Sprint zone pushes adware latest update!

[oneeyecarpenter]

Greetings,

The zones latest update has installed adware on your phone. That funny(not so funny) new icon in your notifications,called "Fun and Games" is a type of mallware /adware that Sprint gifted us without notice or even asking us! They just used our old permissions and thought they were doing us a favor.(like we need MORE advertising pushed on us?) There is another thread here at AC and a link to customer care forums to voice your objections.

What happens when you open the link? Well,a browser window opens,with a redirect to playstore. Sounds like malware right? Close, it does have traits,but Sprint has tried this kind of crap in the past apparently. You would think they learned from that mistake back in 2012.

To get rid of this,open Sprint Zone and then settings. Uncheck every box! That they so generously took the liberty of subscribing us to. NOW, open you primary phone settings,then apps,scroll down and find a new app,(sprint zone) in your downloaded apps,(but wait,that was not there before)RIGHT! But I ignored this little adware sibling,because I wanted to kill the mothership. So move over to all apps,and scroll down,and what do you know,another sprint zone,hmmm. Open,uninstall all updates,and leave it there if you think this app is somehow still useful. But if you are **** off like me? Then erase all data and force stop to kill it but good.( it may restart on a soft reset,or restart)but for now,it is 0.00 !!! Now go give sprint a piece of your mind,and not phone time.

A side benifit is that when I woke up today,I had way more battery than usual. So,back to settings,check battery ,and I used to see that (android systems),and (android os) had used about 30% EACH! And Google along with all other activities made up the rest. Today,they were 2% each! Sprint Zone had been sucking up 10% of my losses overnight. From 100% to 80% in 8-10 hrs each night. So today I only lost 8% overnight! 73% Google,and miscellaneous 25%.

I would use sprint zone occasionally,but it was kind of lame. Not very useful. And now it will rest in peace. If it does resurrect,I will sick a task autokill on it !!! This bloodsucker is finished.

 

[B. Diddy]

Thanks for the tip. Makes me glad I don't have to use Sprint!

 

[McPlot]

It also will install Sprint apps you already removed like their TV and movies app and the NASCAR app.

 

[mslisaj]

Well I would like to had my two cents worth to this. I have been a Sprint customer for over 10 years. I just got a new phone in January and I deleted everything off the phone I could and I kept the Sprint Zone app. It seemed to provide some useful information and it was worth the memory space. Of the things I deleted was the "Sprint Fun & Game". I simply uninstalled it. But it came back a few days later. I uninstalled it again; then again and again. It's a memory hog too. But I kept the "sprint zone" as I hadn't tied the two programs together yet. Then I started to get the damn ad's. I went into setting and unchecked everythihng but still this "virus" "Malware" would just reinstall itself regardless of what I checked or didn't check. One time I deleted everything and it went away but then I wanted to use the "useful" features of Sprint Zone and I had to go through a whole agree policy thing. Then the damn Fun and Games would come back again and so did the ads. I finally took the advice of this thread and forum and uninstalled the "updates" and it was all zero's. But then I had Cached some damn info again on it. My last sprint phone was rooted to get rid of all this spyware and I was kind of avoiding that on this phone. But with this kind of take over of a phone that I have aledgedly purchased and "own" I don't seem to have any right to what I can have on it or now. Or how I am spied on or not.
Bottom line is I followed the instructions here, uninstalled the updates, forced stopped and cleared all the reoccuring cache and we'll see how long I can go by before this virus reinstalles itself again. Bottom line Sprint, I will just keep uninstalling it or "force close" it when it reappears. It's truly a damn virus.

Lisa

 

[Tcbemis]

I've been having terrible unexplained battery drain (android system), so I'm trying to take this advice. Unfortunately, I don't have the option of disabling Sprint Zone?!

 

[mslisaj]

All you can do is uninstall updates, clear data and cache and force stop the damn sprint zone. You also have to go into "Google play store" app and go to setting and uncheck everthing there and make sure you make it "NO auto update". I did leave the box checked to notify me of apps that got updated. This way when the darn virus/spyware gets active I know what to go back and uninstall updates and force stop again. You can get the phone just like you like it and then IF you power it off and restart it that damn thing will start and update or restart everything you have spent a lot of time turning off. There is so much junk on the phones today that it's almost impossible to make a list of what to disable, force stop, or uninstall updates but you can experiment as I did and get the phone pretty clean without rooting it. I finally have my internal phone memory down under 1 gig finally and it's a battle to keep it there but it is possible.
Good luck.

Lisa

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Using Package Disabler Pro, I've disabled Fun & Games, Sprint ID and Spring Zone. If I need anything from Sprint Zone, I'll reenable it temporarily, then disable it again.

 

[hoofbeats95]

I just got a bunch of Sprint crap when I restarted my phone yesterday. Stupid shortcuts on my screens - home screen rearranged. . Sprint zone just updated again upon restart. Is there anyway to stop this? I restart my phone pretty often cause I seem to get google services battery drain/wake lock and a reboot seems to stop that. This sprint crap is driving me bonkers.