My mom gets various garbage warning her that her computer is compromised and telling her to call a number. Fortunately she has finally learned to not click a thing, not get upset, call me, and I head over and force the page shut, clear history, reboot, run AV (never anything there) and she's good to go until next time. This goes on two or three times a year.

While it can be scary, this stuff is happening left and right and has been for years.

I've gotten the one that rings a bell and puts a flashing message about not shutting off your computer, a couple of times. It came from FB I clicked on an post of a business I am not already aware of. I no longer do that ever and I always shut off the computer ASAP. So far so good.

I have encountered a few pop up messages like that.

Like poison ivy, Do Not Touch (click). Just reverse or exit or shut down.

I sVe a few w screenshots so that I could advise and warn other not to bite the bait.

Food, when you say force close, do you CTRL/ALT/DEL (then select the browser)? Or is there a better way?

I too, learned a long time ago, never click on another thing once it happened. I think I quit clicking on anything. When I exit out of firefox, on my phone, I delete anything and everything that I've looked up. That may be helping.

I got grabbed by this years ago, on CNN of all places. There was a thumbnail for a story that looked interesting to me. It looked just like any other story on their website. Now they seem to do a marginally better job making it clear it's "paid content."

When I clicked it, an alarm started blaring over my speakers and my desktop started whirring as they doing whatever - installing some sort of malware I'm sure. I had to physically unplug it as none of the usual shut downs were overriding whatever the scammers were doing.

It was an awful feeling. I learned my lesson and I am beyond careful about clicking things now. Even allegedly reputable places have paid content and I trust none of it.

My front page is filled with big butt Brazil photos. I keep reporting, blocking and hiding them and 30 more pop up. I don't know how to get rid of them. It's very frustrating 😑

following.. Can your phone carrier do anything about it? If you ask them to filter subject matter, can they? i have AT&T the greatest scamming employees they can hire. 0

Ad blockers work nicely, I rarely see any with uBlock Origin installed to my Firefox.

I agree with dadoes, ad blockers get rid of most of the ads on my PC. I have Adblocker Ultimate on Firefox.

FWIW, on my Android phone, I tap the tabs icon and 'Close All' to make sure apps are shut.

I have never had something like this happen in all the years Ive had my iPhone. I do have Ad Blocker Ultimate on Chrome but this wasn't an ad either time but some innocous story I clicked on. A few years ago I did have the flashing light thing warning the computer was compromised and I shut it down immediately. This time I was so shocked by all the pornography, I automatically said NO without thinking when I shouldnt have replied at all. Lesson learned the hard way.

I was using the computer at the college library when this happened. I was scrolling through sites on Princess Diana when I suddenly saw on the screen a naked Chinese lady riding a horse. I still laugh at that. But I did tell the librarian about it