Android devices are susceptible to all kinds of malware, such as bloatware, spyware, adware, ransomware, and more.
Most of these apps need every permission access there is in order to function on your device. Once you give them the permissions, you’ve sold your digital soul to the bad guys.
They will access your camera and microphone, read and take screenshots of your messages, access your location details, steal your personal data, spam your contacts, install malware on your device, and God knows what else.
While Google removes most dangerous apps from the Play Store occasionally, most of these apps are still available on various websites in their APK versions. Also, millions of Android users still have the apps installed on their phones.
Besides, cybercriminals can download a legit app from the Play Store, inject malware into it, and re-upload it under a different name.
They do this in the hope that some users will download this version instead of the original one. And sadly, most unsuspecting users fall for this trick.
To help keep you and your Android device safe, here’s a list of bad Android apps you should delete right away.
Also Read: Best Android Launchers Without Ads
Browsers
Most Android browsers are slow. They also tend to open by default whenever you click a link, which can be annoying. Besides, most of these apps lack protection from malicious data interception.
Here are some examples.
1. UC Browser
UCWeb, a subsidiary of Alibaba and developed by UC Browser, has been popular worldwide. However, using this browser can compromise your data security.
Cybersecurity reports claim it doesn’t offer adequate protection when transmitting data. In other words, there’s a likelihood of hackers and intelligence agencies intercepting your personal data during transmission.
Researchers further report that UC Browser lacks proper encryption when transmitting keystrokes online, making it a dangerous, unsecured application that you should delete immediately.
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2. Dolphin Browser
Dolphin Browser is another common Android browser with privacy concerns. It is a flash-supported browser that tracks users, making it unsecure.
This application has been reported to save the users’ browsing sessions in incognito mode and disclose their real IP addresses when a VPN is used.
Additionally, Dolphin Browser comes with extra features, such as speed boosters and video players, that make it more bloated.
Also, the browser doesn’t get regular updates or support, leaving it open to security vulnerabilities.
I recommend you consider safer Android browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and DuckDuckGo.
Also Read: How To Arrange Apps Alphabetically On Android?
Optimizers
Optimizers are supposed to make your phone faster by deleting junk and clearing the cache. However, these apps are useless, as they don’t usually do what they promise.
3. CLEANit
CLEANit claims to clean junk files to make your device safer, cleaner, and faster. This app needs many permissions and advertises other apps that your Android device doesn’t need.
Using this app can only make your device worse. For example, cache clearing only slows down the phone from rebuilding. Besides, killing any background apps has little impact on your phone’s battery.
If you have a new Android phone, there is no need to install optimizer or cleaner apps at all, as they don’t make your phone faster and typically cause other issues by altering core settings and so on.
However, if your phone lacks a built-in optimizer you can opt for reliable alternatives, such as CCleaner and Greenify. Both are free.
Also Read: Best Unknown Apps For Android
Other Apps
4. Antivirus Free and Virus Cleaner
Virus Cleaner contains numerous ads, most of which belong to ill-reputed brands and services. Moreover, the app promises to free up space, save your battery, boost speed, enhance security, clean junk, and cool the phone CPU.
However, the truth is that this app doesn’t make your phone faster; it only slows it down.
5. DU Recorder
DU Recorder allows you to record a video on your Android phone screen, take screenshots, record GIFs, add or remove a watermark, and more. It enables video recordings in portrait or landscape mode.
You can also record a video with your camera on or off. There’s an option to enable the brush feature and draw on the screen. Changing the video resolution is possible too.
You’ll be surprised that all these features are free, and that’s because you are paying with your personal data. DU Recorder displays intrusive and malicious ads from time to time and most of the ads contain malware.
Some users have complained that even after uninstalling the app, the pop-up ads don’t go away, because the malware programs have been installed on your device without your permission.
It is for this reason that Google kicked out DU Recorder from the Play Store. So, if it’s on your device, please remove it completely.
6. SuperVPN Free VPN Client
SuperVPN was a popular app with over 100 million downloads. However, researchers revealed that it had a vulnerability that could encourage man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks – cyberattacks where hackers can intercept communication between the VPN and the user, and redirect the user to a malicious server and not the VPN server.
Attempts to contact SuperSoftTech, the app developer about the issue, didn’t bear fruit, compelling Google to remove the app.
7. Facebook
We all love our social media applications, but Raffi Jafari, Caveni Digital Solutions’ cofounder, cautions that Facebook is intrusive and you would be better off deleting it if you care about protecting your personal data.
Facebook tracks you even when you sign out of the app. Besides, it requires permission to access your text messages, call log, contacts, microphone, camera, location, internal storage, and more.
