Red dot in search bar when visiting Facebook

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Level 1

16 points

Red dot in search bar when visiting Facebook

Why am I getting a red dot in the search bar every time I go to Facebook? Started only fairly recently. First search for this turned up community posts from 11 years ago.

I do have an ad blocker and Malwarebytes on here, but I've had them a long time and this red dot thing started fairly recently. I think Facebook is the only site where it's happening.

Using DuckDuckGo instead of Google for automatic searches and am typing in simply facebook.com because that is just as fast as keeping a bookmark. Have been using DDG regularly for a few months and don't love it, but again, no issue with the red dot until recently.

iMac 21.5″

Posted on Jan 25, 2026 6:58 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

FishingAddict

Level 4

3,900 points

Jan 25, 2026 7:23 PM in response to semi-Luddite

If it's in the address bar then it could be related to the ad blocker. I would suggest going to Safari menu > Safari extensions.... Temporarily uncheck all extensions to disable them. Then go back and reload the page to see if the dot is gone. If so, enable one extension at a time and see when the dot reappears. If you identify a specific extension as the cause, visit the developer's website for information about what it may mean.

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Answer 2

semi-Luddite Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 25, 2026 7:30 PM in response to FishingAddict

Playing around a little with other sites just now, I don't know if this matters, but I see the red dot is actually on the f that is the facebook logo. Once I'm on the site, it disappears.

I appreciate the help but am going to wait until tomorrow to go back and try more. I made the mistake of reading some news after I posted this and need to go get bad things out of my head before settling down for the night.

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