Seemingly harmless ads are installing secret apps on your Galaxy phone

Many Android smartphones already suffer from bloatware apps, unwanted notifications, and ads inside stock apps (even from Samsung). Some apps even show full-screen ads on the home screen and the lock screen. Now, it has been revealed that some seemingly harmless ads can secretly install apps on your Galaxy smartphone.

A detailed thread on Reddit explains that some ads currently appearing on Android smartphones can install apps without any user intervention. They can even bypass the Play Store and other security measures included in Android. Essentially, these ads look like any other app listing on the Play Store, and even when you try to close the ad, it installs the app in the background anyway.

Some digging reveals that this is being accomplished by a system service called Appreciate (by Digital Turbine) that comes pre-installed on smartphones. Some carriers and Android OEMs use this service, and ads or apps promoted by this service are served directly from Digital Turbine’s servers. This behavior can essentially be seen as malware. The company even owns a patent for this functionality.

A few years ago, carriers like T-Mobile and Verizon used to pre-install Digital Turbine’s DT Ignite app on some Android smartphones along with the usual bloatware. But now, the service has gone too far and is installing apps without any user intervention. The company says that the app isn’t supposed to install apps if the user closes or dismisses the promotional pop-up window.

One of the apps called Weather Home installed by Digital Turbine reportedly tries to replace app launchers, runs intrusive ads, and consumes a lot of battery in the background. Digital Turbine says that it double-checks all the apps it promotes before and after the installation. The company will reportedly issue a statement on this controversy, but that doesn’t make any of this right.

Have you seen such ads on your Galaxy smartphone? Let us know in the comments section below.

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International variants of Galaxy Note 20 start getting October 2021 security update

Two weeks ago, Samsung had released the October 2021 security update to the South Korean Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra models. The company has now started rolling out the update to the international versions of the smartphones in the Southeastern European region.

The Galaxy Note 20 and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra have started getting a new update with firmware version N98xFXXS3DUIF. The update brings the October 2021 security patch that promises to fix more than 60 vulnerabilities related to privacy and security. As usual, the update could also include general bug fixes and device stability improvements.

If you are a Galaxy Note 20 or Galaxy Note 20 Ultra user in Southeastern Europe, you can check for the new update by navigating to Settings » Software update and clicking on Download and install. You can also download the latest firmware file from our firmware database and flash it manually using a Windows computer.

The Galaxy Note 20 series is currently running Android 11-based One UI 3.1.1 software, and it will get two additional Android OS updates in the future. The smartphones were initially launched with Android 10 onboard.

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Galaxy Z Flip gets the October 2021 security update

A few days after releasing the October 2021 security update to the Galaxy Z Flip 5G and the Galaxy Z Flip 3, Samsung has released the latest security patch to the original Galaxy Z Flip. The update is currently rolling out in various Asian and European markets. It is also available in some African countries.

The Galaxy Z Flip is getting a new software update with firmware version F700FXXS8EUI2. It brings the October 2021 security patch that fixes more than 60 vulnerabilities related to data security and user privacy. The new software might also include general bug fixes and devices stability improvements.

If you are a Galaxy Z Flip user in any of the markets mentioned above, you might have already received the notification of the new update. If you haven’t received the update yet, you can check for it manually by navigating to Settings » Software update and tapping on Download and install. You can also download the latest firmware file from our database and flash it manually.

Samsung had originally launched its first clamshell-style foldable smartphone in early 2020 with Android 10-based One UI 2 software. It received the Android 11-based One UI 3 update in December 2020 and the One UI 3.1.1 update a few weeks ago.

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Samsung announces surprise Galaxy Unpacked 2021 Part 2 event for October 20

Samsung has announced a surprise Galaxy Unpacked event which will happen later this month. The company published a video invitation for the Galaxy Unpacked 2021 Part 2 event on YouTube. While the company didn’t reveal what it will announce during the event, it is expected that the South Korean firm could announce the Galaxy S21 FE and the Galaxy Tab S8.

The Galaxy Unpacked 2021 Part 2 event will be held online on October 20, 2021, at 10 AM ET. You can watch the event’s live video stream via Samsung.com, Samsung Newsroom, and YouTube. In the event invite, Samsung says, “Our users are multifaceted and live life in so many colorful, interesting, and unique ways. As such, the technology they use every day should reflect their individuality. Join Galaxy Unpacked Part 2 on October 20 to see how Samsung is opening up new experiences for self-expression through technology.”