Facebook gathers all this data to serve you customized ads. Plus, the company is known to have leaked user data via several breaches over the years.
8. RT News
RT News is part of Russia Today (RT) – a Russian news network targeting the Western audience. It spreads its news via blogs, news channels, and apps. However, it has been criticized for spreading fake news, which is why you may want to avoid it.
Apps Containing Android Subscription Malware
In 2023, Kaspersky, a cybersecurity company, discovered an Android subscription malware dubbed Fleckpe. The malware subscribes Android users to paid services, generating unauthorized charges.
Fleckpe spreads through various apps on Google Play, especially smartphone wallpaper apps and photo editing apps.
After downloading an app containing the malware, the app will access your phone’s notifications often containing a confirmation code.
A malicious code will run on the device and contact hackers who will send a subscription page. The malware then signs you up for a premium subscription using the code obtained from notifications.
The following apps contain the Fleckpe malware. So, if you have any of them, delete them.
1. Beauty Photo Camera
2. Beauty Camera Plus
3. GIF Camera Editor
4. Fingertip Graffiti
5. Beauty Slimming Photo Editor
6. HD 4K Wallpaper
7. Microclip Video Editor
8. Photo Camera Editor
9. Impressionism Pro Camera
10. Night Mode Camera Pro
11. Photo Effect Editor
Apps Infected with Joker, Facestealer, and Coper Malware
Researchers from Zscaler, a cloud security firm, discovered approximately 50 malware-infected apps on the Google Play Store.
Joker malware attracts you with free trials before switching to a subscription after the trial expires. After subscribing, you can hardly cancel.
Additionally, Joker will intercept your passwords, bypass two-factor authentication, install other applications on your device, and take screenshots of your messages.
On the other hand, Facestealer malware requests you to sign into Facebook to use the app. You will see a fake Facebook login screen, and once you add the credentials, cybercriminals will receive them.
Finally, Coper malware is a banking malware that can send and receive texts, lock and unlock devices, prevent uninstalls, and let attackers access your device remotely.
While Google removed these apps from the Play Store, chances are some of them could still be on your device. If so, I suggest that you remove them.
The first 50 apps contain Joker malware and the last two have Coper and Facestealer.
1. Simple Note Scanner
3. Universal PDF Scanner
4. Text Emoji SMS
5. Premium SMS
6. Funny Keyboard
7. Smart Messages
8. Blood Pressure Checker
9. Memory Silent Camera
10. Light Messages
11. Themes Photo Keyboard
12. Custom Themed Keyboard
13. Send SMS
14. Cool Keyboard
15. Instant Messenger
16. Fonts Emoji Keyboard
17. Themes Chat Messenger
18. Mini PDF Scanner
19. Creative Emoji Keyboard
20. Smart SMS Messages
21. Fancy SMS
22. Magic Photo Editor
23. Personal Message
24. Funny Emoji Message
25. Professional Messages
26. Chat SMS
27. Magic Photo Editor
28. All Photo Translator
29. Smile Emoji
30. Cool Messages
31. Wow Translator
32. Blood Pressure Diary
33. All Language Translate
34. Chat Text SMS
35. Emoji Theme Keyboard
36. Hi Text SMS
37. Text SMS
38. iMessager
39. Painting Photo Editor
40. Come Messages
41. Camera Translator
42. Quick Talk Message
43. Professional Messenger
44. Rich Theme Message
45. Advanced SMS
46. Classic Game Messenger
47. Private Game Messages
48. Style Message
49. Timestamp Camera
50. Social Message
51. Unicc QR Scanner
52. Vanilla Snap Camera
Apps Infected with Adware
Dr.Web’s researchers reported numerous Android apps that silently served ads and secretly signed users up for paid subscriptions. Over two million people had downloaded these apps from the Play Store.
After installing these apps, they quickly change their icons to something familiar, like say, a Chrome browser icon. Surprisingly, some of them remove their icons from your app collection entirely.
These apps run in the background where they bombard you with ads through browsers. From deceptive investments to casino promos, the ads violate Google’s ad guidelines, lining the pockets of the app developers.
