Recurring McAfee Pop Ups

gssulte7

There were several posts asking about unwanted McAfee pop ups? The latest appeared to be one by David Dittman on Oct 19, 2024. There were several responses for possible solutions, the accepted answer by Flexx on Oct 20, 2024. However, this answer did not clear the issue for me, as I commented. This post was somehow closed by someone (Bitdefender?) after my comment but there are open posts from 2021 and 2022.

I continued to get the almost daily McAfee pop ups. I asked the Bitdefender chat why can't my Bitdefender antivirus software prevent the continuous McAfee pop ups from recurring? Chat stated that the recurring McAfee pop-ups are likely caused by pre-installed McAfee software, browser extensions, or adware rather than Bitdefender itself. To resolve this, chat recommended:1. Check your Windows Programs list for any McAfee software and uninstall it if found.2. In Chrome, go to Extensions and disable or remove any McAfee-related extensions.3. Clear your browser cache and cookies to remove any lingering adware.

This could work for some people but I had tried it previously and the issue continued to recur.

The chat did refer key a response from Bitdefender Support Center, bdsupport@tickets .bitdefender.com, who contacted me. They believed that Bitdefender Total Security is not blocking this because, in most cases, these McAfee pop-ups are not actual malware. They are typically browser notification pop-ups that were previously allowed to run. Many websites request permission to send notifications, and if that permission is granted, they can later display recurring alerts that look like security warnings. These are usually generated through the browser, not by an installed virus on the system.

To remove them, they recommended I try the following steps in the browser you normally use:

1. Open your browser.
2. Click the three dots in the upper right corner.
3. Select Settings.
4. Go to Privacy and Security.
5. Click on Site Settings.
6. Under Permissions, select Notifications.
7. Under the section labeled “Allowed to send notifications,” remove all websites listed there, especially any that look unfamiliar or suspicious.

After removing them, restart the browser and monitor if the pop-ups stop appearing.

The issue still persisted after these steps, so they arranged a remote session the following week to connect to my computer using TeamViewer so they can manually check and remove the source themselves.

However, I did a search of my entire windows laptop, OS (C:), and found 17 files with McAfee in title. I eventually deleted all but the one folder, McAfee Security Scan, which showed it contained 10 files, size 20.4 MB. I could not delete this folder, as it shows the folder or a file in it is open in another program.  

I asked Tech Support how would I delete this folder. I believe the pop ups would stop if I could delete this folder.

They again recommended I try the previous steps:

1. Check for McAfee programs in Apps and Features
   • Open the Control Panel
   • Select Programs → Programs and Features.
   • Carefully review the list for any entries containing McAfee (for example: McAfee Security Scan, McAfee WebAdvisor, McAfee LiveSafe, etc.).
   • I did not find any to select and Uninstall.
   • Restart the computer after the uninstall completes.
2. If nothing appears in Programs and Features, this means the folder is likely a leftover file rather than an active program. In that case, we can safely remove it after ensuring it is not in use.

Try this method:

1. Restart your computer.
2. After restart, do not open any browsers.
3. Navigate to the McAfee Security Scan folder again.
4. Right-click the folder and select Delete.
5. If Windows still says the folder is in use, this usually means a background process is locking it. You can:
   • Open Task Manager. I had not thought of doing this.
   • Look for any process containing McAfee or Security Scan. I found a couple, which I selected and clicked End Task.

I then navigated back to the McAfee Security Scan folder and successfully deleted the folder. I also deleted everything in the Recycle Bin with McAfee listed and restarted the computer. 

I did another search of my OS (C:) for McAfee and no file were found. 

The McAfee pop ups have not re-appeared for the past 6 days. I cancelled the remote session.

Alexandru_BD

Hello,

Indeed, these pop-ups can be very annoying and excluding the legitimate cases where the user had McAfee previously installed on their device, they are fake infection alerts coming from the actual browser, not the system.
Like you noticed, the antivirus doesn't detect them because Bitdefender cannot take any direct measures related to this type of notifications, such as adware that you agreed on or something you enabled, like site setting, site notification, redirects in your browser or installed toolbars, extensions or applications. For this reason, the scan won't reveal anything, because like you said, this is not actual malware, but adware.

The notifications and pop-ups in this situation (when coming from the actual browser) do not have anything malicious attached to them, but when you click on them, they will redirect to malicious sites that try to collect your data or install abusive or dangerous software. This is where the antivirus protection actually kicks in and blocks the threat.

Fake McAfee pop-ups have been plaguing the internet for a while now, and even McAfee themselves posted a few articles about this and how to get rid of them.

Again, it must be established if they are coming from the browser or the actual device, and this is usually easy to spot, because the pop-ups will display a dubious url when they are browser-related. For future reference, here's how to spot fake antivirus alerts from genuine ones:

https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/fake-antivirus-pop-ups

Thank you once again for posting here.

Regards