Why do I have Aptoide app installed, and why do update to apps that I didn't install shown on there?

Question

I found this “Aptoide” app on my Samsung Galaxy A5 the other day but I certainly don’t recall downloading it. I opened it up and somehow got to the updates section. It showed me available updates for a bunch of apps, some of which I have but others I don’t. I’m wondering if one of my kids might be up to something on my phone and need some guidance. It shows a list of apps that have pending “updates” and then below it, it shows a list of “installed apps”. There is a weird messenger app called “Messagerie double” that you can see in one of the images. I don’t see that app anywhere on my phone and I guarantee I never downloaded it.

I’ve attached photos for example.

Apps I’ve never downloaded include:

• Messagerie double
• SEMFactoryApp
• SVC Agent
• Network Diagnostic
• slocation (Another one not pictured but the same green Android logo)
• bootagent (Another one not pictured but the same green Android logo)

Does its presence under Aptoides “Updates” section indicate it does reside somewhere, hidden on my phone? And if so, how do I access it? Am I right to suspect these are somehow being used on my phone without my knowledge?

Answer 1

After some research this is what I came up with.

Did you download an APK for some app from the Aptoide website recently? If so, you didn't download that app. You downloaded the Aptoide market, and that market downloaded your app. It is likely that one of the kids tried to free download a paid app, as I see there are a lot of them in Aptoide. :) As always those free market apps are not trustworthy at best (they may look clean enough but they might still be sending sensitive data to their servers), and malicious and virus-infected at worst.

Here is a list of what I came up with each of the apps you mentioned:

1. "Messagerie Double" means "Double Messaging". I didn't find anything specially useful about this app, but based on what I've seen it looks like the Samsung Dual Messaging function, hence a system app.
2. "SEMFactoryApp" should be a system app, as it was mentioned in this Reddit Thread. Also, this JoeSandbox analysis dodn't detect any suspicious code in this app, so it looks like it's safe to assume that it is a system app.
3. "SVC Agent" looks like it matches com.samsung.android.svcagent, which is in this debloat list on XDA, and this thread on Android Authority also mentions that, so it looks like a system app too.
4. "NetworkDiagnostic" is mentioned on this APKMirror page as having package name com.samsung.android.networkdiagnostic and it is also in the debloat list above, so likely a system app.
5. "slocation" looks like a system app too, considering it didn't go away after a system reset as mentioned here.
6. Finally "bootagent" also looks like a system app, refer to post #147 here.

So why does Aptoide display system apps? Because it doesn't distinguish between system and non-system apps, and someone named sirkesyone-applikes (clearly without a proper knowledge of system apps) uploaded those system apps to Aptoide. If you or one of the kids mistakenly hit "Update" and confirm the update on one of those apps it could update to a wrong or incompatible version and brick your phone or erase your data or etc. So I would recommend uninstalling Aptoide as quickly as possible. :)

Good Luck!