Several months ago I installed an app called MySettings to my Droid. This app provided easy access to all of my most used settings. About a week or two ago my phone started acting strangely, restarting on its own and showing notifications with a star or cross icon. These notifications usually took me to spam sites or occasionally new suggestions for loading apps. After spending a couple of hours trying to figure out was was going on, I sent a query via Google Plus asking for help. Michael Sauers responded within minutes with a link (http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/forum/thread/426485/getting-a-star-in-notification-bar). I installed the airpush detector app as suggested in the forum post ( see previous link). It immediately detected MySettings as the only app on my phone doing airpush (article about airpush). Airpush is used by some app developers to “monetize” their free apps without an easy way for the user to opt out. The owners of Airpush claim there is a way to opt out of the service but I could not find it. I have not had any notifications or spontaneous phone restarts since I deleted MySettings.
I will not use any app that pushes ads to me outside of the app without my opting in to get them. The worst thing is that most of the notifications were for free iPads and such. Most of those are links to spam sites and are dangerous to visit, from my reading. I have clicked on ads within apps and made purchases. I will not buy anything via a notification that I did not sign up for.
