Unwanted apps randomly downloading

[Android Central Question]

My girlfriend's Note 4 has suddenly started getting random downloads of apps that we've never seen before this. It seems to stick to the same few (Internet, which looks like a blatant and sketchy chrome clone; Big Farm; Games; and a contacts app I don't remember the name of). Ironically she had just switched back to this phone after getting sick of her ZTE which never had this problem. We're with Cricket so it was easy enough to just put the same sim card in; the Note was previously with Verizon. I've been doing a lot of research (mostly on these very forums) and seen that this is a surprisingly common issue but none of the fixes I've seen yet have worked. Factory reset, changing Google password, using a scanner to check for AirPush adware, etc. All her apps are from the Play Store. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, a new phone isn't really in the budget at the moment

 

[Rukbat]

Internet is Samsung's web browser. I doubt that the rest of the problems have to do with the change to Cricket. They could be due to her changing her Google account. (If she had the apps on a phone connected to a different Google account, then set the Note 4 to that account, it's going to install all the apps that were installed using that account. It goes by account, not by phone.) The same for contacts. If they're normal Play store games, it's probably not a virus, just a misunderstanding of how Google Backup works. Run a phone on Account A, then use a phone that was on Account B, but change it to Account A, and you get all the apps and contacts that were on the previous phone that was on Account A,

If that makes sense, based on what she's done, that's the "problem". (And it's not really a problem. She can uninstall the apps, then add Account B and delete Account A.)

 

[Brilliana Preston]

Internet is Samsung's web browser. I doubt that the rest of the problems have to do with the change to Cricket. They could be due to her changing her Google account. (If she had the apps on a phone connected to a different Google account, then set the Note 4 to that account, it's going to install all the apps that were installed using that account. It goes by account, not by phone.) The same for contacts. If they're normal Play store games, it's probably not a virus, just a misunderstanding of how Google Backup works. Run a phone on Account A, then use a phone that was on Account B, but change it to Account A, and you get all the apps and contacts that were on the previous phone that was on Account A,

If that makes sense, based on what she's done, that's the "problem". (And it's not really a problem. She can uninstall the apps, then add Account B and delete Account A.)

Okay that makes sense for Internet but again these are apps we've NEVER seen before, and they keep redownloading every time we delete them. I didn't necessarily think it had anything to do with Cricket but it was unusual that the problem started right when we did that so I included that detail just in case it did happen to be relevant.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I honestly don't know if it will help or not, but you could try resetting the Google advertising ID. This was a solution for annoying redirects and pop ups I had a few years ago.

It's usually located Google Settings>ads>reset advertising ID.

 

[jljecj]

It's a stock app called DT ignite. You can disable it.