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Samsung Galaxy A25.
On prepay and don’t use data. Connect through the internet. Thursday evening was browsing Facebook when a pop up came on and said I had 964 viruses. That was the start of a continuous bombardment of ads for all sorts of crap. I go into the close apps and nothing there.
Shut it down and charged it to 100 %. Turned it on and within a couple of minutes it started with the crap. Unable to use anything on the phone. Left it for about 3 hrs and went back to it. It was hot and the battery was down to 25%. Searched the problem and all I get is how to close apps.
Any ideas from the gurus here would be welcome.
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Safe mode - from Google
To enter Safe Mode on a Samsung Galaxy A25, power off the device, then turn it back on. When the Samsung logo appears, press and hold the Volume down button until "Safe mode" appears in the bottom left corner of the screen
then try jumping into the apps list in settings, maybe sort by install date, and see if anything garbage looking recently installed
you could try going to the play store and download the Eset app which will do a system scan of the apps and data, hopefully that will work in safemode
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ALSO if you can find anything suspicious, change to dark mode. Had something similar a few weeks back from a client. Some of the apps are white, no name, so wont show but do in Dark Mode. Sometimes these bugs get in and are impossible to track down.
In the end it was fruitless -- Ended up resetting the phone back to Factory to clean it out.
Upgrades = Old bugs replaced with new Bugs.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Started in safe mode but could find nothing showing. Downloaded Eset but they want dollars. Changed to drk mode but nothing seen. Looks like I might have to do a factory reset.
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28-06-2025, 12:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 28-06-2025, 12:39 PM by king1.)
did it work ok in safe mode with no popups? if so id just start uninstalling any apps you can before you factory reset, just in case, it's often a dodgy app that does it. THe eset app doesn't need to be paid for to use it, i've had it installed for months without paying for it and it still scans every app I install. the paid version is extra features
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being technically inept i was wondering if iphones have the same problems, i have had several and never had a problem
The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money
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Worked ok in safe mode. Good suggestion re uninstalling apps. Will give it a go as don't want to reset unless I have to. Will have another look at Eset.
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It starts playing up before I launch anything so doesn't appear browser related. I seldom use browser on the phone.
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Did you try uninstalling Facebook? You said that's what you were using when the problem happened.
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Uninstalled it earlier. Just finishing factory reset. Had used Samsung Auto backup. Currently loading the backup. Should be good (I hope)
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(28-06-2025, 06:55 PM)colpol Wrote: It starts playing up before I launch anything so doesn't appear browser related. I seldom use browser on the phone.
Thats the exact same thing I mentioned. Ran several Antivirus - both Eset and Malwarebytes neither found anything, cleaned out everything possible ( between pop-ups) bit like whack a mole.
Hence, the factory reset.
Upgrades = Old bugs replaced with new Bugs.
