Anyone here experienced chrome's forced update on android today? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've been ignoring google updates notification and I have my auto update settings turn-off and yet, google was able to force their update. Very shady. I've been using an old chrome version and the notification keeps popping up to remind me to update chrome but I just ignore it because I don't want to update.Then a few days later, chrome started to auto download their update everytime I restart my phone so I always force close my download manager to stop it. Then this day, chrome suddenly hang up while I was browsing and my phone was unresponsive. Home and volume button doesn't respond so I pressed the on/off button to lock it then screen went off. Then when I press it again to show the lockscreen, no response. So I removed the battery and put it back then turn my phone on. Then chrome started to auto download again and as usual, I force close download manager again before it finish the download. Then a few minutes later, a notification showed and say chrome was succesfully updated. Feels like google have complete control of our phone. .

Heh! Feels like google compromised my phone... Told my phone not to update any app then google steps in and overrides my phone's setting and silently did what they wanna do. Shame on you google! Very shady company. I wonder what else they're doing on my phone without my consent. This should be put on the news to warn people. Stop fooling people that this is an accident because you don't accidentally override other people's gadgets and install whatever you want.
See how many people complaining about google's action.
productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/chrome/gLlJazwMkFs

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[Q] Virus/Phishing Malware repeatedly requesting Gmail login

Hello guys,
I have registered this account to ask this question, I will try my best to avoid any of the annoying pitfalls of being new.
HANDSET - Samsung GT-i9100
CARRIER - Vodafone UK
OS - Android 2.3.3 using GoLauncher Pro
This morning the notification bar showed 10 updates available, I updated them all, all of them being apps that I recognised. Following the updates I now get a recurring pop-up window asking for my Google account username and password. The window pops up in the middle of the screen with whatever I was looking at before dimmed in the background. It occurs on the lockscreen, homescreen and in any app I open. Pressing cancel just causes it to reappear, only pressing the home button makes it go away fully, however never for more than 30 seconds. I am able to stop it from appearing for a few minutes by clearing the RAM.
I tried entering false information into the form to see what happened - it now prompts me with the options to 'Reinput' or 'Cancle' (actual spelling) and appears just as frequently.
AVG has turned up nothing and Android Assistant doesn't show any strange processes.
I am completely stumped.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and in advance for any input you may be able to offer.
solved by unistalling and reinstalling GoLauncher. No idea what caused it. Cheers.
notoriousTOBP said:
solved by unistalling and reinstalling GoLauncher. No idea what caused it. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn. I uninstalled GoLauncher.
Usually it happens when you try to modify something on your account without stopping the sync before
Sent by my Optimus 2x using Tapatalk
It was an update to GoLauncher EX Notification - they have been having trouble making it work with the Gmail app for some time and thought they had it cracked, however people updating to the new version experienced this problem. Their poor spelling I suppose exacerbated the problem as it made it look like malware. Can't be critical though, must be an absolute nightmare to program something like this and write the UI in a second language.
Today's update reverts the changes and explains (ish) in the update log.

anyone else have issues with galaxy s3 UI and apps.

Issues I have been having since I got the phone had it (freez on me a few times but did not have to restart or pull battery) it just closes everything and goes back to the phones home screen. About half a dozen times when closing out an app and even when scrolling my screens message has came up saying touch wiz on unresponsive and it flashes but works again. About the app's don't know if it's the phone or apps but on facebook trying to leave a comment it will start loading then go right back to the same screen as if I did not press an thing at all. Words with friends try to log in to facebook account same thing awesome with my bank of America app something. My other bank account app I log in but when I chose the account it said session has timed out overtime. The phone is not rooted I disabled the Verizon apps because it lets u choose to. Other then that Idk y anyone have this happen.
I will update this when more stuff happens.
antg001 said:
Issues I have been having since I got the phone had it (freez on me a few times but did not have to restart or pull battery) it just closes everything and goes back to the phones home screen. About half a dozen times when closing out an app and even when scrolling my screens message has came up saying touch wiz on unresponsive and it flashes but works again. About the app's don't know if it's the phone or apps but on facebook trying to leave a comment it will start loading then go right back to the same screen as if I did not press an thing at all. Words with friends try to log in to facebook account same thing awesome with my bank of America app something. My other bank account app I log in but when I chose the account it said session has timed out overtime. The phone is not rooted I disabled the Verizon apps because it lets u choose to. Other then that Idk y anyone have this happen.
I will update this when more stuff happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If i understand correctly you have verizon gs3. There is a separate forum for it. This is meant only for intl i9300

