# Why do I get a block of junk in my Gmail messages?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 1, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247 "2017-07-01T03:32:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/1 "2017-07-01T03:32:50Z")

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Since replacing my laptop, all my Gmail messages have a block of gibberish appended to the body of the message, which stays there if I reply or forward. I could configure it in the settings, if I knew what the phenomenon is called, but of course I don’t… How do I make it stop doing that? It looks like this.

\<div id=“DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2”\>\<br /\>  
\<table style=“border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;”\>  
\<tr\>  
\<td style=“width: 55px; padding-top: 13px;”\>\<a  
href=“[AVG Free Antivirus Download | Virus Protection Software](http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail)”  
target=“\_blank”\>\<img  
src=“[https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-green-avg-v1.png](https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-green-avg-v1.png)”  
alt=“” width=“46” height=“29” style=“width: 46px; height: 29px;”  
/\>\</a\>\</td\>  
\<td style=“width: 470px; padding-top: 12px; color: #41424e;  
font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;  
line-height: 18px;”\>Virus-free. \<a  
href=“[AVG Free Antivirus Download | Virus Protection Software](http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail)”  
target=“\_blank” style=“color: #4453ea;”\>www.avg.com\</a\>  
\</td\>  
\</tr\>  
\</table\>\<a href=“#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2” width=“1”  
height=“1”\>\</a\>\</div\>

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/2 "2017-07-01T04:12:53Z")

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It’s HTML code. It’s what makes web pages.

Specifically, there is a link to [avg.com](http://avg.com), an antivirus website. Do you use AVG anti-virus software? If so, there is a corruption with Gmail and AVG. If you don’t, you may have malware.

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/3 "2017-07-01T05:09:48Z")

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Yes, I do use AVG for antivirus. What can I do to resolve the corruption?

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/4 "2017-07-01T05:48:00Z")

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Something I did seems to have resolved it. It was only appearing in messages that were replies to messages I had originally sent. Not in, for example, spam. I sent my yahoo mailbox a test, then responded to it, and the html is not there.

If it recurs, I’ll come back.

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/5 "2017-07-03T09:09:29Z")

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Now after rebooting, the problem is back. It seems I haved to go to Basic HTML (rather than Standard view) to avoid displaying the HTML code in my text. Thais arcane switch (hidden at the bottom of my page) must be done every time I reboot, or maybe every time I use my bookmark to reopen Gmail.

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**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/6 "2017-07-03T09:24:34Z")

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There might be a setting to disable it somewhere in AVG. I had Avast adding its spam to all of my outgoing mail once.

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/7 "2017-07-03T10:25:55Z")

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To pull the various comments together …

This is your AVG inserting an advertisement for AVG into every email you send. Then somewhere along the line (probably as an anti-malware measure either gmail or the email system of whoever’s responding to you is converting the live html that makes up the pretty advertising link into raw characters that can’t cause harm. But do look like crap.

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**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/8 "2017-07-03T12:44:06Z")

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See here:

> **[Stop Avast from Adding Its Signature into Your Outgoing Emails](https://lifehacker.com/stop-avast-from-adding-its-signature-into-your-outgoing-1748130504)**
>
> Avast is Lifehacker readers’ favorite antivirus program but it sure can be annoying. A recent update now inserts a footer advertising Avast into your outgoing messages. Here’s how to turn it off.

ETA: and, IMO, you should use something else. I never liked Avast for the many various intrusive and obnoxious ways they infest computers with their own ads with this kind of bullshit.

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**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2017, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/9 "2017-07-04T02:32:56Z")

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> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> To pull the various comments together …
> 
> This is your AVG inserting an advertisement for AVG into every email you send. Then somewhere along the line (probably as an anti-malware measure either gmail or the email system of whoever’s responding to you is converting the live html that makes up the pretty advertising link into raw characters that can’t cause harm. But do look like crap.

Yes, I ve now learned that from a correspondent. So I went to my uninstaller and ran the repair for AVG, which did not help, the ads were still there. So I uninstalled and re-installed AVG, which has apparently rectified the problem.

While the re-install was running, I got a popup that started with "Check to see if AVG is still hacking . . . ", then it unpopped and went away before I could read it.

This is two strikes on AVG, the first one being their blizzard of nagweare a coujple of years ago. Once more, and they are ditched forever, iin favor of Avast,which Ive never tried before.

Malwarebytes did not recognize this hack, so they must all be in cahoots with each otgher.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/10 "2017-07-06T11:24:12Z")

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And now its back again. Uninstalling and reinstalling AVG was only a temporary fix, AVG has tracked me down and tenaciously reset their own virus.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/11 "2017-07-06T13:34:34Z")

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There may be an option that you can turn off in the settings. If nothing about the ad, perhaps something about email scanning. I’d also check your browser or email program’s addons, to make sure nothing is installed there

That said, doing this at all would be a dealbreaker for me. My antivirus does not get to act like an actual piece of malware.

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**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-get-a-block-of-junk-in-my-gmail-messages/790247/12 "2017-07-06T15:32:12Z")

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> [@BigT](#):
>
> That said, doing this at all would be a dealbreaker for me. My antivirus does not get to act like an actual piece of malware.

I agree with BigT.

Using your email to spread it self to your contacts is what viruses do. The only conclusion from this is that Avast is a virus.