Help goodbye, fake virus ad

[kfisher123]

There's a fake (I hope) ad that the phone has a virus. It's in Chrome and it doesn't let anything else open. How do I get rid of it?

 

[Brian706]

Can't you just close the tab that it's in?

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Usually when those type of fake warnings pop up in Chrome they generate a new tab so check the number next to the address bar. If it says two but you only had one open then tap on the number and close the offending tab. The sort of floating looking warning that often accompanies these can be dismissed using the Back button.

 

[Hadron]

These things are always fake. Their purpose is to trick people into installing something to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Following the link in the ad is likely to result in your device becoming infected (because there are no true viruses for Android, so malware propagation relies on tricking you into installing it, and fake "virus" warnings are a common trick to do that).

 

[Bobphx]

After doing a google search and clicking on a link to go to a website I have used in the past, I just got attacked by a pop up that said my android tablet (and it even mentioned my model number in the pop up) was infected by viruses, and then told me to go to the Google Play store and download a certain app, which I did not do because I know better. I also did not click on the "OK" button in the pop up. The pop up ad did not move around the screen, it was just stationary, and it did not have anywhere to click to get rid of it (except for the OK button), and it locked the web browser (Chrome) screen and greyed it out, so that I could not go to a different tab or do anything to get rid of it. My other web browser app (Firefox) still worked fine.

I ran several android versions of popular anti virus apps like Malware Bytes, AVG, etc., and none of them detected anything wrong.

I went to the settings menu of my android tablet and went to the apps section, found the Chrome app and cleared the cache. That did absolutely nothing. I forced it to stop. That did nothing. I then clicked "disable" and that did the trick. It also erased all my tabs, bookmarks, saved passwords, etc. in the Chrome app. And I had to go to the Google Playstore to Enable the Chrome app. The Chrome app now works again, but like I said, all of my bookmarks, passwords, etc., have all been deleted.

Now please don't click on this because it probably has viruses or something, but I wrote down the information that appeared in the pop up box and this is what it said... "us.atopd.top"

I have since ran several more virus scans and have found nothing. I also went through each app left and cleared any cache and cleared hisories, closed all tabs, etc. I cleaned out my downloads folder and used CCleaner to clean up junk files.

So, in summary, if this happens to you, go into your android tablets settings menu, go to apps, find the Chrome app, and click on "disable" and follow the prompts to get rid of these pop ups.

 

[bcrichster]

I really & truly think this is Chrome itself, somehow.. No other browsers do that to me. Ever. Now I only use chrome for specific sites like github. So I downgraded the Chrome version to like v38 and haven't had the issue anymore. Instead I get an update popup with an x that works

 

[Bobphx]

That's interesting about it just happening on Chrome. I noticed it never happens on the Firefox browser app I use for the same websites.

So, perhaps there is a flaw in the Chrome app allowing these exploits?

After hearing this, I might just stop using Chrome and instead just use the Firefox app.