Nexus 5X weird behavior (malware?), possibly caused by FB Messenger or Pixel Launcher

Some very weird things started happening on my phone earlier today. It's a Nexus 5X, running 8.0 Oreo, with the October security patch. I'm not rooted and I'm careful about what I install. The phone is fairly new, from this summer.
I will begin with describing what I did in the hours before this started. I can think of two things that possibly could have started it:
1) Two of my Facebook contacts sent malicious links to me an hour before. It looked like Youtube videos but was not. I did NOT open any of these links, knowing directly they were harmful (not sure if you can be affected by just receiving them, not clicking on them?). I received them in the Messenger Lite application (an official app from Facebook with scaled-down functionality).
2) A few hours before the Facebook links, I sideloaded an APK containing the new Pixel Launcher. I got the APK from Android Police/APK Mirror.
Can't attach links, but Google for: Hands-on with the updated Pixel Launcher, including the new Pixel 2 features [APK Download]
The APK was working fine and nothing seemed odd with it (I used the launcher for a few hours). As long as Android Police know what they uploaded, this shouldn't be the cause for my problems. I bet on Facebook Messenger instead. (People that click such malware links typically get their Facebook accounts hacked, however my account seems fine and my account didn't spam others with the same link. I did not change password or did anything else to "recover" my account yet).
So what happened after this on my phone?
Here is the first thing I noticed. I open Play Store to install updates. It turns out I have one update pending, it's called BankID. This is a major Swedish app used by nearly every smartphone user in the country, and it's for signing into government websites, bank websites, insurance company websites, and much more. When I click update in Play Store two things happen almost instantly:
1) Six pictures are downloaded from Messenger Lite to my phone. That makes no sense, how could clicking a button in Google Play trigger something to happen in Messenger Lite? In fact I tried it three times, with the same behavior every time. (Well, actually opening the Messenger Lite photo album, there are only photos there I already downloaded, so nothing new seems to be added there - but the photos were probably re-downloaded I believe).
2) The BankID update downloads to 100 % (the downloading takes a little longer than expected), then it halts and does nothing, i.e. it's not installing. No error message, it just stops there. I can choose to abort and try again, which I do three times or more, with exactly the same behavior.
Also, I now notice Play Protect hasn't run for two days, but when I try to run it, it seems to be down. After ~30 seconds of scanning it says "App verification temporarily down". "App verification temporarily down" could very well be connected with the halted update I just described? It still says it hasn't run for two days after this.
When I experiment, I notice other things that are very weird indeed.
1) Notifications in Gmail, Snapchat and possibly other apps aren't coming through. By opening the apps, I can sync manually.
2) When I move a file to a new folder using the Downloads app (Files app, stock one) I get a error message saying the move operation failed. This also triggered the photo notifications from Messenger Lite (same behavior as described above, with six photos). However, after a while the moved pictures are indeed in the right folder, even though the error message saying otherwise.
3) After some time I remove "app data" for the Google Play app. When I open it after that, there are now three app updates pending (e.g. Google Wifi also). But the same behavior occurs, when I try to download one or all of them, I get the Messenger photo notifications and the updates halt at 100 % without installing. So the BankID app - which could be targeted by attackers for obvious reasons - could just be a coincidence. It could have happened with any app I suppose, this was the only one pending right then. But still, why couldn't Play Store detect other pending app updates until I refreshed it the way I did? Was Play Store blocked from connecting to Google (or forced to connect to some other server, perhaps?).
What did I do after all of this?
I uninstalled three apps:
-Facebook Lite
-Facebook Messenger Lite
-Pixel Launcher APK
However the uninstall process was very odd. A process called "Package Installer" had a notification saying "Uninstalling Lite" and "Uninstalling Messenger Lite". It didn't seem to be working, it was stuck after some time. I restarted my phone and the apps seem to be gone now, at least they aren't listed in Settings --> Apps. So the uninstall process was successful I suppose, even though it didn't seem to work.
After I restarted my phone I also noticed:
-When I install Messenger Lite from Play Store now, it's easy to uninstall it the way it should be - in mere seconds.
-When I open Play Store, updates are now installing fine. Play Protect is also scanning fine now.
Everything looks back to normal now. But I'm not trusting my device. I'm gonna factory reset it. Before I do, I wonder:
-Can I feel safe the wipe would erase whatever malware I might have had on the phone?
-Is there something I could do to let us know what caused this? Upload a log here somehow?
The only piece of advice I have received as of now is: "Try restarting in safe mode, installing some AV software, and generally looking for suspicious processes." I haven't done that yet, would it still be a good thing to do? Must I install AV software before rebooting into safe mode, or could I install it directly from safe mode? (App suggestions, AV software?).
Usually I'm very careful and security-minded. I haven't had something like this happen before. So I'm very intrigued and mad about this. I'm gonna change my Google account and Facebook account passwords later on I think (I already have 2-factor authentication enabled).
One last thing: When I install Pixel Launcher on my non-rooted phone, it's not running as a system app if my understanding is correct. (At least it shouldn't be). But none the less, when I wanted to uninstall it I had to go into Settings --> Apps and tap "Show system apps" to find it in the list. Is that normal? Perhaps it doesn't mean anything, I just want to know.
Thanks for your advice in advance. Anything else to add? What should I do know? All you might have to say is appreciated.
Come on now guys, someone must be able to help?
If I factory reset the device, will it be clean? I didn't mess with custom ROMs, root, the bootloader or something else. (I suppose the bootloader is locked).

