People usually associate malware with desktop computers. However, Android phones are just as susceptible to malware attacks as your home or office computer. A large portion of the malware that affects Android happens to be adware. Adware was the third most prevalent malware infection affecting mobile phones in the second half of 2018. When devices pause for no apparent reason or display unwanted ads in unusual locations and at unusual times, it’s a sign that your Android may have adware. Luckily, identifying the adware, malware and viruses, among your apps and removing it is sometimes easier on an Android device than on a personal computer.
Identification and Removal
The first thing to do when spotting a suspected infection on your phone would be to reboot your phone in safe mode. This will bring up a new menu where you can effectively disable all third-party apps. This is effectively a sort of a soft, temporary factory reset of the device. Once the phone boots up in safe mode, open your Android settings menu and scroll down to the ‘Apps’ option. Go through the list of installed apps and look for the one that may have triggered the unwanted ads with its install. In most cases, you should be able to uninstall the app easily.
Enabling Play Protect
Once the adware app has been deleted, it is important to make sure you have Play Protect enabled. Play Protect is a malware prevention service that is built into the Google Play Store. It scans your installed apps regularly to check for any possible updates that may have introduced undesirable components. Play Protect also scans apps available on the Google Play Store to keep users safe.
Lastly, make sure that ‘Scan device for security threats’ is always turned on. This feature enables periodic automatic scans of your Android device, using Google’s Play Protect algorithms.
