Adware is Still a Big Problem

[Amphenomenon]

I'm curious if anyone here has ever faces adware (ad-based malware) problems or knows someone that did.

Something happened to a colleague, like a week or two ago. Her device was basically affected by adware after downloading a app from Google play store through ads on Facebook.

I must say something that adware is something anyone shouldn't plan on experiencing while it may not be dangerous like other malware like trojan, it's still very annoying. Just imagine having ads popping up every 5 seconds or more and being redirected to Google play just because your Internet connection is on?


Such apps cannot be found directly on your device,  you have to dig to your general app list at setting and start searching for it. It's still difficult to find because it may have an invisible icon, takes some weird name or used any other means to hide itself.

All these are common among those phone cleanser and pdf, like we have often heard and that were the same app used to inflict her phone device. Here is one of the app didn't collect a screenshot of the other when I was helping her to fixed it. Although the app name was Tidy up cleaner that was what I got, but it has a green background and a brush as an app icon.

https://ibb.co/fzdcLfmg

• Although, bought app might be removed from playstore already but they gave her a hard time, that she was advised to format her phone in order to clear everything but she was scared of not being able to recover somethings on her device and backing up her device with the adware around was even more difficult and annoying.
  We could have something important that may make us not to reset your device when issues arises and I think this is one good reason why it's important to have a seed phrase backed up even if it's not your main wallet or you just had ot for only a single purpose but as long as you have your bitcoin/altcoin then it's better to backed up once created.
  
• The comments or reviews on app like this speak the truth,
  try to get people comments on a app or file before downloading/installingon your device. I remember going through the replies, people speaking of annoyingads and pop up they recieved through it, those understanding technical terms tagged it as an malicious app.
• We have been informed quite a lot of times here not to blindly trust apps from social media, app store and play stire. Watch your guard ignorancecan hunt really hard. Go thing I was able to help her.
  Here are some helpful videoslinks from YouTubetoremove it:
  https://youtu.be/GkQBEcN-BjM?si=4D1q11PVycY_PntC
  https://youtu.be/YuSQtGQyK9k?si=jem9tqUoUi8Qq1vY

[tech30338]

I'm curious if anyone here has ever faces adware (ad-based malware) problems or knows someone that did.

Something happened to a colleague, like a week or two ago. Her device was basically affected by adware after downloading a app from Google play store through ads on Facebook.

I must say something that adware is something anyone shouldn't plan on experiencing while it may not be dangerous like other malware like trojan, it's still very annoying. Just imagine having ads popping up every 5 seconds or more and being redirected to Google play just because your Internet connection is on?


Such apps cannot be found directly on your device,  you have to dig to your general app list at setting and start searching for it. It's still difficult to find because it may have an invisible icon, takes some weird name or used any other means to hide itself.

All these are common among those phone cleanser and pdf, like we have often heard and that were the same app used to inflict her phone device. Here is one of the app didn't collect a screenshot of the other when I was helping her to fixed it. Although the app name was Tidy up cleaner that was what I got, but it has a green background and a brush as an app icon.

https://ibb.co/fzdcLfmg

• Although, bought app might be removed from playstore already but they gave her a hard time, that she was advised to format her phone in order to clear everything but she was scared of not being able to recover somethings on her device and backing up her device with the adware around was even more difficult and annoying.
  We could have something important that may make us not to reset your device when issues arises and I think this is one good reason why it's important to have a seed phrase backed up even if it's not your main wallet or you just had ot for only a single purpose but as long as you have your bitcoin/altcoin then it's better to backed up once created.
  
• The comments or reviews on app like this speak the truth,
  try to get people comments on a app or file before downloading/installingon your device. I remember going through the replies, people speaking of annoyingads and pop up they recieved through it, those understanding technical terms tagged it as an malicious app.
• We have been informed quite a lot of times here not to blindly trust apps from social media, app store and play stire. Watch your guard ignorancecan hunt really hard. Go thing I was able to help her.
  Here are some helpful videoslinks from YouTubetoremove it:
  https://youtu.be/GkQBEcN-BjM?si=4D1q11PVycY_PntC
  https://youtu.be/YuSQtGQyK9k?si=jem9tqUoUi8Qq1vY

Before my issues are applications or pop-ups that is so annoying that sometimes accidentally installed to my laptop or mobile phones, to keep safe from this i installed an open source firewall to block pop-ups and applications to make sure im safe from this, and have never have to worry about those annoying things again.
Aside from that always check the reviews if those reviews are so negative and with lots of complains, i wont even try to install those apps again.

