We’ve all been there. You download a certain app and suddenly your phone begins misbehaving. Perhaps it begins to heat up to very high temperatures, or it begins to drain the battery extremely fast.
These are some tell-tale signs of an android phone infected with a virus and they often come from downloads from third party sources (not Google Play Store).
So, if you go through this check list, and suspect your phone has a virus, try the following –
Antivirus Scans
Many antivirus scans will often do more harm than good so go for tried and trusted apps like Bitdefender Antivirus or Malwarebytes Security.
These are the two best android virus scanning devices. They scan your phone for malware and remove any threats that they find. You can also give the apps permission to keep track of what each app has access to. Both apps are lightweight, meaning they don’t bog your phone’s performance.
Manual Malware Removal
You can also try to remove the virus manually if the antivirus apps don’t get the job done. A safe mode is where the phone loads up but doesn’t run third part apps and disables them. This can then allow you to detect problematic apps and remove them safely.
To go into safe mode:
- Press down and hold the Power button until you get the power menu.
- Tap then hold Power off until you get a Reboot to safe mode
- Tap OK.
- The phone will reboot and will have a Safe Mode watermark at the bottom-left corner.
If, however, the virus has affected the phone such that it can’t boot normally, try this:
- Press then hold down the Power, Volume Up and Down buttons at once.
- Once the phone logo appears, release the Power button but keep holding the Volume
- This will shut down the phone but will reboot in in Safe Mode, which will display the water mark.
Once your phone is in Safe Mode, go to Settings > Apps & Notifications > See all apps. You can then try to locate the malicious app by tracking back to when the problem started.
Once you find the app, tap Uninstall on the info page and then reboot your phone normally to exit Safe Mode.
In case the app has a Device Administrator, Go to Settings > Security & Location > Device Admin Apps. Then locate the app and tap the Deactivate on the info page (or three dots on the top right).
This should help get rid of the virus without factory reset. If the above, and these other actions, don’t work, then factory reset is your only option.
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