14 DAY TRIAL // It’s been a month since the Chinese company OnePlus rolled out its next-gen flagship killer smartphone, which it promised would be made more widely available than its OnePlus One predecessor.
However, fast forward to the present and the OnePlus 2 continues to be very hard to come by. The company continues to rely on the same invite-based system, but getting your hands on an invite is proving to be a really complicated endeavor.
Actually, in recent days, OnePlus founder Carl Pei, out flat apologized for the botched OnePlus 2 launch, saying that they “messed up the launch of the OnePlus 2.”
So some frustrated customers have started looking for alternate ways of getting their hands on a OnePlus 2 unit, and they were thrilled when they discovered that Israel’s largest digital store, KSP, was selling the smartphone without the pesky invites.
However, those purchasing via the retail store were soon faced with a real shocker. As reported by Geektime, it appears that the online retailer is selling OnePlus 2 smartphones that come with pre-loaded malware.
Be careful where you buy your OnePlus 2 from
The original source of the report noticed that while using Google Chrome on the device, he would automatically be redirected to a site called “global.mytracker” or other sites with the word “tracking” in them before being granted access to the website he requested.
After running AVG anti-virus software on the device, he discovered that the app identified four potential threats: two were apps he could uninstall and the others were embedded in pre-installed applications coming by default on the OnePlus 2, more specifically Browser and Fun Weather. The source was unable to uninstall the apps, because they were baked into the system.
According to a thread on Reddit, users in the US who have purchased the same smartphone via Gearbest have also encountered the same problem. The solution given on the thread to get rid of the malware is to perform an entire operating system reinstall.
The bottom line? Both OnePlus and its official distributor in Israel are recommending you to not purchase the OnePlus 2 through unofficial means. But that would be easier to do if the company actually did better at taking orders from its fans.
At this point, it’s pretty unclear how these phones get corrupted. It’s highly unlikely this is achieved via the manufacturer, so the blame must be put on third-party retailers or some other parties that place malware somewhere in the production line.
In the meanwhile, we advise you against purchasing the OnePlus 2 through any unofficial means, no matter how badly you think you want the device. Getting a phone with pre-installed malware is just not worth the effort and the money.