McAfee pop-ups are the push notifications that you may recieve in Windows notification tray. Its contents hint that your antivirus subscription expires, or that your system is infected with numerous viruses. In fact, it is a scam that aims at intimidating people and forcing them to make unnecessary purchases. In this article, you will see the detailed explanation of these pop-ups and the guide on stopping them.
What are McAfee Pop-ups? Is It McAfee Scam?
In their essence, McAfee pop-ups are notifications from malicious websites that aim at making profit by showing ads. They abuse legitimate browser functionality of push notifications and stem from the permission to send them for the malignant site. You can encounter dozens of different variations of that scam, but this specific one aims specifically at antivirus theme.
Upon clicking the pop-up, the user is thrown to a page filled with clickbait claims. 99% of the time, it is about you being infected with malware, or your subscription being expired. All this clickbait is here to make you follow the instructions and download the antivirus. In fact, despite being disguised with a legitimate brand name, the page may return the installer of a completely different program.
It is also worth noting some of McAfee pop-ups promoting downloadings and payment pages of real McAfee, i.e. they lead to a genuine site in a particularly scammy way. In this case, the chance of getting malicious or unwanted software is much lower. The reason for this to happen is a dishonest advertising affiliate using a shady scheme to get paid by the vendor. Still, the same pop-ups may further direct the user to the unwanted software – this promotion way is illegal after all.
Exclusions
There are rare cases where such push notifications have legit origin, specifically – a browser plugin from McAfee themselves. It has the ability to send notifications about expiring subscriptions, discounts, and things like that. But this is, again, a rare situation, and in the majority of pop-ups come from malicious copies.
How to Stop McAfee Pop-ups on Chrome?
There are several options for you to stop McAfee pop ups, most of which are about tinkering with browser settings. It is not complicated but requires one to know what exactly they should change. I’ve collected the complete guide below; from removing excessive permissions to deleting extensions and checking the system for malware activity.
Disable notification permissions
As I’ve said, the reason for these pop-ups to appear is the permissions to send notifications for the questionable website. Removing them requires some digging in browser settings, but is not too complicated. This is the most straightforward action you can take to stop McAfee pop ups.
- Click the three vertical dots, then “Settings“. Go to “Privacy and security” ⇢ Site Settings. Alternatively, you can use the search bar to find this menu.
- Select the “Notifications” option. Here, scroll down to the list of sites that can send notifications. This is where the source of the problem resides.
- Delete all the sites from that list. If there are some that you recognize and are willing to keep receiving notifications from, feel free to keep them enabled.
Remove the McAfee Chrome extension
If you have the McAfee extension in your browser, and suspect it is exactly the reason for the notifications to appear, your way to fix the issue is to delete or stop this extension. Same as in the previous part, it only requires running through a bunch of browser settings.
- Launch the Chrome app. Click the three dots in the top right corner.
- Then select More Tools ⇢ Extensions. Here, turn off the McAfee Extensions button.
- Restart the Chrome app and make sure it’s not running. Or, click the “Remove” button on the McAfee extension to remove it from Chrome.
Can McAfee Products Cause Pop-Ups?
As McAfee is a recognized and reputable software company, enforcing pop-up notifications through the software is not a suitable tactic for them. Even though there is a browser extension that sends pop-ups, it is much less obtrusive and more about “safe” marketing. Software itself, like antiviruses or VPN apps, are not capable of sending pop-ups at all.
Moreover, quite a few people among those complaining about McAfee pop-ups do not have any piece of their software. These scam pop-ups target unselectively, and the worst part is that there may be a malicious program that causes all this mess.
How to Stop Fake McAfee Pop-ups?
As I’ve just said, it is possible for malware to force the appearance of the McAfee pop-ups and the consequent Subscription Expired page. In particular, adware and browser hijackers are two malware types that do this nasty trick particularly often. They bring profit to their masters by throwing users of infected systems to unwanted websites, with the fake McAfee sites being just one of the examples. And to get rid of the malware, the anti-malware software scan is needed.
Scan Your System for Viruses
Download and install Anti-Malware by clicking the button below. After the installation, run a Full scan: this will check all the volumes present in the system, including hidden folders and system files. Scanning will take around 15 minutes.
After the scan, you will see the list of detected malicious and unwanted elements. It is possible to adjust the actions that the antimalware program does to each element: click "Advanced mode" and see the options in the drop-down menus. You can also see extended information about each detection - malware type, effects and potential source of infection.
Click "Clean Now" to start the removal process. Important: removal process may take several minutes when there are a lot of detections. Do not interrupt this process, and you will get your system as clean as new.
Could not go on browser; screen filled with the popup.
Thank you very much for instructions on how to get rid of McAfee fake popups, I would have never figured that out for myself. And it was a great learning experience for other things I might run up against.
I’ve uninstalled the McAfee app along with all its additional software programs. I’ve also blocked pop-ups from the McAfee website in both Chrome and Explorer, turned off all notifications on both browsers and my PC, and even used McAfee’s software removal tool, but the pop-ups still persist. Despite trying every suggestion from Reddit threads and YouTube videos, nothing has worked. The pop-up keeps asking me to renew my subscription, and there’s no way to exit it. It appears in the middle of my screen, blocking everything, and I can’t move it. I have to click the renew button multiple times just to get to a screen with an “x” to close it. I’ve tried talking to the chatbot here, but it’s useless. When I call Microsoft tech support, I can’t reach a person – I’m constantly redirected to this website by the AI on the phone, which is absolutely no help.