Google Chrome auto updating without permission Jun 2018

I googled this topic extensively and got nowhere, maybe because I "googled" it, LOL.
Chrome for Android discontinued bottom navigation bar, the best feature on tall phones and on mobile browsers imo. I uninstalled update on my Note 8 and got back to Chrome 64, put nav bar back on the bottom in flags.
This only seems to last for couple of hours, after which Chrome updates itself again without my permission. First it will show red update arrow for some time, then the arrow is gone and Chrome is updated.
I have auto-updates switched off. I pressed 3 dots in Playstore - Chrome, no auto-updates are selected. The last one was stupid advise from internet, as pressing that enables/disables all updates, not for specific app. It is the same as disabling it in settings.
On google forums in 2017 users complained about it, moderator was pretending to help and in the end he said "this is now resolved". Maybe it was for a little while.
I don't want to use other browser, this has all my auto-fill and bookmarks and it's much better on the phone than on the mac.
I don't want to disable Play Store either.
Is there Chrome mod apk that has auto-updates disabled or is there a way to really completely disable Chrome auto updates without root?
I'm surprised users aren't complaining. I'm surprised this isn't talked about on social media and in the press. Even if that was in their T&C and Privacy, I feel like they just showed us middle finger and I don't trust google at this stage more than facebook.
Please advise.

Google Assistant driving me INSANE

When activated Google assistant interrupts constantly, as often as every couple of seconds sometimes. I have tried the advice from every thread that I can find on the subject, but nothing works.
When disabled I then get constant pop ups of the notification prompting me to turn it back on!
I have a Xiaomi MI9 running android 10, but it doesn't have the normal menu that is present on the phones used in all the articles or videos showing how to be rid of google assistant. So for example on my phone the google app does not appear in the app manager list, and nowhere can I find the 'default apps' option.
I even tried - as suggested by some - installing Amazon Alexa as the assistant app, but there's no way to toggle between them and I still get pestered all the time but the google app, disabled or otherwise.
I am ready to consider any option, getting of the MIUI, rooting the phone, setting it on fire, whatever I need to do to be rid of this issue, It's making my phone unusable.
Please help!

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