The hubby and I were super excited to get brand new Samsung Galaxy S3 Android phones recently and went a bit crazy downloading all the free apps we’d been lacking on our old phones. Games, shopping tools, music players, flashlight apps, barcode scanners…you name it we downloaded them!
It didn’t take long before we started to realize that many free apps can be pretty spammy and overly-aggressive with those unwanted ad popups, and it’s hard to know which ones to watch out for. Turns out there’s something called Madware, which is mobile adware hidden in many apps. It only affects Android phones, and even some of the most popular apps out there, including Angry Birds, Brightest Flashlight Free and Sams Club apps to name just a few, contain Madware!
We were pretty happy to learn about a handy tool that helps find and remove Madware apps, called Norton Spot. It’s developed by the same people who make all the other Norton security, privacy protection and web software we’ve all come to trust, and you can download Norton Spot for free, right from Google Play (formerly known as the Android Marketplace).
Norton Spot is an ad blocker, detector, killer and stopper. It also protects your privacy which is something every parent needs to be aware of, too. Once installed, you can count on Norton Spot to identify apps that don’t respect your time or privacy and remove them. It shows you the apps you need to be concerned about along with the suspicious or undesirable behaviors you might not be aware of. If you’ve got an Android phone, and especially if your kiddos do, I recommend you download Norton Spot for free and start using it, too!
For everything else you need to know about what Madware does to your Android phone, just click the infographic below to view the full-sized version!
I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Norton. I received a promotional item as a thank-you for participating. All opinions are 100% my own, and I only share information on products and services I use personally and/or think would be of value to my readers.
Sounds like a great service – I’m an Iphone user, so I’ll have to check out and see if there is something comparable.
You’re lucky to have an iPhone…I’ve learned while writing this post, that only Android phones are affected by Madware!
You had to know that those pesky spammers would find a way to get to our phones. Thanks for letting me know about this app. I was not aware that it existed!
Definitely a very helpful app! I need to try it out!!
I am going to download this app today…thanks for posting!
Maggie
I am so glad you wrote this post. I am a crazy person when it comes to downloading apps on my phone and I started wondering if it was safe. I came close to going over my data limit before I switched to unlimited data with Solavei. I have almost all the apps that I have on my Computer on my phone so it makes sense that it could get infected I just wasn’t sure since i haven’t seen anything about it before your post. I think it is great that Norton is free for the phone app., you don’t see that too often!