While traversing the 'installed' list of Google Play, I noticed a very odd app named "Souper Android Development".
What's so suspicious about it is:
- It does absolutely nothing to explain what it is, what it does, or what permissions are required
- There is no option to open/uninstall
- I cannot find it by searching for it
- It is dimmed in the list with the other apps
- It is not listed when I browse play.google.com/apps
- Nobody (in the comments) seems to know where they got it.
Notice the app is dimmed (grayed out)
I scrolled to the top of the page during screen capture. Notice how many standard features are missing
I have no idea where it came from. I imagine it was either part of the humongous set of bloatware provided by Verizon or, what I'm thinking is more likely, the method used to root my phone: Pete's Motorola Root Tools. I have scanned my phone with Lookout but it hasn't found anything.
- Can anyone provide any insight as to what this app is?
- How should I remove this app? I am having difficulty locating it in "System App Remover".
Should I be suspicious of the rooting tool I used and take any action?I have been told this is legit. Whether it is or not, it doesn't seem to be in any way part of the problem.- How can you trace a market app to its package name?
Update
While searching for other complaints on this app, I dug up:
A link to it on Google Play(removed). I'm still curious as to how someone obtained this link, I couldn't find it in a search or any references to it.- It says it's not compatible with any of my devices but it's installed.
- No one has found any traces of it on their phone (probably because it's 'linking' to com.motorola.contacts.preloaded)
- It seems to only be affecting Droid 3 users.
Update 3/28/2012
Final update/Brief summary:
- 3/26: App showed up without user-approved install under the name "Brett Henderson" with no option to open or uninstall. Later renamed "Souper Android Development".
- 3/27: Clicked the app's "share" button to view its link to the app on phone (com.motorola.contacts.preloaded). This confirms Richard's suspicion that it was merely sharing its name with a legit system app as opposed to installing junk on the phone. Further reading revealed that each app has a unique ID to prevent one app from providing "updates" to another with the same name.
- 3/28: The app was removed from the app market place. As pointed out by Matthew Read, a similar bug happened not too long ago. As of now, I haven't read anything official on this instance.
pm list packages -f
, but didn't see "SOUPER" anywhere. Do you know how to see the app's displayed name?/system/app/*.apk
for "souper".com.motorola.contacts.preloaded
.