McAfee, Norton etc. virus alerts or vague advertisements in notifications.


The university computers use Windows Defender to combat malware. However, if you receive malware notifications mentioning another protection application, you have visited a suspicious website and allowed it to send notifications. See the example below.

 

The notification usually shows which browser the notifications are coming from. In the example above, they are coming from Google Chrome. Select the fix based on your browser.

If the notifications are coming from Chrome:

chrome://settings/reset

Copy this into the address bar and then select "Restore settings to their original defaults" from the options.

If the notifications come from Firefox:

about:support

Copy this into the Firefox address bar, then select "Refresh Firefox" in the upper right corner of the page.

If the notifications come from Microsoft Edge

edge://settings/reset

Copy this into the Edge address bar and then select "Restore settings to their default values" from the options.

These steps will remove the harmful notifications. If you had any browser extensions, you will need to reinstall them.

To prevent these notifications in the future, always read what you are clicking on before clicking OK!