How to detect a Virus on your Android Phone

Though they are rare, virus for android phones do exist and they can cause your phone to misbehave. If you think your phone is misbehaving without any obvious reasons, you must suspect a virus or malware.

Signs or Symptoms of virus or malware on your android phone

Symptoms such as sluggish performance, web browser redirecting you to a porn site, and unwanted pop-ups and ads on your phone screen can indicate to you that your android phone is infected with a virus or malware. If you have installed an app outside the confines of the Google Play store, it is possible that there is a malicious virus infection on your android phone.

Some good antivirus apps for Android can give you a lot of peace of mind as they can keep tabs on the activities on your phone.

If you remember when your phone started misbehaving, you can remove the malicious app by uninstalling it manually. Before doing this, enter into safe mode so that you can stop any third-party apps from running.

Go to Settings and choose the Apps and Notification menu. Check from the list if any malicious apps are installed without your knowledge. If the app you see is not a pre-installed app that comes with your device, you will see an uninstall button on top of the dedicated App Info page. If you find this greyed out, it is possible that the app has automatically given itself the administrator rights. In such case, you can remove it by going to Settings > Security & Location > Device Admin Apps.

Once you have followed these steps, you can come out of safe mode and restart the device.