This post might not be very relevant to the age group of 16-35. But it is really useful and can help you escape from hundreds of spam messages you receive on your smartphone.

Another important problem I am trying to address here is FAKE NEWS. Let’s begin with basic to quite complex changes you need to make in your smartphone to escape from fake news.

Step 1: When you buy a new smartphone pay attention to every permission the manufacturer and third party apps ask for. And what all is being installed on device during setup. Like

• It’s better to not allow for “anonymous data collection for diagnostic purposes”
• Do not opt for installation of extra set of unnecessary apps from the manufacturer just to check them out. Choose only the apps you really need. Lesser the number of apps it’s better.
• I do not recommend news aggregation apps from lesser known developers. e.g Instead of UC news ,opera news install Google news, Feedly.

Step 2: To block spam calls and messages you can do these things:

• If you go into settings section of your “Calling OR Phone” app and enable “Filter/block spam” option if available, most of the spam and advertising calls will be automatically blocked.
• As mentioned above, “Block & Filter” enable in SMS/Messages app. This blocks the unnecessary messages from crowding your messages app.
• If you don’t have any such Block & Spam filtering option built-in. You can install and use this app. I have personally used it. Tap on the here-> SMS ORGANIZER APP BY MICROSOFT
• If you get a lot of spam calls it’s better to use Truecaller app , I hope you know about it already.

Step 3: Disable notifications for the apps which bombard you with unnecessary and a lot of useless notifications. For example:

• Music streaming apps: You need to go to app settings of that specific app and disable all the other notifications and just keep “Music playback” notifications on.
• News apps: Some news app send a lot of notifications. It’s better to make proper settings to avoid headache;)
• Social media and chatting apps: You already know how annoying these notifications can be. You can disable notifications from some groups or for preset duration of time.

Step 4: Because the news apps and most of the android apps depend on ads for revenue. It is hard to block ads and malicious links getting opened automatically when you launch such apps. You can do as listed below to escape from some annoying apps.

• Quality is always important over quantity. Try to use ad-free apps . Apps with ads aren’t an issue but make sure the type and quantity of ads they serve also should be taken into consideration. No app is worth if it doesn’t allow use of smartphone seamlessly. Banner and full screen ads popping apps should be avoided. They waste time and resourcs.\
• If the app of a specific site or service is ridden by intoletable amount of ads. Better access there website via your browser.
• Make sure you close all the 10s of unnecessary tabs that you have kept openin your browser. They might open malicious sites without you noticing it.
• Whenever you get a link from some contact or app , Don’t click on it without being aware of where it takes you.
• Whatever news you read on Whatsapp , Facebook , Instagram or any other social media apps take them as a pinch of salt. When news apps have become the source of fake news how can you trust the social media apps. It’s good practice to follow news from some trusted sources like “theguardian.com”, “thehindu.com”, “deccanherald.com”. You can use their apps too.

There are literally thousands of things to pay attention. But according to me these steps might be sufficient for most people.