Keep an eye out for the following apps:
1. Photo Editor: Beauty Filter
2. Photo Editor: Art Filters
3. Photo & Exif Editor
4. Photo Editor – Design Maker
5. Photo Filters & Effects
6. Photo Editor and Background Eraser
7. Photo Editor – Filters Effects
8. Photo Editor: Blur Image
9. Emoji Keyboard: Stickers & GIF
10. Photo Editor: Cut, Paste
11. Neon Theme Keyboard
12. Emoji Keyboard: Stickers & GIF
13. Cache Cleaner
14. Neon Theme – Android Keyboard
15. Fancy Charging
16. Call Skins – Caller Themes
17. CallMe Phone Themes
18. FastCleaner: Cashe Cleaner
19. Funny Caller
20. InCall: Contact Background
21. MyCall – Call Personalization
22. Caller Theme
23. Funny Wallpapers – Live Screen
24. NewScrean: 4D Wallpapers
25. Stock Wallpapers & Backgrounds
26. 4K Wallpapers Auto Changer
27. Notes – Reminders and Lists
Bitdefender exposed 17 more apps that contain adware. They include:
29. Car Racing 2019
30. Barcode Scanner
31. QR & Barcode Scan Reader
32. QR Code Reader & Barcode Scanner Pro
33. VMOWO City: Speed Racing 3D
34. Wallpapers 4K, Backgrounds HD
35. File Manager Pro – Manager SD Card/Explorer
36. Screen Stream Mirroring
37. QR Code – Scan & Read a Barcode
38. Backgrounds 4K HD
39. Clock LED
40. 4K Wallpaper (Background 4K Full HD)
41. Transfer Data Smart
42. Today Weather Radar
43. Explorer File Manager
44. Mobnet.io: Big Fish Frenzy
45. Period Tracker – Cycle Ovulation Women’s
Game Apps
Believe it or not, most of the gaming apps on Play Store aren’t games. They contain adware technology to bombard your device with intrusive ads.
Furthermore, most multiplayer apps collect copious amounts of personal information and sell it to third parties.
Researchers at Avast warned Android users to avoid the following malicious apps disguised as games.
1. Draw Color by Number
2. Shoot Master
3. Joy Woodworker
4. Skate Board – New
5. Stacking Guys
6. Find Hidden Differences
7. Find 5 Differences
8. Disc Go!
9. Dancing Run – Color Ball Run
10. Spot Hidden Differences
11. Throw Master
12. Assassin Legend
13. Tony Shoot – NEW
14. Divide it – Cut & Slice Game
15. Save Your Boy
16. Stealing Run
17. Flip King
18. Throw Into Space
19. Fly Skater 2020
20. Assassin Hunter 2020
21. Super Skibydi Killer
Weather Apps
Ever wondered why a weather app would want to access your location? After all, it requires your location to tell the weather, right?
Well, once you grant it permission, it will track your location every day and sell the data to other entities, mostly advertisers. Sharing your geolocation data with third parties intrudes on your privacy and endangers your device’s security.
Some Android users have raised concerns about the inability to uninstall particular weather apps, and that some weather apps changed settings on their smartphones.
Here are examples of weather apps you may want to remove from your phone:
1. Daily Weather Home
2. UnWX
3. Weather by WeatherBug
4. AccuWeather
5. The Weather Channel
Flashlight Apps
While Flashlight apps are free, they often sell your data to advertisers. Avast analyzed 1,000 of these applications and noticed that most of them typically request permission to access things such as location data, microphone, and call log.
1. Brightest Flashlight
2. Super-bright Flashlight
3. Ultra Color Flashlight
4. Flashlight Plus
5. Flashlight – SOS Torch Light
6. Morse code flashlight
7. Flashlight for Samsung Galaxy
8. Flashlight Classic
How to Stay Safe When Downloading Android Apps?
Here are useful tips to improve safety when handling Android apps.
Read app reviews
Before downloading any app, check out its reviews from other users. Your privacy and security are vital, so always check out various sources to ascertain an app’s reliability.
Check out the permissions
Does the app require permission for sensitive features like text messages, call logs, photo galleries, microphone, and camera to function? Steer clear of such apps.
Delete the apps you don’t use and update those you use
Your smartphone probably contains many apps. Consider deleting the apps you rarely use to boost the phone’s performance and protect you from risks. Besides, it’s best to update the apps you use to enhance your device’s security.
Use a VPN
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) helps to encrypt every connection you make, including apps. It also hides your real location and IP address, adding a layer of security and privacy to your online activities.
Conclusion
Google makes efforts from time to time to remove bad Android apps from its store, but some malicious apps still slip in. And even after removal from the store, you can still find them on third-party websites on the internet.
Most of these apps contain malware, bloatware, spyware, and adware. The above-mentioned apps fall under any of these categories.
If you have one of them on your phone, I suggest you uninstall it and find a reliable alternative.
Tom loves to write on technology, e-commerce & internet marketing.
Tom has been a full-time internet marketer for two decades now, earning millions of dollars while living life on his own terms. Along the way, he’s also coached thousands of other people to success.