How to Remove Fake Virus Messages on Android Phone or Tablet

Whereas these are nothing but fake virus messages that are programmed to send a completely different kind of malware to your phone.

The most deadly thing you can do is to tap on any button when you see these messages.

Do you want to know the best and easiest step-by-step way to identify, remove and block these fake virus messages? Then read on!

What Are Fake Virus Messages?

Pop-ups are designed by websites to give their users and visitors additional information. It’s also a way to get visitors’ contact information in exchange for some incentives. But when some of these pop-ups are misleading and pose a serious threat to your Android device, they are usually fake.

Unfortunately, some of these pop-ups may be installed by malware programs. Malware programs are usually mistakenly downloaded by clicking on adverts. This could also be an attachment you open or a link in the spam folder.

When it’s on your device, it triggers pop-ups of these fake virus messages anytime you’re online.

Follow the step-by-step strategy outlined in this guide to get rid of fake virus messages. But first, let’s see how these fake virus alerts work.

How Fake Virus Message Works

A fake virus message alert intends to get you to click on a link that contains some device virus or push you to a site to buy fake anti-virus software.

Do you know the scary thing about these kinds of messages? They come with premium packaged psychological triggers that play on your emotions and give you a sense of urgency to click on the link.

When these messages appear, the very first thing to do is to close the screen. If the messages continue to show, then the steps outlined in this guide will come in handy.

You can’t really fight something if you can’t identify it. This leads us to how you can spot these fake virus messages with an eagle sight.

How to Identify Fake Virus Messages

The easiest way to fight your enemy is when you can spot them quickly. So watch out for some of these signs to identify these fake virus messages.

• Bad designs and extreme grammatical errors: When you want to figure out if a pop-up message is fake or genuine, look out for spelling errors and grammatical blunders. Bad design is also one of the common attributes of fake messages. 

• Compare the message to a genuine message: Get yourself familiar with some legitimate sites that you use and compare the structure of their pop-up to any other one you receive. This is one of the easiest ways to identify fake alerts.

• Sense of urgency: As mentioned earlier, these fake virus messages use extreme psychological triggers to scare you and trick you into making urgent decisions. So anytime you feel compelled to make a quick decision when you see a pop-up, be careful.

• Payment information: An anti-virus service that is real and legit would not ask you to make some payments without a free trial.

• Request to call: You may be asked to book an instant phone call. And once you do this, you will be subjected to a hardcore sales technique that will compel you to purchase the anti-virus service.

Here are some strategies to differentiate a real virus alert from a fake one.

So, how exactly do you get rid of these fake alerts?

How to Get Rid of Fake Virus Messages From Android

As mentioned earlier, the most deadly thing you can do is tap on any button on the pop-up site. The only time you see these fake virus messages is when you are using the web browser.

Follow these simple step-by-step strategies to get rid of fake virus messages from your Android.

• If you are not able to close the anti-virus pop-up window, make sure all the browser windows are closed

• Tap on your Android settings and click on Apps

• Go to the browser you were using when the pop-up appears, click on it, and go to settings

• There are three buttons available, click on force stop to stop the browser from running

• Then, you get a notification that the app may misbehave after force-stopping it. Go ahead and click okay

• Look for the clear cache button on the App window and click it

• After clearing the cache, the memory usage would be 0 MB

• At this point, the fake virus message window would disappear

There are three major ways in which you can also remove unwanted malware such as getting rid of problematic apps, stopping these apps from your device and pausing notifications from suspected websites.

Now, after going through this process to remove the fake virus pop-up, would you have to go through this process again if the fake virus message appears again? The answer is Yes. This is because there may be some settings on your Android device that may allow it to appear out of thin air again.

In order to put a permanent stop to this altogether, you need to block pop-ups on your Android device.

How to Block Pop-ups on Your Android Device

This step-by-step strategy will help you block pop-ups on your chrome browser and say a permanent goodbye to fake virus messages on your Android device.

• Look at the upper right corner of your chrome browser and click on the arrow there. Select update chrome if a new version is available to get the necessary security updates

• Go back to the menu and click settings

• In the settings menu, click on site settings

• In the site settings, click on pop-ups and redirect

• In the pop-ups and redirect tab, click to off the selector so as to block pop-ups from showing on sites

• Then head back to site settings and click on the Ads windows

• In the Ads window, click to off the selector as well to block misleading Ads on the site that display them

• In the site settings, click on automatic downloads

• In the automatic downloads, click on the selector so as to enable ask first

With these settings, you have built a wall of protection around your Android device from these fake virus messages.

You may need to block pop-ups, but not all pop-ups are spam, and not all notifications are bad. So you need to be careful about blocking any pop-ups.

But there is something important that you need to note here, this process is not 100% secure. Even though it is over 80% certain.

If you don’t want any surprises or be caught off guard, and you really want to build a giant wall of protection around your device that the enemy can not bring down, read on!

What to Do to Avoid Unhealthy Surprises From Fake Virus Messages

In order not to be caught off guard or get unnecessary surprises from these fake virus messages and remove them altogether, there’s a simpler and easier way.

You can do this with anti-virus protection. 

Good anti-virus protection can get rid of the malware that makes your Android device vulnerable to fake virus messages.

Android antivirus helps remove fake virus messages and permanently blocks them on your Android device.

Aside from the fact that an antivirus helps to protect your Android against the virus, it also has a firewall feature that gives two-way protection to your device.

Antivirus monitors the files that enter into your Android and runs a quick check to confirm the absence of any viruses.

This is so important in order to prevent any loss of your personal data.

Moreso, reviews are very helpful in comparing and choosing between various antivirus programs like Bitdefender, Clario, Norton, Kaspersky, Avast, Lookout, McAfee, and many more.

Let’s Wrap This up!

Now you have the antidote to the deadly fake virus messages flying around. You should be able to identify a fake virus message and get rid of it instantly.

Also, you now know how to block these blood-sucking pop-ups from ever appearing on your Android device.

And most importantly, you have the ultimate secret on how to 100% secure your Android device from unnecessary surprises from these fake virus messages with a trusted antivirus.