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Greeting. I just get a new phone. It has these two apps:

Clean Master (by Cheetah Mobile)
CM Security (by Cheetah Mobile)

I know that these two apps takes user information without consent. (For those who wants to look it up, here is information from India.)

Of course, I remove these two apps, but how do I make sure these two apps are completely removed? In other words, using the regular way of removal (Settings -> Apps -> select an app to remove), does Android (the Operating System) remove everything an app install? (Hopefully the installed app will not secretly install additional apps without my knowledge.)

I have searched the web, but maybe my Google-ish is not good, so I don't find articles about this topic (checking if an app is completed removed). I have heard that one can use WireShark to detect the data usage of mobile phone, but I just want a simple way to check. I don't want to set up a lab to do so.

Thank you.

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  • You get a new phone with these 2 apps pre-installed? Sounds fishy... Which phone is it? – pri Dec 22 '17 at 7:58
  • Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ze601KL), the 6 inch phone. – user3454439 Dec 23 '17 at 0:42
  • Was it a second-hand phone or a brand new one? – pri Dec 24 '17 at 5:59
  • New phone. Ah.. I am checking the web and there are so many complains that Asus is integrating CM software in its phone. – user3454439 Dec 24 '17 at 13:36
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There are a few checks you can do:

  1. Go to Settings>Security>Device administrators and check if there's any app that shouldn't be there. The location of device administrators might vary from device to device.

  2. Check if your phone is transferring huge amounts to data. Android has in-built tracker(depending on the Android version) for this which shows you which app is transmitting how much amount of data.

  3. Check the list of installed apps and see if there's any app that shouldn't be present there. If yes, Google the name of that app and then take a decision if it has to be uninstalled or kept.

  4. If you're still worried that your device is infected, hard-reset the phone.

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  • I do 1 and 3. I also install 'Disable Service' app by 'WangQi'. Even my phone is not rooted, this app shows me the list of services running. I remove those 'CM' things from my phone. The 'Disable Service' app shows none of those around after I uninstall. – user3454439 Mar 20 '18 at 7:27

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