrades that they sell in their games). I can live the occasional advert during a game or even a video that can be skipped after 10 seconds or so whilst navigating game menus and options but this is taking the [language]

Here's a screenshot of the type of thing I'm seeing:


Has anyone else noticed this? Is it possible to disable this kind of thing please?

It only seems to appear after playing Candy Saga but not sure if other games/apps are affected. It never used to happen so I'm assuming it has something to do with a recent update.

Thanks for any help

 

[B. Diddy]

CM is Cheetah Mobile. They make lots of stuff like that of questionable benefit, and tend to be throw a lot of adware at you. If you tap Boost, does it actually do something, or does it send you to an app page on Google Play Store? Regardless, "RAM boosters" like that are generally useless, and potentially counterproductive. If it's a functional app on the phone, it was probably installed along with some game (presumably Candy Crush). Look through all of the apps in Settings>Apps>All, and see if you can find it--uninstall it if you find it. Otherwise, see if it goes away if you uninstall Candy Crush.

 

[Nick_1020]

CM is Cheetah Mobile. They make lots of stuff like that of questionable benefit, and tend to be throw a lot of adware at you. If you tap Boost, does it actually do something, or does it send you to an app page on Google Play Store? Regardless, "RAM boosters" like that are generally useless, and potentially counterproductive. If it's a functional app on the phone, it was probably installed along with some game (presumably Candy Crush). Look through all of the apps in Settings>Apps>All, and see if you can find it--uninstall it if you find it. Otherwise, see if it goes away if you uninstall Candy Crush.

Thanks for the reply.

I pressed boost once and it seemed to do something although I was expecting to be redirected to the Store.

If I uninstall Candy Crush, will I lose all my progress?

 

[B. Diddy]

You'll probably lose your progress, unless it saves progress to its own server, or to your Google+ or Facebook account. Do you login with anything before you start playing?

 

[Nick_1020]

I don't use Facebook so I'm a little reluctant to reinstall the app. I'm fairly new to the game but the thought of passing 230+ levels again isn't something I'd look forward to.

The last time the message appeared, I clicked the option to boost and it seemed to suggest it freed some RAM then it had another option which when pressed redirected to the Store for the app. It seems the popup is functional and as I have absolutely no CM apps installed on my phone must mean there is an addon bundled into another app which advertises the CM app.

Also, the last time the popup appeared, I opened Advanced Task Manager to see if there was any reference to any CM apps and there was nothing.

 

[B. Diddy]

This is confusing, because there actually is an app called CM GameBooster. But you say you don't see anything from CM installed, right?

 

[Nick_1020]

After a little further digging, I may have a CM app afterall...Piano Tiles.

I've set Advanced Task Manager to kill the app at boot and periodically afterwards to see if that stops the popup. So far, so good but it didn't appear every time I closed Candy Crush so I'll give it some more time.

 

[B. Diddy]

Nice detective work. That's gotta be the culprit.

 

[ahushiling]

Thank you for explanation