Help? Virus Or Malware On Cell Phone

misty8723

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My husband has my old Samsung s6 phone with Tracfone service. Tonight he had this pop up:

Dear Android User,
Saturday-January 12, 2019
Congratulations Android User! you are one of the 10 users who have a chance to get a giftcard or Walmart Giftcard!

I googled how to get rid of it, and the instructions say to go to "downloads" and uninstall the Congratulations App. Sounds simple enough, but there is nothing in the downloads that sound anywhere near like that.

I've run AVG and Malwarebytes and they don't find anything suspicious - yet it is still there.

Anyone run across this and were successful in fixing it?
 

catlover73

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This happens with my I-phone sometime. The only thing that seems to help me is to go into my settings for Safari to clear my history and website data.

I am not sure if there is something similar that would work for your phone.
 

foxden

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misty8723 misty8723
I've had this happen before.
First, close Chrome. Go to device settings and find the system storage area (varies with android version) and clear the cache for chrome and the system cache.
Reopen chrome and tap the 3 dots at the top right and select history. Clear history. You might need to do this more than once. Close chrome and clear the cache again in settings. Then, restart the phone

That is a long way to fix it, but it has been the most reliable way to stop the invasive web pages.
He might have installed an app recently that brought malware on the phone. He can try to uninstall the most recent apps.
Check Google Play for the most recent app updates for the installed apps.
 
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misty8723

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foxden foxden
Thank you! Thank you! That seems to have worked. :yess:
I am going to save this information in case it happens again to either one of us
 

AbbysMom

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These notices are often coming from the ads on the pages you visit. The site owner needs to talk to their ad people to get rid of them.
 
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misty8723

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These notices are often coming from the ads on the pages you visit. The site owner needs to talk to their ad people to get rid of them.
It seems like it might have come from CNN. I could get other sites up like Facebook, but not CNN. He is always hitting weird things when he surfs and it wouldn't surprise me if he hit something that triggered it. He's always doing dumb things and handing the phone to me to fix.
 

susanm9006

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I don’t know if the Android store has ad blockers available for download but this what I had to add to my IPad to get rid of persistent pop ups that the IOS system couldn’t seem to stop. The one I have on my IPad is called Norton Ad blocker. They are well know for anti virus software so I bet they will have an Android version.
 
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misty8723

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I will check on ad blockers, I don't really know if it does or doesn't. Would be a good thing.
 

FelisCatus

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This happens with my I-phone sometime. The only thing that seems to help me is to go into my settings for Safari to clear my history and website data.

I am not sure if there is something similar that would work for your phone.
iOS Safari allows content blockers now, do yourself a big favour and install AdGuard, it’s free and if you select the right filters you will only ever see an ad again on whitelisted sites. It even blocks youtube ads (not via the app though, only Safari).

For everyone else, if you’re on a home network look into getting a Pi-hole. It’s relatively affordable at ~100 CAD and you will never see an ad again on any device in your house.

If you have any questions on either of the above options, don’t hesitate to ask me!
 

FelisCatus

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I don’t know if the Android store has ad blockers available for download but this what I had to add to my IPad to get rid of persistent pop ups that the IOS system couldn’t seem to stop. The one I have on my IPad is called Norton Ad blocker. They are well know for anti virus software so I bet they will have an Android version.
Norton is a relatively low rated Antiviral software for many reasons. On top of that it costs money. Microsoft Security Essentials (free) coupled with Malware Bytes free should be more than enough for any household computer.

As for iOS go with my other recommendation in the above comment. AdGuard, it’s free and uses the same filters that Adblock Plus and such use in Firefox or Chrome.
 
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