New App pop-up from the market?

Globespy · Oct 22, 2011

I turned on my tablet tonight to find a pop-up from the market to let me know about a new app available - Mobo Task Killer Pro.
I've never seen this except when I'm being advised there is an update to an existing app I've got installed... Not one I don't.
Anyone seen this happen before?
Whilst the app looks decent, and I've read that task killers are a waste of time especially on honeycomb?

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobo.task.killer

phlunkie · Oct 22, 2011

Got one on my phone this morning. Looking into turning this off.

Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

baseballfanz · Oct 22, 2011

You guys probably install an app that has the Air Push service. it pushed ads to your status bar.
Get Air push detector, it will tell you which app is the culprit

phlunkie · Oct 22, 2011

I saw the ad just now in dolphin. I think out may be that.still looking though.

Edit: have gtabsimiclock installed, maybe that?

Edit 2: got the airpush detector, nothing found.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

polo79 · Oct 22, 2011

phlunkie said:
I saw the ad just now in dolphin. I think out may be that.still looking though.

Edit: have gtabsimiclock installed, maybe that?

Edit 2: got the airpush detector, nothing found.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

i don't think its dolphin. only help i have is that i had an app called "wheelz" or something with a monster truck and it had the same air push notifications. hope that helps.

edit: that new app called "magiclocker main" has air push as well. btw, any app i come across that has them i reply to dev expressing my negative opinion of air push and uninstall the app. with enough of us doing the same we may see less of it.

Globespy · Oct 22, 2011

baseballfanz said:
You guys probably install an app that has the Air Push service. it pushed ads to your status bar.
Get Air push detector, it will tell you which app is the culprit

Thanks! Installed and found the culprit - free MP3 download app. Thing is, I like the app, and so I guess will put up with the occasional pop-up ad since it's not otherwise effecting the tablet.
It makes sense that as Android matures we will see more and more of this - afterall , Google is an advertising company that geniously used it's revenue to build software products! The fact that when you consider say the windows mobile store and the android store, there's a stark difference between the number of 'free' apps - the Reason? Advertising Revenue!

phlunkie · Oct 22, 2011

I do not have any of those apps installed. I did have notifications on in the market. Maybe that, for me.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

baseballfanz · Oct 22, 2011

phlunkie said:
I do not have any of those apps installed. I did have notifications on in the market. Maybe that, for me.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium

That notification only let you know of update available for installed app.
If you're getting ads something is pushing it there. I would just see what you install recently and try to single it out that way

Electrocut · Oct 23, 2011

Same here, on my Android Phone HTC Desire ...

I recently updated some Apps from the Market (including Adobe Reader, Angry Birds Seasons, Boat Browser, DroidWall, Layar, QuickPic), and 2 hours ago, a received my first "Advertisement Notification" :
"New app released, Mobo task killer pro"

I downloaded AirPush Detector: no application found, so the spammer application doesn't use the AirPush API.

We need to figure out which application is causing this ...

G.Ri · Oct 23, 2011

I got the same suspicious notification ad for Mobo Task Killer on my HTC G2 (running CM7) earlier today. It's the first thing like this I've seen, so I started looking for the source and ended up here. I don't have any of the apps mentioned by anyone above except for Adobe Reader and Angry Birds Seasons, but I highly doubt those are at fault. Got the AirPush Detector and it found nothing. I'd really like to know where this originated from.

ranphi · Oct 23, 2011

This also just happened to me today on my stock, rooted AT&T Samsung Galaxy S2 phone. Both AirPush Detector and Lookout found nothing on my phone. (I've also got AdFree running on my phone as well).

Like others in this thread, I had recently downloaded the new Angry Birds Seasons game. I also had just downloaded a free game called Wordplay. I just now uninstalled both of those games on the chance that it's either of them causing this. (Don't care how fun Angry Birds is...if it's the culprit here, it's no longer welcome on my phone).

Reviewing my app install history via AppBrain, those 2 games are really the only likely culprits to my eyes...

Edit: There's also a post about this happening over at Androidforums:

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-x/433781-market-notification-new-app-malware.html

G.Ri · Oct 23, 2011

If it was Angry Birds causing it, I'm sure there would be a lot more people reporting this than we're seeing, don't you think?

Don't have Wordplay either, so that's not the cause for me.

I can't think of anything likely in my recent install history.. Just updated Netflix and Superuser, installed Greedy Spiders, the pay versions of Android Agenda Widget and Alarm Clock Plus, and that's all I can think of in the past few days.

Is there a way we can see which apps initiated a notification?

ranphi · Oct 24, 2011

I agree with what you said about Angry Birds except this might be a new enough event that it hasn't hit many people yet. Plus, you know that a lot of people would just ignore the ad in the notification bar and not bother to report it or search about it.

