How to remove popup ads and viruses from your Galaxy S9 Plus

There are many Android owners who keep on asking how to deal with popup ads and viruses on their devices on a daily basis so today’s troubleshooting guide will answer this issue. While the cases mentioned below are taken from certain Galaxy S9 Plus reports, our sugggestions can be applied to whatever Android device you may have as well.

Remember, you can get Android viruses from these three things:

  • a booby-trapped site you visited,
  • a email link you clicked or
  • from an app you installed.

If your device has been infected with a virus, you must have done any of the stuff above. So, once you’ve cleaned your phone by following our suggestions below, make sure not to commit the same mistakes again.

Problem #1: How to remove popup ads and viruses from your Galaxy S9 Plus

Hello. I bought an AT&T Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus that has been unlocked off of someone but it must have viruses all in it. It keeps shutting down and restarting, all these pop ups for ads keep coming up, notifications saying an app has stopped all different kinds, shuts down in the middle of every app I try to get on. I’ve tried a hard reset by using the power, volume and home button and I’ve went into settings and done a factory reset nothing wipes the whole system back to the way it was if it were new to stop all the problems. What do I need to do? — Mailbag

Solution: Hi Mailbag. The most effective way to remove popup ads, viruses, or malware from your Galaxy S9 Plus is by doing a factory reset. We don’t know if you were to do that successfully or not  as your problem description is not clear about it. If you did not, here’s how it’s done properly:

  1. If still possible, make sure to back your data up.
  2. If you have signed into a Samsung account on the device, you have activated Anti-theft and will need your Samsung credentials to finish the master reset.
  3. Turn off the device. This is important. You can’t boot your S9 Plus to Recovery Mode unless it’s shut down. If you can’t turn the phone off normally, wait until the battery is drained.
  4. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Bixby key, then press and hold the Power key.
  5. When the green Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  6. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight ‘wipe data / factory reset’.
  7. Press Power button to select.
  8. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  9. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  10. When the master reset is complete, ‘Reboot system now’ is highlighted.
  11. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Once you’ve factory reset your S9 Plus, let it run for some time and see how it works when there are no third party apps installed. In other words, you want to observe the phone when there are no added apps to the system. If it works fine, then that’s a confirmation that the system has been cleaned.

To prevent getting viruses or popup ads in the future, be sure not to visit suspicious web sites, click in suspicious links, or install apps from untrusted sources. When installing apps, make sure to check the reputation of the developer and read reviews from other users. You are the first line of defense of your phone. If you’re careless when it comes to picking apps and in your browsing activities, you only have yourself to blame if your phone gets infected by malware again.

Problem #2: Galaxy S9 Plus keeps getting virus detected warning when connecting to the internet

My other phone is a Samsung S9 Plus. Today when the weather was accessed a warning came up saying that the phone had 4 viruses and said to download the virus protection app for Google play store. I did this, ran the app and was told no viruses. I still cannot access the Internet without getting the same warning. Have no idea what to do now. No new apps been downloaded. — Sandi

Solution: Hi Sandi. Unless the virus detected warning comes from a legitimate antivirus app installed on your phone, you should always be wary for such warnings, especially if the next action being asked from you is to install something. This is a typical tactic of hackers and developers to trick users to install apps. While most malware or viruses spreading in Android today are designed to generate money for malicious developers, some may also be there to steal personal information like passwords, banking details, and other useful user information. These stolen information can then be sold to other parties.

Since you’ve already fallen for their trick before contacting us, what you can do right now is to try to uninstall the app that may be causing the problem. To do that, you want to run your phone to Safe Mode. In this mode, all third party apps and services will be blocked, only allowing pre-installed apps to run. In safe mode, you can then try to access Google Play Store and install a good antivirus app. If you’re lucky and the virus on the system is of an older type, your antivirus may be able to remove it for your. This Google Play Store page lists some of the free antivirus that you can try. Be sure not to install more than one antivirus app on your phone to avoid causing problems.  

If an antivirus won’t fix the issue, you can either manually try to figure out what app is causing the problem on safe mode, or you can just master reset the device, just like what we tell Mailbag above.

To boot your S9 Plus to safe mode:

  1. Turn the device off.
  2. Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen appearing on the screen.
  3. When SAMSUNG appears on the screen, release the Power key.
  4. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
  5. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
  6. When Safe mode appears in the bottom left corner of the screen, release the Volume down key.
  7. Let your phone run, pull up camera app, and check for the problem.

To identify which of your apps is causing the trouble, you should boot the phone back to safe mode and follow these steps:

  1. Boot to safe mode.
  2. Check for the problem.
  3. Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
  4. After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
  5. If your S9 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.

Problem #3: What to do if Galaxy S9 Internet app has virus or malware

Hi. I have a Galaxy S9. The Internet app is my problem. When I click on the icon (Internet app) an adware or malware is in the Internet app. It says you have been chosen to win an iPhone, click here and see what you have won. We need beta users. I can’t get it off the Internet page and can’t use the Internet at all. I have tried to type in my own Internet home page –  att.net. How can I delete this adware or malware. I have downloaded an antivirus and Malwarebytes since this happened. I still can’t use the Internet app. — P

Solution: Hi P. If by Internet app you mean to say the default Samsung web browser, there’s a few things that you can do to fix it.

Delete Internet app data

If you want to stick to your current Internet app, the first thing that you want to do is to clear its data to simulate reinstallation. Normally, you should try to uninstall the said app first but since this is a pre-installed one, you should only try its equivalent which is to delete its data.

Here are the steps on how to delete your Internet app’s data:

  1. Open Settings app.
  2. Tap Apps.
  3. Tap More settings (three-dot icon) at the upper-right.
  4. Tap Show system apps.
  5. Find the SIM Toolkit app and tap it.
  6. Tap Storage.
  7. Tap CLEAR DATA button.
  8. Restart your device.
  9. Check for the problem.

Install an antivirus app

Another way to attack this problem is by dealing directly with the virus or malware instead of the Internet app. Android viruses or malware usually spreads via other apps. Sometimes, removing the original app that spread that virus may also remove the virus itself. Because identifying a bad app usually takes time and effort, you should try an easier way by installing an antivirus app first instead. If you’re lucky, the antivirus you install may effectively deal with the bad app and the virus at the same time. Keep in mind that this route does not always work because there’s a constant cat-and-mouse game between antivirus developers and virus/malware publishers.

To check where to get an antivirus for your S9, refer to the link we provide above.

Boot to safe mode

Refer to the advise we provide above on what you need to do.

Use another browser

If the only aspect of your device that’s affected by the virus is the Internet app, you can try to ignore it for now by installing another browser like Google Chrome or Mozillar Firefox for Android. This should allow you to continue browsing while you figure out how to better deal with the virus infection.

Factory reset your S9 to permanently remove the virus

As discussed above, the best way to erase the virus from the system is to factory reset or master reset it. Again, refer to the steps we provide above on how to do this and the steps that you should do to avoid getting your S9 plus infected in the future.


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