Robert Triggs / Android Authority
One spring afternoon, I received a call from my mom. My dad was facing an issue with his phone, specifically with a PDF that wouldn’t open. Despite the native office suite supporting PDFs on his mid-range HONOR, the document just refused to load. During his admirable but misguided attempts to fix the issue, he downloaded four random yet similarly named PDF apps from the Play Store. However, as I would come to discover, he hadn’t downloaded these apps deliberately — he had been conned into it.
Have you encountered a scam ad on Android? 12 votes Yes, I encounter them regularly. 50 % Yes, but only one or two. 0 % I’ve seen them on others’ phones. 17 % No, I run a systemwide ad-blocking solution. 17 % I’m not entirely sure. 17 % It's complicated (elaborate in the comments). 0 %
From bloatware to deceitful ads to app installations Downloading these apps didn’t solve his issue, though. Even with these apps and the preinstalled WPS Office at his disposal, the PDF still wouldn’t open. At this point, I thought the document itself might be at fault. Either way, this wasn’t a simple issue, made more complicated by trying to diagnose over the phone.
Nevertheless, I took it step by step, starting with the usual troubleshooting suggestions. I told them to uninstall the apps and instead download a well-established app, like Adobe Reader. Even if it’s not the best solution, I know that it works, and it would be difficult to mistake it for something else. This seemed to work for a while.
Andy Walker / Android Authority
A few days later, my dad calls me with the same problem. However, this time he mentioned something significant. He’d been receiving an alert message after each attempt: “Unable to read file. Try updating your PDF application,” with an “Update now” button attached. You can see the image below. That sounds pretty official to an unsuspecting user, right? Almost like a system alert with instructions that, if followed, would fix the issue, hmm? Well, no.
As you may have noticed, the alert was an advertisement, and upon realizing this, everything fell into place for me.
Andy Walker / Android Authority
Every time my dad tried to open a PDF, WPS Office’s splash screen would appear, displaying the ad disguised as a system message, as outlined above. He’d tap it, and the ad would direct him to a new PDF reader; he’d then download it, hoping it would fix his problem. He thought he was doing the right thing, but instead, he was being misled.
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