While it was previously reported that Samsung had delayed the launch of the Galaxy S21 FE, it is now rumored that the device could be unveiled during the upcoming event and will launch a few weeks later. The company could also reveal new colors for the Galaxy Z Flip 3: Blue, Gray, Light Pink, White, and Yellow. All these colors can be seen in the invitation video embedded below. The new colors could be a part of Samsung’s Bespoke series that usually includes home appliances.

What are you expecting to see during Galaxy Unpacked 2021 Part 2? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Galaxy Gaming: What we are playing in October 2021

It’s mid-October, so the days in the northern hemisphere are getting way colder, way too fast. But at least more time spent indoors means more opportunities for mobile gaming. So, here are the titles we’re playing this month, in order of our most to least played ones.

Monster Hunter Stories

At $20, Monster Hunter Stories is about as premium as mobile gaming gets. This price point is also what kept me away from Capcom’s port for over a year. It’s well above the impulse purchase territory, so if I’m paying it, that’s only if I have time to play it right here and now.

Well, the circumstances aligned just enough for that to happen this month. And all things considered, I’m enjoying my time so far, some 15 hours in. This is a port of a 2016 Nintendo DS game, so mechanically, it’s way more complex than what you’d expect from your average mobile release. It’s also more suitable for playing on the go than the typical Monster Hunter title. Largely on account of being a spin-off with turn-based battles instead of a fast-paced action RPG. Which is a format that’s just about perfect for smartphones and tablets.

Furthermore, the amount of new and varied content the game kept throwing my way quickly dispelled any thoughts about whether I was getting my money’s worth here. The main gameplay loop is like a combination of Pokemon, Jurassic Park, and Dragon Quest. It’s accesssible, addictive, and ever-evolving, constantly challenging your mastery of the game. But never so much so that you can’t brute-force your way through any section with a short level-grinding detour. If that’s what you feel like doing, that is.

All in all, Monster Hunter Stories is a game that’s bound to impress any RPG aficionado; doubly so if they happen to be avid fans of the series. If you’re looking to make a single big-buck purchase likely to keep you entertained for a 100 hours on its own, this would be one of the few games to consider. Not least because it was fairly easy on the battery of my Galaxy Note 10. All that’s missing is controller support, really.

Lastly, if you’re one the fence about getting this, a pretty sizable vertical chunk of the game is available for download free of charge, subtitled “The Adventure Begins”. So that you can spend a couple of hours with Monster Hunter Stories and see how you like the main gameplay loop, no strings attached. It will also let you transfer your save if you do end up buying the whole game in the end.

• Download Monster Hunter Stories from the Play Store ($19.99)
• Download MHST: The Adventure Begins from the Play Store (free)

Broken Sword: Director’s Cut

A timeless point-and-click classic from the golden age of adventure games. Elegantly translated to touchscreens. Witty humor, memorable characters, and all-around sharp writing included. A masterful take on interactive storytelling for the price of a Happy Meal. 

If you have never played the original Broken Sword, now is the time to right that wrong. If you have, you know you’ll enjoy another refresher just the same.

• Download Broken Sword: Director’s Cut from the Play Store ($4.99)

Pokemon Unite

By far the freshest release on this list, Pokemon Unite just hit the Play Store a few weeks ago. This is a super accessible MOBA designed for Pokemon fans first and foremost. So, coupled with the fact that it’s free-to-play and not aggressively monetized, it’s definitely worth giving a go if you like either the genre or pocket monsters themselves.

Seeing how the player base is still surging, you should have zero issues finding games within seconds. The only caveat is that you need to be on a decent connection, speed-wise, in order to have the intended gameplay experience.

• Download Pokemon Unite from the Play Store (free)

Overdrive City

I actually stumbled on this old Gameloft release while doing a write-up on last month’s edition of Galaxy Gaming. Namely, I was looking for more mobile racing games bold enough to ditch the impossible task of adapting traditional racing gameplay to a touchscreen in favor of a more refined, linear experience. Overdrive City fits this bill perfectly, and it’s old enough to have evaded the modern era of hyper-aggressive monetization that newer Gameloft titles succumbed to. At the same time, it’s still a regularly updated game. Meaning it takes advantage of tall aspect ratios characteristic of pretty much every smartphone Samsung released in recent years.

This all amounts to a highly enjoyable experience combining racing with some tycoon genre staples such as incremental upgrades and micro-management. All free of charge, unless you’re so into the game that your sessions end up running for over an hour. Overall, Overdrive City is an easy recommendation for all sorts of racing fans.

• Download Overdrive City from the Play Store (free)

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Is the Galaxy S21 Ultra still worth it? Or should you wait for the S22 Ultra?

