The latest plague…… I am seeing a significant number of customers now complaining about a massive amount of notifications popping up on their computers making it nearly impossible to use the computer. These are browser notifications fed to the computer by a web site through whatever browser you use, usually Chrome or Edge. This happens when a web site asks for permission to send notifications, probably in a manner that doesn’t sound like it’s going to spam your computer with notifications, and you click “Yes”. Then the fun begins as notifications fill the right side of your screen. They are usually scam notifications claiming you have a virus and asking you to click on something to fix it, which then allows them to try to sell you something or even infect your computer with malware.

The fix is to turn off notifications in the browser settings. Go in to settings, then privacy and security. Then search for “notifications”. Block the ability for web sites to even ask for permission to send notifications. If you already have some sites that you have given permission to, delete or block those sites as well.

Speaking of browsers, Chrome, and any other Chrome-based browser (Edge and Brave come to mind) have removed the ability to block ads. So if you are starting to get more ads and pop-up ads that’s why. There is no fix because the underlying code to block ads has been removed from these browsers completely. If you want to be able to block ads on web sites the only option now is to use the Firefox browser along with the uBlock ad blocker. I have been using and recommending Firefox for decades. It is by far the best browser on the web for privacy and security.