[Hatchy]

 I always use an ad blocker on my devices because ads seem to multiply and become more intrusive if I don't... It's easy to accidentally click on them, leading to unwanted installations, and it's often difficult to close them or return to the page you were trying to view. Many of these programs install themselves without your knowledge sometimes even hiding their icons and gaining permissions to access your system, making them very hard to uninstall...
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram often host these malicious programs, and it can be challenging to remove them.... It's important for all of us to be careful to prevent them from stealing our personal information or data.

[LoyceV]

Just imagine having ads popping up every 5 seconds or more

My son had that on his tablet a few years ago. Full screen ads are indeed very annoying and I ended up resetting the device. This is also one of the reasons I'd never connect any (fiat) payment system to any mobile device: I don't trust them. The crypto amount I keep on mobile is small enough not to worry about it when it disappears.

[NotATether]

I always use an ad blocker on my devices because ads seem to multiply and become more intrusive if I don't... It's easy to accidentally click on them, leading to unwanted installations, and it's often difficult to close them or return to the page you were trying to view. Many of these programs install themselves without your knowledge sometimes even hiding their icons and gaining permissions to access your system, making them very hard to uninstall...

It is the most annoying when apps are the ones displaying the ads. Especially the full-screen ads.

I get that they have to made advertisement revenue somehow, but too many of these without a reasonable option to buy a "remove all ads" one-time payment usually leads me to uninstalling the app very quickly.

[BenCodie]

I know we are talking about blatant adware that do things like provide additional/unwanted ads, though I think an even bigger problem for modern devices is that almost every application that you use is technically adware, collecting your data and information to provide you with more targeted ads. If you aren't employing strategies to limit this, some applications are able to extract data from other applications and features in the OS to improve that targeting.

While this topic isn't directly related to bitcoin, it would be great if we had the cybersecurity and privacy board to discuss topics like this as there are strategies to deter both adware and intrusive advertising which could help a lot of people (and prevent them from more extreme scenarios like losing their bitcoin to a hack). It's a shame that the admins have such a problem with the board that it's not been added or addressed despite 90%+ of the voting community wanting it.

[Porfirii]

<...>

It is the most annoying when apps are the ones displaying the ads. Especially the full-screen ads.

I get that they have to made advertisement revenue somehow, but too many of these without a reasonable option to buy a "remove all ads" one-time payment usually leads me to uninstalling the app very quickly.

In my case, I've gone even further: I've stopped using most of the apps I found unnecessary, and it's ages since I don't look for new ones in the store. Not only because of annoying ads, but they doesn't help either.

[Lucius]

I saw something similar on a smartphone a few years ago that I tried to restore to its original state - but the malware couldn't be removed from the device even when I did a hard reset, nor could any of the AV/antimalware programs I tried remove it. What I concluded is that the malware managed to isolate itself and prevented it from being deleted/removed in any way known to me.

The device eventually ended up in the trash because it was practically unusable due to countless redirects, pop-ads and advertisements. The source of everything was an app for tracking sports results that the user downloaded from Google Play - so be careful what you download, because even though it is in the store, the app is far from safe.

[stadus]

The one who made that is really clever, you won’t even notice it unless you're using dark mode. I haven’t seen any ads like that recently when opening apps, but I think I should check my phone now and see if that unnamed app exists. You can tell it's suspicious, possibly meant to steal information or redirect us to malicious websites just by the fact that it doesn’t even have a name.

[Outhue]

This is why you have to trust stock apps more than other apps.

There are stock file managers that comes with your phone, stick with them, they are more trusty and reliable, same as stock PDF readers.

If its a must to try out another app make sure it's a popular one and go through their official website, let the website lead you to the right apk on playstore, gone are the days where it's safe to search for apps yourself.

Anything app ads related must be ignored, normally ads popping up on your phone is spamming for me, you shouldn't allow this, anyways let's just be careful because this days apps steals information on phones and send through cloud to the operator.

[Amphenomenon]

This is why you have to trust stock apps more than other apps.

There are stock file managers that comes with your phone, stick with them, they are more trusty and reliable, same as stock PDF readers.

What do you mean by stock pdf?
That aside not all phones come with this and that's why many ended up installing all these and also the features they can said to be offering for free is also something that can move others for it and blindly trusting often can hit really hard.

While this topic isn't directly related to bitcoin, it would be great if we had the cybersecurity and privacy board to discuss topics like this as there are strategies to deter both adware and intrusive advertising which could help a lot of people (and prevent them from more extreme scenarios like losing their bitcoin to a hack). It's a shame that the admins have such a problem with the board that it's not been added or addressed despite 90%+ of the voting community wanting it.

Yea, unfortunately threads are constantly pushed to off topic boards where there fewer people visiting. Hope this one day added.