Recently (like a week ago or so) I started seeing ads in my notification bar... it has an icon which is a white star with a red dot in the middle. The last one I got said "College degrees available" and when I clicked it... it brought me to gameloft.com (first time seeing this site)
Any ideas? It's not that much of a nuisance, but I'm just afraid of spyware and such.
I didn't install any new apps (at least I don't think), but did update my apps.
I had this problem as well, soon after I ran a mass of updates. None of the forums were very helpful, so I had to figure it out myself... so here it goes:
Next time the star appears, click the ad and see which app name appears in the upper left-hand corner (as it takes you to the Market to view the app it's advertising).
For me, the app was Easy Filter. I deleted it and read the other reviews, and the other users were equally peeved. I think the ad service is AirPush or something... some of the free apps are using it now to generate income, I'm sure.
I hope you find this useful. I'm so glad to be done with those darn ads!
I have a Verizon HTC Incredible. I add apps, delete apps. To my surprise I see a new notification (in the notification bar) that says "Your Phone Is Too Slow! Tap Here to Speed Up Your Phone". The icon is a red star with a white and black border.
This looks very suspicious and a quick Google search revealed nothing. Has anybody else seen this? Is it a by product of one of my apps. Maybe you know which one? Please let me know, because I click nothing that says too without my understanding of what it is.
Thanks.
Last edited by Frisco; October 13th, 2011 at 12:13 PM.
Definitely from an app, it's a new way for apps to display ads. I believe if you click on the ad it tells you what app it is from in one of the corners.
This was very helpful thank you..
My app was BatteryLife uninstalled it and problem solved.
thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by SduncDVM
I had this problem as well, soon after I ran a mass of updates. None of the forums were very helpful, so I had to figure it out myself... so here it goes:
Next time the star appears, click the ad and see which app name appears in the upper left-hand corner (as it takes you to the Market to view the app it's advertising).
For me, the app was Easy Filter. I deleted it and read the other reviews, and the other users were equally peeved. I think the ad service is AirPush or something... some of the free apps are using it now to generate income, I'm sure.
I hope you find this useful. I'm so glad to be done with those darn ads!
I started having the same problem yesterday. I called Verizon tech support, and they confirmed the white star/red dot notification wasn't from them. When I tapped on the notification in the drop down list, the top of my screen briefly said USA Traffic Cameras before taking me to some other app in the app store. I uninstalled USA Traffic Cameras. I hope that takes care of it!
Holy crap! I been having the same issue too. I dont want that crap coming to my phone. I'll try a couple of the suggestions I read. I think mine came from droidmail. They have advertising on it & you have to agree for it to install. I noticed at the privacy section that they can distribute your info to others. WEll, they did. I started getting a bunch of unsolicited junk on my phone.
I had this problem as well, soon after I ran a mass of updates. None of the forums were very helpful, so I had to figure it out myself... so here it goes:
Next time the star appears, click the ad and see which app name appears in the upper left-hand corner (as it takes you to the Market to view the app it's advertising).
For me, the app was Easy Filter. I deleted it and read the other reviews, and the other users were equally peeved. I think the ad service is AirPush or something... some of the free apps are using it now to generate income, I'm sure.
I hope you find this useful. I'm so glad to be done with those darn ads!
I get this crap on my phone. After following your suggestion, I still do not see any thing that tells me what app this might me associated with. Any other ideas?
Sorry that I can't help you guys, but when you do figure out which app is causing it, mark it as malicious when you uninstall and give it one star. Also, post the name of it here so everyone else can avoid it. Thanks.
I get this crap on my phone. After following your suggestion, I still do not see any thing that tells me what app this might me associated with. Any other ideas?
you will have to uninstall every app one by one that you installed since you started seeing them.
Actually I did. I installed three apps. They were all email clients. Only one had adds on the bottom. Maildroid. I contacted them about it but they just denied they had anything to do with it. Since these all come from the google market, I like to make Google responsible for it. Meanwhile, every add that shows up on my phone, I will go to that place & post a bad review about it so the world knows where some of this crap is coming from. I hope others do the same!
I've started getting these as well. For a couple weeks now. One was telling me my phone was too slow, a couple telling me my battery was low (phone was fully charged!) and the latest was to meet singles in my area. I've gone to the last two and marked the apps as spam in the market. None of these are things I've got installed on my phone. The only apps I can think of that might be linked to this are TapFish and Words with Friends. I'm deleting apps I don't use and going to try and keep an eye on the notifications to see if I can figure out what is causing it for sure. If I find anything I'll update.
Also one-starring the apps that show up won't work since it looks like the only way to do that is by actually installing the app.
*update: I found AirPush Detector for free on the market. It's by Dan Bjorge. He's not connected to Airpush and it found an app that's using it--not the ones I mentioned above. If anyone has Blogger-Droid that's one culprit!
Last edited by frostkat; June 14th, 2011 at 02:02 PM.
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Look out for this - I had a similar ad show up in my notification bar a few weeks ago and when I clicked it to make it go away, it actually appeared to have put a trojan of some sort on my phone that started deleting all of my apps. The only way I could make it stop was to do a factory reset. I was freaking out because I was basically watching things disappear and all I could think about was how I use my phone as an alarm clock. Beware what you click!
