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A good number of users will have removed the app after the new update, but that's not all its developer AnchorFree has to worry about. Elite subscribers are right to be upset by this, especially considering they are paying a premium for the service.Īside from the issues with lock screen overlays, there are numerous other complaints about the new version, including connection problems and the removal of a quit button.

The fact that the first option is enabled by default is bad enough, as that would have forced it on every user who updated. The news overlay did show ads, as you can see above, but I had to enable that for it to display. It's possible that I didn't test it for long enough or behavior differs between users, however. It's also worth noting that the enabled-by-default lock screen setting didn't actually show me any ads. In my experience, turning off the settings for the lock screen overlays did stop them from showing up, although.

I downloaded the app and signed up for the free trial of the Elite subscription so I could test it out. Here is a selection of comments from the app's Play Store listing: The first of those is enabled by default since the update, but some users are alleging that turning them off does not work, forcing the overlays upon them. One shows performance metrics and the other shows news, with the odd ad thrown in amongst the stories.

There are two lock screen overlay settings available to Elite subscribers. However, since it was updated around a week ago, increasing numbers of disgruntled paying users have voiced concerns that the app may have introduced some rather more nefarious practices. This is a widely trusted app, with more than 50m downloads and a Play Store rating of 4.2 from almost 1m reviewers. We saw a similar thing with the Peel Smart Remote app earlier this year, and the latest offender appears to be Hotspot Shield VPN. Last year, Google had a bit of an epidemic on its hands, when once beloved apps such as ES File Explorer started showing unwarranted overlays while phones were charging. Lock screen adware in the Play Store is nothing new.

Google hotspot shield