I think my Google Chrome browser was hijacked by Yahoo as I started to receive adverts for an Antivirus Security Scan at 19 USD per month - every time I opened Chrome. I have now gone to Settings and disabled Yahoo. Any ideas from the team what happened here and how to prevent it occurring again?
SOT: Chrome fault
Sep 03, 2026
Last reply: 3 weeks ago
15 Replies
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Wasn't the end of August one of the key dates for manifestV2 getting disabled in chrome/chromium/edge/opera browsers?
So I see now. Is v3 worth having or worth avoiding?
Avoid, the most effective adblockers use V2, Which is why Google want it gone ...
Thanks. Should SearchProtect 7.0.0.32 be on or off?
I think it has come along for the ride with some other program you've installed, it's a "potentially unwanted program" that acts as a browser hijacker ... uninstall it, I don't think it hides from add/remove programs in control panel
formatting link
Go to settings and check Privacy and Security -> Site Settings -> notifications and check the "Allowed to send notifications" list. Any sites in that list can make the browser pop up notifications.
Thanks. I have done this but I am still getting a message about a trojan virus 'e.tre456_worm_Windows'. This seems to be impossible to remove except by clicking 'Ok' which I don't want to do. Now it's wanting me to activate protection now which seems very suspicious. I already have Bitdefender but this is not Bitdefender at play.
PS I have now installed Adblock Plus. Is this wise?
I know this sounds feeble, but have you tried clearing cookies? I had something similar a few months ago, a pop-up that kept coming back - turned out to be a cookie installed by something called iotr, I got rid of it by ensuring all cookies were erased.
Periodic cookie clearance is advisable really, I used to run adblock plus but last upgrade or three installed Ublock Origin and found it a bit better. YMMV...
Give Malwarebytes a scan over the machine ...
Fairly good, depending which block list you ask it to use.
I use some parts of UBO along with Ghostery - perhaps a couple more ads slip through, but fewer sites seem to get broken.
Repeat the same trick in MS Edge... that supports the same popup capability.
If you need something to clean the machine then download the trial version of Malware Bytes and run a scan with that.
Nothing wrong with it - but it will not necessarily help the current problem. My preferred ad blocker is uBlock Origin - works well and is also open source.
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