I've been seeing this annoying popup on my PC that says, "your web protection isn't fully set up--enable it for free." The weird part is that I don't have McAfee installed at all. It even comes with an option that says, "yes, change my search engine to secure search with Yahoo when I restart my browser," which is checked by default. I usually end up closing it through the task manager, but it keeps coming back, and I'm worried it could be malware. Does anyone know how I can get rid of this?
5 Answers
You should definitely run a scan with Malwarebytes. It's one of the best tools for catching pesky malware that might be hiding out.
Does it only show up when your web browser is open? If that's the case, you might have accidentally allowed notifications from a sketchy site. Double-check your browser settings to ensure you’re only permitting notifications from trusted sites.
You might want to try uninstalling it using Revo Uninstaller. It's thorough and can help you get rid of software that’s causing issues, even if it didn’t seem installed.
Is your PC a custom build? Sometimes, those come with unwanted software pre-installed. If that’s the case, make sure to check your system for any leftover programs.
It sounds like this popup could be a rogue browser extension or something similar. Try checking your browser extensions and remove anything that looks suspicious. Sometimes these popups are just notifications from websites pretending to be security alerts.
I tried that, but it didn’t find anything. I also ran Windows' built-in malware detector and came up empty.