The Galaxy S22 Ultra should be three months away, assuming that Samsung will launch the series in January 2022. The phone will succeed the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which, as of this writing, remains one of the best smartphones ever made. But will the Galaxy S22 Ultra make the Galaxy S21 Ultra obsolete a few months from now? And more importantly, is it even worth buying the S21 model at the moment, knowing that the sequel is just around the corner? Or should you wait for the Galaxy S22 Ultra to arrive?

Well, starting with the obvious: no, the Galaxy S21 Ultra won’t be made obsolete by a new flagship. It won’t be rendered useless, but as is the case with yearly upgrades, the Galaxy S22 Ultra should have at least a few key advantages over its predecessor.

Reasons why you should go ahead and buy the Galaxy S21 Ultra this year

The Galaxy S21 Ultra is tried and tested, and it’s the best Samsung smartphone to date, barring foldables and the Galaxy Note series. It has a fantastic camera with great optical zoom capabilities, and it’s powerful enough to handle virtually any task without difficulties — especially the 16GB model.

The 2021 flagship’s exterior design might also be more appealing, judging by the leaked Galaxy S22 Ultra renders so far. The ongoing model has a camera housing design that works very well for the form factor, but Samsung could change things around again next year, and not for the better.

Another reason is that the Galaxy S21 Ultra is cheaper now than it was at launch. And with the holiday shopping season closing in, customers will be able to find all sorts of attractive Galaxy S21 Ultra deals and discounts, especially since Samsung and its partner retailers know that the sequel is just around the corner. Some stores will want to clear up their inventory, so prospective buyers should have many opportunities to buy the Galaxy S21 Ultra this year for a much lower price relative to the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s cost at launch.

Finally, if you’re not a fan of the S Pen at all then you might prefer the Galaxy S21 Ultra over the sequel, since the 2021 flagship could be the last in the series to omit a dedicated S Pen slot.

Reasons why you should wait for the Galaxy S22 Ultra

One of the most obvious reasons is the S Pen — assuming you’re a fan. If you plan on using this popular accessory with your flagship phone, the Galaxy S22 Ultra should be the superior choice.

Samsung already brought the S Pen to the Galaxy S21 Ultra earlier this year, but the phone doesn’t have a dedicated S Pen holster. Instead, the accessory needs to be stored inside an S Pen case that Samsung sells separately, and it lacks Bluetooth features.

In contrast, recent leaks indicate that the Galaxy S22 Ultra will fully embrace the S Pen and come with a dedicated holster — which is one of the key characteristics of a Galaxy Note device.

Moving on beyond the S Pen, there are the usual yearly upgrades to look forward to. If you buy the Galaxy S21 Ultra this year, you’ll be missing out on the upcoming Exynos 2200 chipset, which should be considerably more powerful than the ongoing Exynos 2100 solution — in theory, at least. You can never be too certain about a chipset’s performance before release, especially now that the Exynos SoC is backed by AMD graphics. Preliminary performance reports look promising, but AMD has little experience in the mobile game so only time will tell how Samsung’s new chipset pans out. Besides, the Exynos 2200 might not be available in every market.

Finally, a new flagship will ship with a newer OS version, namely Android 12 with One UI 4.0 on top. Of course, the Galaxy S21 Ultra already has access to this firmware — in beta form — so it might run a polished build by the time the Galaxy S22 Ultra goes on sale. In this regard, you could say that the Galaxy S21 Ultra has a head-start, particularly if you don’t shy away from beta firmware builds. However, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will ship with this latest OS version from day one, which means it will be supported for longer and receive one extra Android OS upgrade before it reaches end-of-life.

Galaxy S21 Ultra or Galaxy S22 Ultra? What’s the conclusion?

At the end of the day, the Galaxy S21 Ultra remains a great flagship and a safer purchase, at least in some areas. It has a fantastic camera system, a great display, and good performance, all wrapped in an elegant design. If you really need to buy a new flagship this year, you probably won’t regret getting the Galaxy S21 Ultra, especially if you find it at a good discount before the end of 2021.

On the other hand, the Galaxy S22 Ultra might become the best S Pen-enabled phone once it goes live early next year, and it will certainly deliver better firmware support than its predecessor. It technically should be faster too, and at the end of the day, there’s no telling what other unique features Samsung might have prepared to differentiate its upcoming flagship from the rest of the pack.

If you’d have to buy a flagship within the next few months, would you pick the Galaxy S21 Ultra this year, or would you wait for the Galaxy S22 Ultra to arrive early next year? Feel free to leave a comment below.

