• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Anybody have any idea what this app is? ? There's multiple NEW sketchy looking "systemapps" like this on my android, Cant adjust permissions or Uninst

Jessa1000

Lurker
Thread starter
Feb 16, 2023
5
0
ny
Screenshot_20230214_202819_Settings.jpg
 
Last edited:
What do you think looks "sketchy" about this?

Computers (which phones are) have loads of processes running in the background in order to provide system functionalities. This is one of them. It's part of Samsung's implementation of the Android system (as the package name says). And the reason you can't uninstall it is that if the manufacturer allowed everyone to uninstall everything that they didn't know the purpose of they'd be swamped by people complaining "I removed this unnecessary app and now my phone doesn't work" - a point that your original post, describing these apps as "sketchy" when you don't know what they are, proves perfectly.

So these things are there for a purpose, there are good reasons you can't get rid of them, and in most cases bad things would happen if you did (in this case my guess is that your phone would no longer be able to update the time from the network, but break other things instead/as well). So since you can't do anything about them anyway, and would probably break your phone if you did, my advice is not to worry about it.
 
Upvote 0
If they allowed anyone to uninstall anything and everything they'd end up in a similar situation as Linus Tech Tips did with Linux when he forced the system to install a broken Steam package and nuked his desktop environment by typing 'yes do as I say' after it warned him in all caps about removing essential packages.

This is another reason one should be quite leery with rooting.

The most sketchy apps often start with something like 'com.cheetah' in them. This forum has some rather informative sticky posts regarding which apps to avoid and from which developers. Avoid task killers, 'battery optimizers' or 'cpu cooler' apps no matter how useful they might seem.
 
Upvote 0
That 'dcktimesyncapplication' is a typical background process on your Android device, presumably you have a Samsung? It's just one out of thousands of similar services that make up the Android operating system, and run continuously and automatically. (... see pg. 6 in the link below)
Most likely to be a domain controller time server process, something the keeps your phone's date/time in current and sync with selected online time servers.
 
Upvote 0
I appreciate those who took the time to reply. Not long ago I discovered that my camera had been running sometimes all day in the background on my phone. Since, i have done a master reset and still every time I open my message app, I get notified that the camera tries to turn on. I only have a handful of personal apps because of this. Not sure what the problem is and can't pinpoint what's causing this. :(
 
Upvote 0
I appreciate those who took the time to reply. Not long ago I discovered that my camera had been running sometimes all day in the background on my phone. Since, i have done a master reset and still every time I open my message app, I get notified that the camera tries to turn on. I only have a handful of personal apps because of this. Not sure what the problem is and can't pinpoint what's causing this. :(
what exactly does it say when you open your text message app? can you post a screenshot of the popup? what text message are you using? have you tried other messaging apps? can you post a screenshot of your batter stats that shows your camera hogging up the battery?
 
Upvote 0
Hi! This is a an app that's supposed to keep the camera from opening unless I go through the app. It's the strangest thing , when I open the message app I get notification that it tries to open, as well as my settings app. I use the default message app. I will try to upload some photos I saved on a memory card. This is te notification though.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20230219_233924_Chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_20230219_233924_Chrome.jpg
    125.3 KB · Views: 206
Upvote 0
You appear to be dead-set to invent issues and problems that may or may not exist. Instead of hunting for an explanation on every background process you can detect, you'll be better off just ignoring all that and just use your smartphone to serve you. There are going to be literally dozens if not hundreds of apps and system-level services all running in the background at any given moment. Most of them will have naming that is not recognizable to a typical consumer but will be to the Android and app developers. If you stop trying to make sense of all the functionality that goes on in the background of your phone, you can stop frustrating yourself with non-issues.
Keep in mind that a lot of the nonsense in the news media about this exploit and that compromise being a serious threat to all Android users is just click-bait fear-mongering. While there are a lot of malware and hazardous issues we all need to be wary of, most of that is related to the online services we're all addicted to now, not necessarily our smartphones.
 
Upvote 0
What do you think looks "sketchy" about this?

Computers (which phones are) have loads of processes running in the background in order to provide system functionalities. This is one of them. It's part of Samsung's implementation of the Android system (as the package name says). And the reason you can't uninstall it is that if the manufacturer allowed everyone to uninstall everything that they didn't know the purpose of they'd be swamped by people complaining "I removed this unnecessary app and now my phone doesn't work" - a point that your original post, describing these apps as "sketchy" when you don't know what they are, proves perfectly.

So these things are there for a purpose, there are good reasons you can't get rid of them, and in most cases bad things would happen if you did (in this case my guess is that your phone would no longer be able to update the time from the network, but break other things instead/as well). So since you can't do anything about them anyway, and would probably break your phone if you did, my advice is not to worry about it.
It looks sketchy, and has people skeptical about it because one it's only allows nearby share! You are unable to control that! Your also unable to open it as an app,and it shows it as that. Unfortunately no information about it is offered! There's a lot of uncertainty about it! In absolute honesty I really don't trust it and I should have every right to know all about it! After all it is on my phone.
 
Upvote 0
I don't think "it looks sketchy" really answers the question "what do you think looks sketchy about this?" ;). And is there anything at all that you can't find people being skeptical about on the internet? Because unless it's people who are verifiably technically knowledgeable who have doubts I would not attach much importance to that.

Seriously, there are lots of system processes which you can't open as an app because their function doesn't require a user interface and indeed it wouldn't make any sense to provide one. And it's the same on all phones and all computers running all operating systems. If you can't see that on a particular device or platform it's because the manufacturer has chosen not to show you that these things exist, not because they aren't there.

So the lack of description? Well that screenshot came from Settings/Apps, which doesn't describe any apps, so there's nothing suspicious about that. You find app descriptions in the app stores, but system components aren't updated that way. So the lack of description isn't a sign that something is dodgy, it's just that the places you'd find user apps described don't manage system components. If you want to know more then you can try searching Google's android developer information, or maybe visit a developer forum like XDA and see if there's anyone there who happens to know. But I have sympathy with manufacturers not adding user documentation for every system component when most users will never know they exist and would probably not understand the documentation if it was provided (not because they aren't smart enough to understand, but because most people have never had to learn how a computer works, and so wouldn't have enough context to understand what a lot of system processes do even if you described it to them).

Of course you could tell Google (or Samsung, Microsoft, Apple, etc) that they need to include full documentation on all of these system processes because you have every right to know. They'll ignore you, but if enough people tell them that they'll... well frankly they'll still ignore them ;). But if they were to actually do anything they'd most likely just remove the "show system apps" option so that users wouldn't know these things existed and hence wouldn't ask. To be honest I'm mildly surprised that Google didn't just do that in the first place, since that's the easy option.
 

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones