Carriers like AT&T and Verizon love showing off how much they can add to their various offering of devices. With Lollipop, we had high hopes with Google’s Nexus 6 being offered on all four major carriers, but AT&T threw that idea out the window a while ago. T-Mobile coated the LG G3’s app drawer in their magenta-flavored apps, and Samsung adds their own apps to their Galaxy family of devices, but all these things are expected, sadly. But, recently, the Internet has been out for blood for a recent find on the Galaxy Note 4. Ever heard of DTIgnite?
That’s the app that people are talking about recently, and it’s all bad. DTIgnite is an app found in the /system/priv-app partition of the T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 after an update over the past weekend. This app or service is something interesting for sure, so let’s get into it. First off, if you have it, you won’t know it right away. You might see three other apps, Cookie Jam, Drippler, and RetailMeNot, on your device after the update though. These apps, according to some folks on Reddit, have been automatically re-installed once uninstalled, but only after the device is rebooted. Now, others on XDA Developers have also had their own discussion on what this DTIgnite is, and have found that it might be some way for the carrier to install, or re-install, bloatware once the user uninstalls it or removes it. They have also proposed the idea that it may be Internet-caused, like the fun and enjoyment of Trojan horses on desktop computers.
The thing to pay attention to however, is an update on Android Police’s posting about DTIgnite, which claims that Digital Turbine, the makers of the app, stated that the app is not intended to re-install removed system or bloat apps. But, that leaves us with a chilling possibility, a more realistic one. This could be a ‘bonus features’ kind of app that you can not really get rid of except with root and /system access, but it should be able to be turned off and left alone, but monitored all the same. The issue stands its tallest when considering what DTIgnite actually is capable of. It can install apps that aren’t installed, that should be according to its program code, and persistently make that happen. This app has a backdoor to your device if you have it installed, so I would recommend removing it or disabling it as soon as you can, and be happy if you don’t have it. This app will likely cause more people problems, so stay tuned if any developments occur. Until then, what do you think this app could be there for? What other carriers besides T-Mobile could be adding this app to their devices, and what do you think the reasoning behind that choice could be? Let us know down below.