There's another thread about this topic going on over in the Anandtech forums:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=32462500&posted=1#post32462500

Me and 2 others have posted our installed apps there via links to the Appbrain web site. So far, below are the apps (minus Google apps) that the 3 of us have in common:

appbrain
angry birds/angry birds seasons
titanium backup
adobe flash player 11
soundhound
Facebook
Kindle

EDIT: Took out Amazon MP3 as it turned out not be common amongst all impacted devices.

G.Ri · Oct 24, 2011

Thank you for collecting that info and finding more forums.

I see what you mean about Angry Birds. Shouldn't rule anything out yet I guess.

I don't use appbrain, so no link, but I'll tell you which of those I have:
all angry birds
titanium backup
flash 11
soundhound

So you can eliminate these from the list:
appbrain
facebook
kindle

If I were guessing here, I'd look at Titanium Backup. Is it the free version all of you have installed?

ranphi · Oct 24, 2011

Me and Anubis (from Anandtech site) both have the paid version of Titanium Backup, while the other guy is using the free version (from what I can tell by comparing our Appbrain app lists).

Also, to clarify: 2 of us (from Anandtech site) had Angry Birds Seasons installed while the third person had Angry Birds installed. Looks like (according to the Android Market web site) that Angry Birds Seasons latest update was 10/21/11 while Angry Birds hasn't been updated since 8/30/11, so I guess that degrades my suspicion that it might be Angry Birds/Angry Birds Seasons.

---------- Post added at 08:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:02 PM ----------

G.Ri said:
Thank you for collecting that info and finding more forums.

I see what you mean about Angry Birds. Shouldn't rule anything out yet I guess.

I don't use appbrain, so no link, but I'll tell you which of those I have:
all angry birds
titanium backup
flash 11
soundhound

So you can eliminate these from the list:
appbrain
facebook
kindle

If I were guessing here, I'd look at Titanium Backup. Is it the free version all of you have installed?

Thanks for sharing what apps you have in common. That really knocks the list down to a small number and I'm not seeing any comments in the Android Market right now that make any of those 4 apps sound like they're responsible for this ad that popped up in our notification bar.

The mystery continues...

G.Ri · Oct 24, 2011

Hmm.. I'm going to email the dev of Mobo Task Killer Pro and see if they can (and are willing to) shed some light on this.

Also, just noticed this in their market comments:

"Amazing
[5 Stars] by Blanca– October 23, 2011
Amazing! I woke up to an alert to download this and it's awesome. I've been on the internet for about 4 hours and it barely got to 80%. Great app!"

EDIT: and this:
Not the greatest app ever...
[2 Stars] by Nick– October 22, 2011Spam
but I'm more concerned with it being advertised in my notifications when my phone started, who told them the phone I paid for is their billboard?

ranphi · Oct 24, 2011

G.Ri said:
Hmm.. I'm going to email the dev of Mobo Task Killer Pro and see if they can (and are willing to) shed some light on this.

Also, just noticed this in their market comments:

"Amazing
[5 Stars] by Blanca– October 23, 2011
Amazing! I woke up to an alert to download this and it's awesome. I've been on the internet for about 4 hours and it barely got to 80%. Great app!"

EDIT: and this:
Not the greatest app ever...
[2 Stars] by Nick– October 22, 2011Spam
but I'm more concerned with it being advertised in my notifications when my phone started, who told them the phone I paid for is their billboard?

Thanks, that's a good idea...although looking at the page on the Market for that app of theirs, I don't see any contact info for them whatsoever; no email, no web site, no blog...that seems awfully suspicious to me. Did you find contact info for them somewhere?

Hilfey · Oct 24, 2011

G.Ri said:
Thank you for collecting that info and finding more forums.

I see what you mean about Angry Birds. Shouldn't rule anything out yet I guess.

I don't use appbrain, so no link, but I'll tell you which of those I have:
all angry birds
titanium backup
flash 11
soundhound

So you can eliminate these from the list:
appbrain
facebook
kindle

If I were guessing here, I'd look at Titanium Backup. Is it the free version all of you have installed?

Hi,
I started a similar thread on another forum site before I found this. I don't have any version of Angry Birds (once did, but SBF'd it away 6 months ago).
The apps I have in common with the list here are:

Titanium Backup (Pro)
Adobe Flash 11
Soundhound (<<< my best guess)

Thanks to those of you looking into this! The permissions for that task killer seem way out of line to me,

p.s. This happened for me on a Droid X

baseballfanz · Oct 24, 2011

Been using Soundhound on my TF and phone, never had an ad notifications

ranphi · Oct 24, 2011

Yeah, I've had Soundhound (the paid version) for a long time and never had any such issues with it. I really hope this stupid ad isn't being done via some new OS exploit in Android. I know it's much more likely that it's happening through some app using that damn AirPush or SlingLabs service, but it's worrisome not being able to verify how it happened.

New App pop-up from the market?

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