I turned on my phone for it to tell me it was going to restart, and it restarted saying something about a local sim and it set the home page on chrome to be my network provider (I was connected to uni WiFi and its not a virus as it had an authenticated certificate signed as expected).
My question is, is it normal for the sim card to have some control over a phone (I thought it was the other way round). The phone was bought as a sim free thing and then I got the card later...
I don't know much about Android, but if I understand correctly, many carrier phones include an app called Mobile Services Manager which can be used to install stuff surreptitiously. Here's one thread on the subject:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s9-plus/how-to/psa-disable-mobile-services-manager-apps-t3764366.
I'd be interested in hearing more about this.