For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus popups
in the top right corner of my monitor.
they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's. Now
they are popping up on the BBC website.

At first I though it was something to do with Firefox, so I changed my
web browser to Chrome, but after a week or so, the same popups appeared
again.

How the F*** do I stop them.

I am using Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon

On 29/10/2023 07:58, RobH wrote:
> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus popups
> in the top right corner of my monitor.
> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's. Now
> they are popping up on the BBC website.
>
> At first I though it was something to do with Firefox, so I changed my
> web browser to Chrome, but after a week or so, the same popups appeared
> again.
>
> How the F*** do I stop them.
>
> I am using Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon

Anything like this?
<https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=371847>

--

Jeff

Am 29.10.2023 um 07:58:16 Uhr schrieb RobH:

> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus
> popups in the top right corner of my monitor.
> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's.
> Now they are popping up on the BBC website.

That looks like browser notifications.

On 10/29/23 08:58, RobH wrote:
> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus popups
> in the top right corner of my monitor.
> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's. Now
> they are popping up on the BBC website.
>
> At first I though it was something to do with Firefox, so I changed my
> web browser to Chrome, but after a week or so, the same popups appeared
> again.
>
> How the F*** do I stop them.
>
> I am using Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon

Uninstall the antivirus if you don't want to be warned for viruses.
You could have though of this yourself I guess.

Edmund

--
-------------

The moment any organization established from pure noble intentions get
some influence, it will be corrupted from both inside and outside.
Then we have organizations established from pure evil.

Edmund

On 29/10/2023 09:53, Edmund wrote:
> On 10/29/23 08:58, RobH wrote:
>> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus
>> popups in the top right corner of my monitor.
>> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's. Now
>> they are popping up on the BBC website.
>>
>> At first I though it was something to do with Firefox, so I changed my
>> web browser to Chrome, but after a week or so, the same popups
>> appeared again.
>>
>> How the F*** do I stop them.
>>
>> I am using Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
>
> Uninstall the antivirus if you don't want to be warned for viruses.
> You could have though of this yourself I guess.
>
> Edmund
>
>
I don't have any antivirus programs installed on my LM system, not to my
knowledge anyway

On 29/10/2023 08:20, Jeff Layman wrote:
> On 29/10/2023 07:58, RobH wrote:
>> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus popups
>> in the top right corner of my monitor.
>> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's. Now
>> they are popping up on the BBC website.
>>
>> At first I though it was something to do with Firefox, so I changed my
>> web browser to Chrome, but after a week or so, the same popups appeared
>> again.
>>
>> How the F*** do I stop them.
>>
>> I am using Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
>
> Anything like this?
> <https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=371847>
>
Yes similar without the option buttons

On 29/10/2023 08:23, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 29.10.2023 um 07:58:16 Uhr schrieb RobH:
>
>> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus
>> popups in the top right corner of my monitor.
>> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's.
>> Now they are popping up on the BBC website.
>
> That looks like browser notifications.
>

Yes maybe , but there is nothing in the notificatioss list for McAfee,
ie no website, like say facebook

Op 29-10-2023 om 13:52 schreef RobH:

> Yes maybe , but there is nothing in the notificatioss list for McAfee,
> ie no website, like say facebook

Do you mean no website at all? I have one line that blocks notifications
from WhatsApp web, and some people may allow notifications from Gmail,
if they use the web version of that.

Case in point is, that McAfee doesn't send these, because if you have
their scanner installed (on Windows perhaps) it has other ways to notify
you, and the company may also send legitimate email reminders.

For this reason, it is more likely that these notifications come from
shady web sites, that don't have McAfee in their name, as shady as the
senders of spam emails that tell you that McAfee's protection has stopped.

So the general advice is to scan the whole list of web sites listed in
your browser, and to remove or block all that you don't recognize, like
Google or Facebook or WhatsApp. Or maybe even the BBC, if you like real
time notifications from them.

You may also have some shady extension installed, but I don't know many
Linux users who install such things. I have a few to block ads, bypass
paywalls, and Malwarebytes has one that's quite good.

Can you share the URL from the BBC site where you saw these?

Regards,

Enno

Op 29-10-2023 om 13:45 schreef RobH:

>> Anything like this?
>> <https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=371847>
>>
> Yes similar without the option buttons

And with a URL that doesn't look like a normal site, like the BBC, or
the real McAfee?

On 29/10/2023 15:38, Enno Borgsteede wrote:
> Op 29-10-2023 om 13:45 schreef RobH:
>
>>> Anything like this?
>>> <https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=371847>
>>>
>> Yes similar without the option buttons
>
> And with a URL that doesn't look like a normal site, like the BBC, or
> the real McAfee?
>

the BBC site does look normal, but the McAfee popup is just a small
oblong box

On 29/10/2023 15:36, Enno Borgsteede wrote:
> Op 29-10-2023 om 13:52 schreef RobH:
>
>> Yes maybe , but there is nothing in the notificatioss list for McAfee,
>> ie no website, like say facebook
>
> Do you mean no website at all? I have one line that blocks notifications
> from WhatsApp web, and some people may allow notifications from Gmail,
> if they use the web version of that.
>
> Case in point is, that McAfee doesn't send these, because if you have
> their scanner installed (on Windows perhaps) it has other ways to notify
> you, and the company may also send legitimate email reminders.
>
> For this reason, it is more likely that these notifications come from
> shady web sites, that don't have McAfee in their name, as shady as the
> senders of spam emails that tell you that McAfee's protection has stopped.
>
> So the general advice is to scan the whole list of web sites listed in
> your browser, and to remove or block all that you don't recognize, like
> Google or Facebook or WhatsApp. Or maybe even the BBC, if you like real
> time notifications from them.
>
> You may also have some shady extension installed, but I don't know many
> Linux users who install such things. I have a few to block ads, bypass
> paywalls, and Malwarebytes has one that's quite good.
>
> Can you share the URL from the BBC site where you saw these?
>
> Regards,
>
> Enno
>

https://www.bbc.co.uk/
But there are no popups now.

I have blocked the 5 sites listed in notifications, and there are 2
shady looking ones, like gemsahper.top and offthegridnews.com

On 10/29/2023 8:45 AM, RobH wrote:
> On 29/10/2023 09:53, Edmund wrote:
>> On 10/29/23 08:58, RobH wrote:
>>> For about a month or so now I have been getting McAfee antivirus popups in the top right corner of my monitor.
>>> they mostly appear when I click on a link on any post in the NG's. Now they are popping up on the BBC website.
>>>
>>> At first I though it was something to do with Firefox, so I changed my web browser to Chrome, but after a week or so, the same popups appeared again.
>>>
>>> How the F*** do I stop them.
>>>
>>> I am using Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
>>
>> Uninstall the antivirus if you don't want to be warned for viruses.
>> You could have though of this yourself I guess.
>>
>> Edmund
>>
>>
> I don't have any antivirus programs installed on my LM system, not to my knowledge anyway

But you know what the attack vector is. It's some sort of
push-notification inside the browser. Just like RSS is
a push-technology (and a potential attack surface).

This is why browsers should NOT have these garbage features
added to them. It INCREASES the number of surprises for the
end-user.

It has nothing to do with random, locally resident, binary
executables doing something. The other participants
already identified the potential path for it.

Some day, when we see something like this on our screen,
it might indeed be a local executable. That day just hasn't
arrive yet.

Paul