At the weekend I had “that call”. I’m sure many of you will have had a similar call from a friend or relative. It happens when you somehow become the “computer guy” and you seemingly have the ability to fix anything relating to tech.
In this case, it was an aunt, and she’d got lots of pop-ups on her Android phone informing her that it was running slow, or infected, or had no memory left or needed to be “cleaned”.
After a long drive and a bit of investigation, we figured out what had happened. Also, it’s frighteningly easy for others to fall into the same trap.
She was playing a game. A simple, properly-downloaded word-search game from the Android store. Everything is above board. Everything is fine. When you move up a level on this app, an advert is displayed. Likewise, at the bottom of the screen, another small advert is displayed. Whilst showing me this app, she pointed it out, “I think I clicked on that by mistake”
Yes, it’s one of those, “Speed problems detected! Solve with (RUBBISH APP) now!”
She was adamant that she’d not clicked on it on purpose, but the thing was – it was about 2 pixels under a “Hint” button within the game. It was SO EASY to accidentally press and, presumably once she’d accidentally hit it, the app installed itself and started recommending all sorts of nonsense that she didn’t need.
I cleared it up and, just to make sure something like that didn’t happen again, I installed Bitdefender Mobile Security for Android. This is an app that has won awards and has been voted the best Android security product for two years in a row. It’s a simple, straightforward product which is easy to understand. For the £9.99 outlay, it’ll ensure that I make less long journeys and there’ll be less accidental installs.
If you’ve not considered it, the app has a full malware scanner and there’s no impact on battery life while it protects your device. Not only that, but it’ll protect your mobile browser too, so there’s less chance of nasties getting in that way.
Other features include an app lock (so that you can hide sensitive apps via a PIN code) plus an anti-theft (lock, wipe, locate) and privacy advisor which highlights the apps which may leak information to places you don’t want.
If you want to read more, head to the Bitdefender website.