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Google Pixel is about to become a big threat, so what can Samsung do?

Google is due to launch new Pixel smartphones later this month. There’s a lot of hype around these phones. That has to do with the fact that the new Pixel phones will use Google’s own Tensor chipset.

This is the first time that Google is using an in-house designed chipset for its Pixel smartphones. The company previously sourced them from Qualcomm. Google has worked closely with Samsung on its 5nm Tensor processor. There’s reason to believe that Tensor might actually be an unannounced Samsung Exynos processor.

Be that as it may, Google has made its intentions clear. The company has shifted to in-house designed chipsets for its smartphones because it wants them to be more competitive. The software experience used to be a big reason why people bought Pixel phones before.

They got a vanilla Android experience often with a couple of exclusive features. That and the processing software used for the camera were just about it. There weren’t any big leaps in hardware, design or camera technology to enable the Pixels to take on the flagships from Samsung and other Android OEMs.

Google has done incredible work on artificial intelligence and machine learning. A lot of its other products and services already rely on advanced iterations of these technologies to deliver powerful new experiences. It has leveraged this expertise to make the new Pixel smartphones stand out of the crowd.

It’s no surprise that Tensor is what Google has decided to call its smartphone SoC. The chipset shares its name with the Tensor Processing Units that Google uses in its massive data centers. The company has been keeping the technical details of the Tensor SoC a secret.

It did say that the chip possesses unmatched artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. The most visible impact of this technology will be on voice recognition, image and video processing on the new Pixel smartphones.

Even the best Samsung phones may not be able to match that. Many customers prefer the vanilla Android experience so that’s going to be another concern. Android 12 already has many One UI-inspired features. Samsung has lost the edge there as well since Google’s interface is almost at Samsung’s level.

Google’s Tensor chipset may also have been designed from the ground up to deliver a fully optimized Android experience. By having control over both the hardware and software, Google can make them gel well together. This is a page out of Apple’s playbook. Its products deliver a superior software experience for precisely this reason.

Google’s ownership of Android OS provides it with this edge too. Like other OEMs, Samsung has to abide by Google’s licensing agreement for Android. It can’t tinker with Android the way Google can. That’s always going to be a handicap for companies that make Android smartphones but never for the one that owns the OS.

Samsung was the first Android OEM to promise four years of security updates for its Android smartphones. Google is about to outshine the Korean giant here as well. Reports reveal that with the new Pixel smartphones, Google will guarantee five years of software support. This will put the new devices in a call of their own.

Could this be the start of a big shift in the Android flagship market? Remember, this is Google’s first attempt at a Pixel phone with its own SoC. It’s only going to get better down the line with the company adding more value to its devices.

It’s time for Samsung and other OEMs to seriously start thinking of the Pixel smartphones as a real threat. The question is, what should Samsung do if the Google Pixel becomes the new hype? It might not seem like that right now but might we be looking at a future where Pixel phones account for a big chunk of the flagship Android market?

Flagship phones are a big deal for Samsung. The company fights hard to maintain its lead but when it comes to Google, it goes into the fight with one hand tied behind its back. Samsung can’t dump Android. It has already given up on developing its own smartphone operating system. It’s highly unlikely that Samsung will go down that route again.

Android is also not something that Samsung can buy. The OS is deeply involved with many of Google’s other businesses. There’s no question that Android goes on sale. So where does that leave our favorite Korean company?

This is where it starts to make sense why Samsung has gone all-in on foldables. It chose to cancel the Note series this year and possibly the Galaxy S21 FE just to mainstream the new form factor. The lead that Samsung has already established in this segment keeps it secure for several years. Nobody is at its level right now and that may remain the case for the foreseeable future.

The fact remains like Google, Samsung only earns a tiny fraction of its profits from its smartphone business. The dawn of this new Pixel era is not going to put Samsung out of business. What it might do is force the company to adapt, switch up the playbook and develop new experiences for its devices.

That’s not difficult for Samsung to do. The company has made it clear over the years that it can innovate just like the best of them. It’s not afraid to think out of the box and to make bold moves that are equal parts shock and awe.

The foldables are a key part of Samsung’s strategy. It’s definitely going to stick with them. Samsung’s own AI and machine learning technology has improved significantly over the years. The company can leverage that to unlock new possibilities for its devices.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Google’s new Pixel pushes the entire industry forward. Other Android OEMs wouldn’t want to lose ground to the internet search giant as well. Competition is always good for the industry. It results in better products and services for consumers. That’s something all of us can get behind.

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