Environment
Mostly Windows computers (the add-ons issue also affects Macs)
Issue
Spam notifications showing in the Windows Alerts or on websites passed through by Chrome
Resolution
Block notifications from the specific spam vendors
There two different ways these ads happen: through notifications provided by some advertisers or through advertising extensions inadvertently installed in Chrome. These most often happen through the Chrome web browser.
To stop unwanted notifications from the Windows OS (currently the most common cause) follow these steps:
- First observe who is providing the notifications that are most annoying. (The provider's name shows at the bottom of the system pop ups. )
- Then open this URL in Chrome by selecting the text and pasting it into a Chrome browser window: chrome://settings/content/notifications?search=notifications and search for the company name seen in the bottom of the popup notifications.
- When you find that company in the list, click the three stacked dots menu to the right of the company name and choose to block those notifications.
Hopefully that will improve the situation. If not, try looking for and disabling malicious Chrome extensions:
- Open Chrome
- On your browser toolbar, tap the three dots menu
- Mouse over More Tools...
- Tap Extensions
- In the extensions list look for any extensions with the word "map" or "ads" in their name. Ignore anything from Google, Adobe or UM. If you find anything, you can click the button to remove it, or simply click the blue slider to turn it off. By turning it off, you can test if something was a problem, and if you find you are missing a feature you wanted, you can just turn it back on
- When you try to remove things, you may get a pop up asking why you are removing it. Close that and you should be all set
Additional Information