[Android Apps and Games] AndroidDeveloperLB:
Recently I've noticed that people put good reviews of my app, saying it helped them to get rid of "virus" apps.

While the app wasn't originally intended for such a task (and technically there is no such a thing as "virus" apps on Android, search for it on Google, here), I think it's nice to see the app helped people with it.

What I think that it helped people with, is to get rid of annoying/nasty/malicious apps, that show bad or unexpected behavior. Such a behavior might be intended (ads) or not (bugs of the app). Whatever it is, you've find it to be a bad behavior, such as ads popping out in random times, screen being taken control, things appear on top of other apps, ...

I've even used my app myself on both my device and for my family-relatives, to get rid of such apps.

So because of this, I've decided to write here a step-by-step manual of how to deal with this kind of situation :

1. Detection of suspicious app: Restart the OS. As soon as you notice the nasty behavior, open my app, and sort by recently launched. Now there is a very big chance that the nasty app is at the top of the list, or near it. Make sure it's not marked as system app (built in app), because in most cases system apps don't do nasty things. Such apps are marked in my app with "!" icon. There is also a very low chance that an app from respected company (such as Google) or a very popular app will cause this issue. If you've noticed the bad behavior only recently (meaning you've never seen it before), you might also see the same app if you sort by recently-installed or recently-updated.

2. Neutralizing of suspicious app or its behavior: First try to find a setting to disable the problematic behavior in the suspicious app, especially if it's a system app. If you can't find such a thing, continue reading. Choose to manage the suspected app, and try "force-stop" it, if possible. If it's impossible to choose it, or if the button to force-stop never changes to be disabled, choose to uninstall the app (use my app if it's impossible to do it on your own). If you don't want to uninstall the app (or can't), and the issue is something that floats, try to disable "Display over other apps".

In case you have a rooted device, you can choose to disable the app instead (using my app). This is way more effective than force-stop (because the app won't be able to wake from anything, till you enable it), and it won't remove the app's data.

If it's a system app that you think is the suspicious one and you can't disable/uninstall it via my app because you don't have a rooted device, check how to (try to) disable/remove it via this tutorial.

3. Testing if all is well now: Use your device for a while (depending on how often and on which cases you've seen the bad behavior). If indeed you can't see this issue anymore, you've probably found the real nasty app, and you can remove it if you wish to. If you still want to use the app, try to check the settings of the app to see if this behavior can be turned off, or contact the developer for help.

If it's not the app that causes nasty stuff, you can restore the app (run it, enable it, or re-install it, depending on what you did on previous step), and repeat from first step again.

4. Optionally help others: Now that you don't have the nasty app anymore, I suggest you to go to the app's page on the Google Play Store, and consider to write a review warning other people about it, and also report about the app, so that other people will think twice before using the app, and that the developer should change the app so that it won't happen again.