McAfee popup!

Pasquanel · May 15, 2023

I have a Mac Mini M1 with all the latest updates. Today, I'm suddenly getting a notification in the upper right-hand corner informing me that I have or possibly have a virus and to sign up for McAfee immediately.
I've been a Mac user for eleven years now and have always been able to dismiss these things relatively easily but this one has me stumped!
I've checked the cookies and if it's there I don't recognize it, the firewall is off should I turn it on?
Has anyone here run into this? If so what do I have to do to get rid of it?

ferrarr · May 15, 2023

If it's hard to identify where the Notification is coming from, it may be coming from your browser.
or example, in Safari, go to Settings/Preferences and look for the Websites tab. In the Sidebar there is an option for Notifications. I usually delete them all.

Pasquanel · May 15, 2023

ferrarr said:
If it's hard to identify where the Notification is coming from, it may be coming from your browser.
or example, in Safari, go to Settings/Preferences and look for the Websites tab. In the Sidebar there is an option for Notifications. I usually delete them all.

Thank you for the tip, I will give it a try.

pm-r · May 15, 2023

Pasquanel said:
Today, I'm suddenly getting a notification in the upper right-hand corner informing me that I have or possibly have a virus and to sign up for McAfee immediately.
I've been a Mac user for eleven years now and have always been able to dismiss these things relatively easily but this one has me stumped!

I just received an email spam today from McAfee along with a notice that the antivirus trial I have, which I actually don't, has expired:

Your McAfeefor the Windows subscription has Ended on Today 00:00 . ...

I just deleted it and will carry on. Just a small annoyance.

- Patrick
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IWT · May 15, 2023

Pasquanel said:
If so what do I have to do to get rid of it?

Ignore it. That company has a record frightening people in to buying their product.

Ian

Pasquanel · May 15, 2023

I understood that it was a scam but annoyed me that at any time this thing could pop up and declare my computer was infected with a virus!
I followed Ferrarr's advice and it seems to be gone. Thank you all for the response!

newbutter · May 17, 2023

That McAfee thing can be really nasty and difficult to get rid of once it somehow gets installed onto the device. So, I would recommend to be as careful with it as possible. I've got bad experience with it across various devices I've used through years.

The first thing I would do is to heck your installed applications and delete anything you don't recognize. Also, look at your browser extensions and remove anything suspicious.

Also, consider using a trusted anti-malware tool like Malwarebytes to scan your computer. It's free and pretty effective. Actually, I'd recommend to do this every 6 months or so just to be there's nothing hostile in the system.

Good luck!

Randy B. Singer · May 17, 2023

Pasquanel said:
Has anyone here run into this? If so what do I have to do to get rid of it?

It is becoming more and more common. As you have found, the McAfee adware is actually a malicious notification. You were offered the choice of being notified when you visited some Web site, and you clicked "yes." You may have been tricked into answering "yes."

It's fairly easy to remove the McAfee adware from Safari.

1.) While in Safari, open Preferences in the Safari menu. Click on Websites. Click on Notifications in the column on the left. Delete all notifications that you don't recognize.

2.) Still in Safari Preferences, click on Privacy. Then Click on "Manage Website Data". Click on "Remove All".

3.) Still in Safari Preferences, click on Extensions. Uninstall any Extensions that you aren't 100% sure that you installed on purpose.

It wouldn't hurt to close Safari and restart your Mac after doing all of the above. So far everyone hit by the McAfee adware has successfully gotten rid of it by doing the above.

If you want to avoid such problems in the future, I highly recommend switching from Safari to Brave. Brave is a better browser in just about every way.

Brave is the most secure browser available currently.
https://restoreprivacy.com/browser/secure/

Brave (free)
https://brave.com

Once you have installed Brave, here are some settings that you will want to adjust for best security:

Brave menu —> Preferences —> Privacy and Security —> Site & Shield Settings —> Notifications —> set Don’t Allow Sites To Send Notifications

go back to Site & Shield Settings —> Popups and Redirects —> set Don't allow sites to send pop-ups or use redirects