I'm posting this because we are getting many threads, in different forums, from people who are finding advertisments in the notification area of their phone or related problems. The information here is collected from a number of these threads - thanks to all who have contributed.
If you start seeing advertisments in the notification area of your phone, this means that you have installed an application which uses "Push Notification" advertising. "Airpush" was the original such service, and so this is commonly referred to as "Airpush spam". As well as notification ads, this method has been used to place shortcuts on users' homescreens or change browser settings, e.g. redirect homepages.
In addition to being more intrusive than in-app advertising, it is also insidious because it does not tell you which app is pushing the advert. People have reported that there is usually a delay between the app being installed and the adverts first appearing, making identification of the culprit more difficult.
If you have one of these problems, there are a number of apps that will identify which of your installed applications is responsible, such as Addons Detector, Airpush Detector, Lookout Ad Network Detector. Notification History could be useful, but see this caveat about at least the free version.
Sometimes a new ad network appears, which the ad network detector apps are not yet aware of and so cannot detect. If you find such adverts and none of the above apps can identify the source, you could try the method described in this post.
When you have identified the culprit, it is up to you what you do. You may choose to live with it, though if so I doubt you'll have read this far
. People lucky enough to have Android 4.1 Jelly Bean should be able to disable such advertising directly. Otherwise you will need to be rooted to block airpush ads using a blocking app (*), or firewalling if the app does not otherwise require internet access. The commonest solution is to uninstall the offending app.
If you feel that this practice is offensive, you may wish to give feedback to the dev: a one-star review citing push advertising as the reason will both both do this and warn other users.
(*) Previously suggested Airblocker here, but that app has recently added Airpush itself, so would be self-defeating now!
If you start seeing advertisments in the notification area of your phone, this means that you have installed an application which uses "Push Notification" advertising. "Airpush" was the original such service, and so this is commonly referred to as "Airpush spam". As well as notification ads, this method has been used to place shortcuts on users' homescreens or change browser settings, e.g. redirect homepages.
In addition to being more intrusive than in-app advertising, it is also insidious because it does not tell you which app is pushing the advert. People have reported that there is usually a delay between the app being installed and the adverts first appearing, making identification of the culprit more difficult.
If you have one of these problems, there are a number of apps that will identify which of your installed applications is responsible, such as Addons Detector, Airpush Detector, Lookout Ad Network Detector. Notification History could be useful, but see this caveat about at least the free version.
Sometimes a new ad network appears, which the ad network detector apps are not yet aware of and so cannot detect. If you find such adverts and none of the above apps can identify the source, you could try the method described in this post.
When you have identified the culprit, it is up to you what you do. You may choose to live with it, though if so I doubt you'll have read this far
. People lucky enough to have Android 4.1 Jelly Bean should be able to disable such advertising directly. Otherwise you will need to be rooted to block airpush ads using a blocking app (*), or firewalling if the app does not otherwise require internet access. The commonest solution is to uninstall the offending app. If you feel that this practice is offensive, you may wish to give feedback to the dev: a one-star review citing push advertising as the reason will both both do this and warn other users.
(*) Previously suggested Airblocker here, but that app has recently added Airpush itself, so would be self-defeating now!
