Same problem here: green plus sign in notification area. Airpush dector and addons dectector didn't help me (I have adfree as well). The problem has only happened to me 4 or 5 times in the past 3-4 weeks so I guess I can live with it but I would liketo fix it. I've googled and people name offending apps but I have none of those.

I long-pressed home (to see recent apps) and that didn't help. Menu-settings... running apps showed nothing new/different either. When I pulled down the notifications, it said something about an unclaimed prize. I clicked on that and the browser opened some prize page that I of course did not click on. It said "Android User Rewards" on the top. I googled "Android User Rewards" and did not find anything that seemed to help.

The url didn't show in firefox but I went to the menu and clicked on "share this page" and I emailed the url to myself. This is what I got:

com-ws.us/win/usa/?t202kw=a+ch+usa2+ent+Ad5&cid=b783216445d4b35d1a6d 68d210c87c72

I went to that site on my desktop and viewed the source for that page but didn't find anything there helped me.

There is an opt out on the airpush website but I am hesitant to do that. For onething, airpush detector doesn't show it is an airpush problem.

Anyone???

 

If I find out anything, I will post. The problem only comes to my phone once or twice a week so it makes it difficulat to narrow down. I've got "feelers" out to others so maybe someone wil find the answer.

 

There has been a new method that pushes ads to the notification bar that those two apps will not detect. I think there is a new method of figuring out which app it is over at xda. I'll see if I can find anything out.

In addons detector you may need to set the filter to "push notifications".

Check out this thread also if you haven't seen it:
http://androidforums.com/android-lounge/325803-seeing-ads-my-notification-bar-2.html

 

I had used addons detector before with the push filter and found nothing but I tried it again today (perhaps there was an update?) and it found "Bloat Freezer" as the culprit. I just uninstalled Bloat Freezer and hopefuly that will take care of my problem. Please continue to post offending apps.

 

It looks like Bloat Freezer was pulled form the market. I was goign to go back and give it one star and some poor feedback but it wasn't there anymore.

Edit:
Another option to get rid of this crap:
Airblocker - Airpush Block
ByQ Develop
(get it in the market)

 

You can use Airpush detector and Addons detector android apps for identify which app give notification area ads. And also you can read How to Remove, Disable Android Notification Area Ads.

And also manually block Airpush ads using your phone IMEI number in here http://www.airpush.com/imei/ Not work most of the situations.

 

Thank god I found this thread. I was beginning to think I'd done something terribly wrong on my phone!

Then the frequency picked up with these really annoying ads in the notification bar. Infuriating!!

After reading through this thread, I found that Airpush's own opt out app is not available. Besides, I feel VERY uncomfortable giving any information about my phone or myself to a developer whose business is pushing unwanted ads to my phone.

So in a google search, I came across the androidpolice forum, and a post with a QR code for AirPush Detector. This is an app that does not uninstall any apps using Airpush, but it DOES identify them for you. From there you can choose to uninstall the offending app if you want.

For me, it was a GoSMS Pro Theme (not one by the SMSPro developer) that was causing my problem, and it got trashed in a nanosecond by me!

Anyway, wanted to recommend this handy little app to help anyone else being plagued by this crap.

Again, that's AirPush Detector. And it's got 5 stars at the PlayStore.

 

I had no luck with the airpush detector type programs

If you want to get rid of that annoying ad crap without getting rid of the apps/games you liked, try this:

First, get your phone's MEID number - the easiest way is by entering *#06# on your dial pad. (That's star-pound-zero-six-pound....in case you were wondering if I typed a character by accident)

Next, Go to opt.leadbolt.com - there you will be prompted to enter your phone's IMEI / MEID number and select the kind of phone you have...that's it

Voila! No more push ads...at least not from leadbolt. Note: make sure u end it with ".com" not ".net" or you'll be taken to the wrong site. Apparently those other programs listed above won't catch the junk from leadbolt.

Also...make sure you ONLY enter "opt.leadbolt.com" DON'T enter "http" or "www" or you won't get the site.

I had to do this on my old Droid2 and just finished doing this on my new phone.

Hope this helps someone - for someone else helped me