Bloggers and app publishers display ads in order to make money – and that’s fine. That’s one of the ways they get rewarded for their efforts. But when these ads go to the extent of popping up on your phone’s home screen, that’s beyond the red line. You should find a way to stop these annoying ads, and that’s the reason you are here. In this post, I will walk you through how to stop ads on Android home screen.
Reasons Ads Pop Up on Your Android Home Screen
Ads don’t just start popping up on your phone’s home screen for no reason – most of the time, you are responsible for it. You are responsible for it because these ads are mostly sent to your home screen by infected third-party apps you had installed. Nevertheless, third-party apps aren’t the only culprit sending pop-up ads to Android phone’s home screen.
Cache data of pre-installed apps on your phone, over time, can be infected by malware and also start feeding ads to your phone’s home screen.
Below, I have provided detailed steps on how to stop ads on Android home screen. Follow the steps chronologically until the problem is fixed.
Note: As you are following the steps if you reach a step and the ads stop showing, you don’t need to proceed with the remaining steps.
How to Stop Ads on Android Home Screen: Clear Your Cache Data
If you explore your phone a lot, you would have installed and uninstalled different launchers and apps. The issue is, when you uninstall some launchers and apps, the uninstallation isn’t always complete; the apps leave some junks, which are saved as part of the cache data on your phone, and these junks can be responsible for showing ads on your Android phone’s home screen.
Do the following to stop ads on your Android home screen, by clearing your cache data.
Go to Settings, then Storage, and then Internal Storage. On the Internal Storage windows, locate Cache, tap on it and tap on OK to clear. This should solve the problem; if it doesn’t, proceed to the next step.
How to Stop Ads on Android Home Screen: Clear Cache Data for Google Play Store & Google Play Services
Clearing the cache data of the Google Play Store app and the Google Play Services app can also fix the problem. To do this, go to Settings, then Apps, and then locate both Google Play Store and Google Play Services. When you locate each of the two apps, tap on them, tap on Clear cache, and finish the clearing by tapping on OK.
How to Stop Ads on Android Home Screen: Uninstall Recent Update on Play Store and Play Services.
If ads are displaying on your Android home screen after clearing the cache data of Play Store and Play Services, then you need to uninstall recent updates from the two apps.
To do this, go to Settings, then Apps, and locate the two apps. Open each of the apps, tap on Uninstall updates and then on OK to initiate the uninstallation.
How to Stop Ads on Android Home Screen: Troubleshoot Installed Third-Party Apps
In order to troubleshoot your installed third-party apps and know the one(s) responsible for display ads on your Android phone’s home screen, you will need to wait for the ad to pop up and then go to the list of Recent Apps on your phone. You can get to Recent Apps by long-pressing your home key for a few seconds, or long-pressing either of the two supporting keys beside the home key.
Note: The key to opening the Recent Apps list is phone specific, so use the key that works on your phone.
In the Recent Apps list, you are likely to see the name of the third-party app responsible for sending ads to your home screen. What you need to do now is to go to Settings, then Apps, then locate the app and uninstall it; the problem should be over by now.
However, if the name of the app responsible for the ad isn’t showing, you need an app called Perfect Uninstaller. Install the app and use it to scan your phone. It will help you look for apps not completely uninstalled and add-ons responsible for sending ads to your home screen. If the app discovers any of the apps and add-ons, delete them and the problem should be solved.
How to Stop Ads on Android Home Screen: Use Ad Detector
An ad detector is an app that is able to scan your phone for sources of ads. There are a lot of them in the market, but the popular ones include Ad Detector, Lookout Ad Network Detector and Air Push Detector.
Install any of the ad detectors, use it to scan your phone, and the pop-up ads should stop showing on your Android home screen.
How to Stop Ads on Android Home Screen: Perform Hard Reset
This should only be a last resort, and you should only do it if all the other steps fail — and you can’t cope with the ads. To do this, you just have to enter the recovery mode of your phone and format it from there. Performing hard reset will clean all the personal data on your phone’s memory, leaving only the data on your memory card.
After the formatting, you can then restore your old apps from Play Store, but never install apps outside of Play Store.
If you have walked through all the steps above, no pop-up ads should show on your Android home screen again.
Leave a Reply