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You can now keep the apps you want and not the notification spam. Here is the app from airpush that will remove all the spam and still let you use the apps:
For me, the culprit was SpeedBoost, really disappointing for an app that is supposed to *improve* system performance. But: no dot-stars since uninstalling, so far.
my dad used airpush detector,
he came up with the name "com.willemstoker.(app name)" in all of his.
the apps were:
lock pattern
gtalk updater
autopilot
fyi...Linux News by openview mobile uses airpush ads. As recommended here downloaded AirPush Detector by Dan Bjorge to detect the app then uninstalled marking it malicious, rating it 1, and leaving a review warning others of airpush notifications.
Did not use Airpush App for Permanent Opt-out because I did not trust using the app since it was published by Airpush. Has anyone experienced problems using this method ?
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Android discussion & thus moved to Android Lounge
So, I downloaded airpush detector and it says I have no app that uses airpush. Well considering I've never gotten an ad notification, I guess the app is correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lizowski
Look out for this - I had a similar ad show up in my notification bar a few weeks ago and when I clicked it to make it go away, it actually appeared to have put a trojan of some sort on my phone that started deleting all of my apps. The only way I could make it stop was to do a factory reset. I was freaking out because I was basically watching things disappear and all I could think about was how I use my phone as an alarm clock. Beware what you click!
Based on what I've learnt of how Android works, this is really impossible to happen. What ever you clicked on would most likely be a site (or direct you to the market). To be able to uninstall app, that thing NEEDs that permission from you first. So unless 1) you installed an apk that 2) allows it to uninstall apps. Which 1) an app cannot be installed without your consent. So yeah, I don't think this is possible for you to download a 'trojan' based on the design of Android.
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Last edited by Roze; July 6th, 2011 at 09:47 AM.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Roze
Based on what I've learnt of how Android works, this is really impossible to happen. What ever you clicked on would most likely be a site (or direct you to the market). To be able to uninstall app, that thing NEEDs that permission from you first. So unless 1) you installed an apk that 2) allows it to uninstall apps. Which 1) an app cannot be installed without your consent. So yeah, I don't think this is possible for you to download a 'trojan' based on the design of Android.
Correct. There is no way an app could do that of its own accord, you'd need to grant it the permissions to uninstall stuff first.
I had issues with this star with an Orange circle always showing up in notification bar. I installed an app my son downloaded called "Age your Face" as soon as uninstall was complete, the star went away. Hope this helps.p
I found the culprit on my phone by forcing apps to shut down rather than by uninstalling them. I was suspicious of a recent app and lucked-out that I discovered it early - "Humans vs Aliens". It would be nice if there was a way to block apps from accessing the notification bar.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dsprogis
I found the culprit on my phone by forcing apps to shut down rather than by uninstalling them. I was suspicious of a recent app and lucked-out that I discovered it early - "Humans vs Aliens". It would be nice if there was a way to block apps from accessing the notification bar.
Find it, leave a comment on the market about the app to warn everyone and uninstall it
if i ever download an app and it displays an add in my notification the app is promptly deleted, given a 1 star, and a brief message of how lame it is to be pushing ads to my notification bar.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VoidedSaint
if i ever download an app and it displays an add in my notification the app is promptly deleted, given a 1 star, and a brief message of how lame it is to be pushing ads to my notification bar.
but it hasnt happened yet so its all good now
I haven't either. If I ever get an notification ad, the DEV will hear from me UNTIL the notification ad is removed from his app.
My culprit ended up being the Best Buy app. I sent them a polite email saying that if a large corporation like them has to do that to pay for app development, they shouldn't have a free app.
Used air push detector and found the slimy app (George Bush Soundboard), more importantly the app designer/creator is Maxdroid. I did a little research and found about half their apps have air push notifications, you've been warned stay away.
I noticed at the privacy section that they can distribute your info to others. WEll, they did. I started getting a bunch of unsolicited junk on my phone.
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I also am getting ads that look just like airpush but somehow aren't! I downloaded airpush detector, it detected nothing. I even got the airpush opt-out. Really didn't want to. And I still kept getting them! I have too many apps to uninstall and reinstall all of them..
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Not sure if this will help in all cases but, a while back, I kept getting ads in the notification bar from a few sleazy apps but, couldn't track down the culprit. Did some research and found that the "Google Search" app was behind most of it. I know, sounds funny but, since I can search from a browser and don't need the specific app to search, I uninstalled it to see what would happen and that was 7 months ago and no ads since! You also need to make sure you unselect the ad-mob box in your Market settings. This will prevent most of the apps from getting your info from Google which, in their privacy policy, says they will share your info with 3rd party developers. Hope this helps some of you with this annoying problem.
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So, I received a green star notification for a "Free Macbook Pro" for the first time, this morning.
Unfortunately, my phone updated about 6 apps last night and since the New-&-Improved Market no longer displays My Apps chronologically (in order of updates), I don't know which one is the culprit. (Anyone know how to pull this info out?)
I also installed the free 'OfficeSuite Pro' from Amazon, yesterday.
When I get home, I'll grab the Airpush detector & Autostarts.
Last edited by Frisco; November 5th, 2011 at 06:55 AM.
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Seeing ads in my notification bar?
Nexus 4, rooted of course!
Re: Phone Is Too Slow!" in notification bar???
Star with orange circle..found my culprit
another bad app: Google+ Ultra Lite
traffic Jam Free = Spammer!!
