How I Found the Sneaky App With Push Ads

scaryhumor

Well-known member
May 13, 2010
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First of all, this is not a rant against honest developers that want to make a buck. This is a rant about developers that hide push ads in their apps, and don't mention it in their descriptions.
Push ads starting showing up in my notification bar this week. My first response was to open it, and find the developer responsible. I did, it took me to an aquarium live wallpaper in Google Play. Unfortunately My first thought was incorrect, in that it would be the same publisher. I had no other apps from this particular outfit.
I have Ad Detector, AppBrain, and Airpush Detector installed on my stock Vzw S3. None of them could find the culprit. After I opened the notification, it was cleared from my phone. I lost my one resource.
Then I remembered how I found & got rid of the app last time this happened, but I needed the push ad to pop up again. It did, 24 hours later.

This is important, do not tap on the notification, leave it active. I went into Application Manager in settings, and started deleting apps that I had installed in the last few weeks. As soon as I deleted the 3rd, the notification icon disappeared. BINGO! The guilty culprit was a live wallpaper called "Snowfall live free wallpaper" from AMAX Software. Nothing in the description mentions ads. I then re-installed the other apps, and I was good to go.

I did find a great article that talks about this very issue: Sneaky Mobile Ads Invade Android Phones | PCWorld
 
Good heads up for those who arnt rooted and cant use the ad-blocking apps. Also on Jelly Bean you can set it to hide notifications
First of all, this is not a rant against honest developers that want to make a buck. This is a rant about developers that hide push ads in their apps, and don't mention it in their descriptions.
Push ads starting showing up in my notification bar this week. My first response was to open it, and find the developer responsible. I did, it took me to an aquarium live wallpaper in Google Play. Unfortunately My first thought was incorrect, in that it would be the same publisher. I had no other apps from this particular outfit.
I have Ad Detector, AppBrain, and Airpush Detector installed on my stock Vzw S3. None of them could find the culprit. After I opened the notification, it was cleared from my phone. I lost my one resource.
Then I remembered how I found & got rid of the app last time this happened, but I needed the push ad to pop up again. It did, 24 hours later.

This is important, do not tap on the notification, leave it active. I went into Application Manager in settings, and started deleting apps that I had installed in the last few weeks. As soon as I deleted the 3rd, the notification icon disappeared. BINGO! The guilty culprit was a live wallpaper called "Snowfall live free wallpaper" from AMAX Software. Nothing in the description mentions ads. I then re-installed the other apps, and I was good to go.

I did find a great article that talks about this very issue: Sneaky Mobile Ads Invade Android Phones | PCWorld
 
You can also long press the notification which brings up an "app info" button which will take you directly to the app responsible.

Sent from my Sammy GS3
 
I have these adds in my notifications of Window of my Slll all the time. I also have a friend at work with the same problem on hers. I read this thread and about 15 minutes later I got another notification and i did what u said to do and presto. Its a stupid rainbow piano app. I deleted it. So wish me luck now. Thank you very much.
 

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