You know that little black notification box that sometimes appears in the lower right hand corner of your computer screen? Usually tells you something like: your computer has been scanned and no viruses were found? Usually I see one of those maybe once or twice a week on each computer. (I have a desktop and a laptop, both running Windows 10.)
Starting about three weeks ago, on my laptop, I’ve been getting multiple news bulletins in that box, from Google Chrome. Just like the maintenance notifications, these show up for just a few seconds, then disappear. But I get several each day.
I have no idea why I’m getting these at all, why they started just recently, and why just the laptop. The laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad running Windows 10, and I’m using Google Chrome as my browser. (The desktop, which is NOT getting these news bulletins, thank the Lord, is a Dell Optiplex 7010. Chrome’s my browser there as well.) I’ve had the laptop since the summer of 2017, and I think I got the desktop at the beginning of 2018.
Anybody have any idea why I’m getting all these news notifications, and especially, how do I turn them off?
Anytime unexpected pop-up notifications start appearing, my first suspicion is malware. Do the following and see if that clears it up:
First, run both Malwarebyes and AdAware, both have free versions. You may have to run them several times to completely clean your computer.
Second, update and run your antivirus
Third, update your computer with the latest updates.
It doesn’t have to be in this order, but some malware can block your antivirus and updates, so removing them first is required.
Also, it’s not cheap, but I’m running the paid (live scanning) version of Malwarebytes on my main PC and it’s surprising how sites that seem perfectly harmless are flagged as harboring possible malware.
Thanks - this might have been the problem! A few sites were set to ‘Allow’ for notifications, including USA Today, which is one of the sources of notifications I’ve been getting. (I swear that every time I get one of those Allow/Block Notifications boxes, I click ‘Block,’ but maybe I blew it a coupla times. Anyhow, I reset everything to ‘Block’ and I’ll see if that works.
Probably take me a couple of days to be sure I’m not getting these anymore, but thanking you in advance. (And I’ve bookmarked the link.)
