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	"title": "Browser push notifications: a feature asking to be abused | Malwarebytes Labs",
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	"plain_text": "Browser push notifications: a feature asking to be abused |\r\nMalwarebytes Labs\r\nBy Pieter Arntz\r\nPublished: 2019-01-21 · Archived: 2026-04-05 16:33:20 UTC\r\n“I’m seeing a lot of ads popping up in the corner of my screen, and the Malwarebytes scan does not show there is\r\nanything wrong. It says my computer is clean. So what’s happening?”\r\nOur support team runs into questions like this regularly, but the volume seems to be increasing lately. In most of\r\nthese cases, it helps to look at the “Notification permissions” of the browser displaying this annoying behavior. A\r\ngood cleansing in that department might be just what you need to get rid of those “pop-ups.”\r\nThe problem is that the messages users are seeing are not pop-ups at all, but in fact “push notifications,” often\r\nreferred to as simply “notifications.” We understand that naming them differently doesn’t make them any less\r\nannoying. But it does change our classification of such messages.\r\nSome notifications are not simple advertisements, but rather misleading messages about the safety of your\r\ncomputer.\r\nWhat are these notifications?\r\nFrom the Mozilla Developer pages:\r\nThe Notifications API lets a web page or app send notifications that are displayed outside the page at\r\nthe system level; this lets web apps send information to a user even if the application is idle or in the\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 1 of 8\n\nbackground. This article looks at the basics of using this API in your own apps.\r\nWhat we can learn from this is that the notifications can originate from a website or from an app. We are going to\r\nfocus on the case where a website is causing the problem. Any app showing you commercial messages outside of\r\na browser window would get detected as adware by Malwarebytes, so these would not escape a scan.\r\nHowever, website notifications can be displayed outside the browser window. Wait, what’s the difference between\r\nnotifications and pop-ups again? A pop-up is a new browser window or tab, whereas notifications are more like\r\ntooltips. They are messages that are independent from any open websites.\r\nNotifications show the domain from which they originate, so that could clue you in on the answer to another\r\nimportant question, which is:\r\nHow did I get them?\r\nTo receive browser notifications, a user must have first allowed them. In Firefox, the dialog to allow them looks\r\nlike this:\r\nWhile that seems pretty straightforward, there are trickier sites that use a bit of social engineering to get you to\r\nallow their notifications.\r\nThe website visitors are led to believe that they have to click “Allow“ to see the video. In fact, if they click the\r\n“Allow” button, they will be redirected to another website, sometimes asking yet again to allow notifications, but\r\nmeanwhile their clicking has allowed this site to show them notifications. And, mind you, the site does not have to\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 2 of 8\n\nbe open in the browser for the notifications to pop up. As you can see, the fact that you are allowing notifications\r\nis a bit less clear in the Chrome prompt than it is in Firefox.\r\nHow do I disable them?\r\nThere are some options for disabling notifications. You can disable them altogether or you can disable\r\nnotifications for specific domains, by removing them from your “Allow” list. You can even add them to your\r\n“Blocked” list.\r\nFor every browser, the notifications look slightly different and the methods to disable them are slightly different as\r\nwell. To make them easier to find, I have split them up by browser.\r\nChrome\r\nTo completely turn off notifications, even from an extension:\r\nClick the three dots button in the upper right-hand corner of the Chrome menu to enter the Settings menu.\r\nIn the Settings menu and click on Privacy and Security.\r\nClick on Site settings.\r\nIn that menu, select Notifications.\r\nBy default, the slider is set to Ask before sending (recommended), but feel free to move it to Block if you\r\nwish to block notifications completely.\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 3 of 8\n\nFor more granular control, you can use this menu to manipulate the individual items. Note that the items with a\r\njigsaw puzzle piece icon are enforced by an extension, so you would have to figure out which extension first and\r\nthen remove it. But for the ones with the three dots behind them, you can click on the dots to open this context\r\nmenu:\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 4 of 8\n\nSelecting Block will move the item to the block list. Selecting Remove will delete the item from the list. It will\r\nask permission to show notifications again if you visit their site (unless you have set the slider to Block).\r\nShortcut: another way to get into the Notifications menu shown earlier is to click on the gear icon in the\r\nnotifications themselves.\r\nThis will take you directly to the itemized list.\r\nFirefox\r\nTo completely turn off notifications in Firefox:\r\nClick the three horizontal bars in the upper right-hand corner of the menu bar and select Options in the\r\nsettings menu.\r\nOn the left-hand side, select Privacy \u0026 Security.\r\nScroll down to the Permissions section and click on the Settings button behind Notifications.\r\nIn the resulting menu, put a checkmark in the Block new requests asking to allow notifications box at the\r\nbottom.\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 5 of 8\n\nIn the same menu, you can apply a more granular control by setting listed items to Block or Allow by using the\r\ndrop-down menu behind each item.\r\nOpera\r\nWhere push notifications are concerned, you can see how closely related Opera and Chrome are.\r\nOpen the menu by clicking the O in the upper left-hand corner.\r\nClick on Settings (on Windows)/Preferences (on Mac).\r\nClick on Advanced and select Privacy \u0026 security.\r\nUnder Content settings (desktop)/Site settings (Android,) select Notifications.\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 6 of 8\n\nOn Android, you can remove all the items at once or one by one. On desktops, it works exactly the same as it does\r\nin Chrome. The same is true for accessing the menu from the notifications themselves. Click the gear icon in the\r\nnotification, and you will be taken to the Notifications menu.\r\nEdge\r\nTo disable web notifications in Windows:\r\nClick the Start button in Windows (Windows icon).\r\nSelect Settings (gear icon).\r\nSelect Privacy, search and services.\r\nSelect Site permissions.\r\nSelect All permissions.\r\nSelect Notifications.\r\nHere, you set the switch Ask before sending to On (blue).\r\nYou can also manage the notifications on a site-by-site basis in Edge:\r\nClick the three dots button in the top-right corner and select Settings.\r\nScroll down and click on View advanced settings.\r\nUnder Notifications, click on Manage.\r\nHere, you can switch notifications off for a specific website.\r\nSafari\r\nLaunch Safari and go to Safari \u003e Preferences, or press Command-Comma. Click on the Notifications tab. From\r\nthere, you can manually disable/enable notifications from select sites, remove all notifications, or access your\r\nsystem-wide Notification Preferences.\r\nAre these notifications useful at all?\r\nWhile we could conceive of some cases where push notifications might be found useful, we would certainly not\r\nhold it against you if you decided to disable them altogether.\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 7 of 8\n\nWeb push notifications are not just there to disturb Windows users. Android, Chromebook, MacOS, even Linux\r\nusers may see them if they use one of the participating browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and Safari. In\r\nsome cases, the browser does not even have to be opened, and it can still display push notifications.\r\nBe careful out there and think twice before you click “Allow.”\r\nAbout the author\r\nWas a Microsoft MVP in consumer security for 12 years running. Can speak four languages. Smells of rich\r\nmahogany and leather-bound books.\r\nSource: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nhttps://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused\r\nPage 8 of 8",
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	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"MITRE"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/01/browser-push-notifications-feature-asking-abused"
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