I started to see notifications sliding in and out from the top right corner of my iMac two days.
The notifications have the setting wheel icon followed by "ask you", "gmail is hacked", etc.
Look like my iMac is finally infected after having been using iMac for almost 20 years!
So, how do I deal with this?
[Re-titled by Moderator]
iMac 27″
It seems that you have accidentally allowed a malicious website to send you notifications via the Notification Center. This is not a virus, but a form of adware that tries to trick you into clicking on fake alerts.
To get rid of these notifications, you need to revoke the permission that you gave to the website. Here are the steps to do that:
This should stop the “Ask You” notifications from appearing on your iMac. For more information on this issue, or to know in detail that why this issue happens you can visit this guide on why ask you notifications appear, how to stop them and how to prevent them from appearing in future.
A full list of notifications on the Mac is found by clicking on the clock on the top right of the screen. I found that Weijing211 suggestion works. However the full route is Safari, Preferences, Websites, Notifications. Then look for the icon that 'ask you' have used in the preferences. In my case it was a dummy version of the Mac System Preferences symbol following by a blank where the website name should be. Then change 'allow' to 'deny' using the blue arrows on the right side of the listing. To check that this has worked look at the Notifications listing again (via clicking on the clock) and they should have disappeared.
With respect: I stated in my post that I had tried everything suggested. That includes your very clear instructions. There is absolutely nothing there that shouldn’t be which is why it’s so weird.
on a brighter note: yesterday I had no more pop ups, so maybe somehow it has gone with everything I had tried.
I am still very wary though. I am planning to upgrade my MacBook and normally I do an install from the backup. If there is still something there then I am not happy about doing it the usual way which means a complete fresh install from scratch.
and it isn't detected by Malwarebytes, so go in Safari, at the top click Safari, from the dropdown menu, click the Settings button and then click the websites tab and remove it, as mentioned by others.
You have clearly never run out of space on a APFS volume. If you run out of space on APFS you literally cannot delete files, because the APFS equivalent of a superblock must first be journaled to disk and if there is no space to journal it before deleting the files then you cannot delete anything!
In such a situation, if you force restart to recovery mode, then sometimes enough uncommitted files will "go missing" to make it possible to delete something to make enough space to write the journal to allow you to delete more.
The official Apple solution in such a case: use Disk Utility to reformat the drive, losing the entire contents of the drive.
Because of this it can be useful to run a third-party cleaning up to periodically empty trash and remove cache files -- reducing the likelihood that your drive will fill completely.
thank you for your easy and effective fix. I've been fighting with ousting this malware for over 3 weeks to no avail.
I came across your solution when I changed the question in my search. I'm migrating to a new Mac and wanted to make sure I wasn't transfering any problems. I can now open the box with my new Mac, I've had it for 2 1/2 weeks. So again thank you very much for your fix, it is greatly appreciated.
I got bitten by this yesterday. I recognized it was Ask You from its behavior (and how I got it), but it was not called Ask You in the settings. Instead, it was called "SYSTEM NOTIFICATIONS", and had an icon that looked similar to the one for System Preferences (like a "gear", though with an added small "alert" badge). It was confusing trying to find it, because at first blush, the notifications looked like they were coming from System Preferences. It was only by observing its behavior, and researching it (a Malwarebytes forum discussion on it was very helpful) that I recognized, and found out how to get rid of it:
Go into Safari, go to Settings>Notifications, select it in the list (whatever it's called), and press the Remove button. That solved the problem for me.
Not sure why, but trying to change its setting to Deny (from Allow) caused Safari to lock up. Using Remove did the job.
If you're wondering which notification entry is causing the problem (if it's not called something obvious, like Ask You, as in my case), try going into Notifications in System Preferences, selecting some notification that you're not sure about, and change its setting to None. If that stops the annoying notifications from Ask You from coming on the screen (except when you click on the clock on the far-right side of the menu bar), you've found it. The notification setting for this adware will show up as the same name in Safari's Notifications listing.
@John Galt
Thanks.
The main challenge was finding out just what it was, and where it was hiding. I found a couple articles that described its behavior to a tee. The problem was one had me going on a goose chase trying to find its process in Activity Monitor, and looking in some Library subfolder to find a startup configuration for it. Another talked about it existing in the Applications folder. I don't know whether to fault these articles, because maybe Ask You used to be installed in these other ways, but they were little help to me.
I understand. At least half the problem is knowing exactly what to call these things, since a Notification is different from a website popup window, which is different from a system dialog... etc.
The only thing they have in common is something annoying 😄
Weijing211 and MiggityMike are absolutely correct. Just one point to add...because I was not as computer savvy as them I went to System Settings instead of Safari Settings and did not see the same thing as Weijing211 and MiggityMike showed in their screen shot. Be sure you go to notifications in Safari Settings and you will be able to remove "Ask You." I actually had two of them!
This information does nothing to answer the original post. Please explain what we are supposed to do about this. "~~dont let it happen in the first place" is not helpful...
You have Malware that started in your browser and now has notifications turned on.
Turn off notifications for “Ask you”
Reset Safari or clean it out of Safari
Just open Safari preferences go to web sites→notification and delete ask you :)
mjmlagan wrote:
I keep getting an "Ask You" notification sliding in & out on the upper right hand corner. What is it?
How to remove "Ask you" Notification on Mac
