You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “If Facebook says you have malware, do not download their program—here’s a way around it”.
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “If Facebook says you have malware, do not download their program—here’s a way around it”.
I found your site while trying to find a way around downloading this bogus malware crap. So, just to be sure, the only/best way around it is to erase the cookies? My Norton system says everything is clean so I have no reason to download anything…but can’t access my FB page. This is bull.
Anyway – thanks for posting this.
Joanna
Hi Joanna, yes, I found that deleting the Facebook cookies (you don’t even need to delete all of them, just anything with facebook.com), you should be able to get back in. You may find that when you get in, you won’t be able to post links, but that comes right after about three days.
I recently just got hit with this stupid thing. but i managed to bypass it by opening a new window incognito mode using chrome. and it let get right back into my account and post stuff. but if i did not use it the stupid alert would pop back up.
Thank you for letting us know, Rawrz. It’s very useful to know.
So you are able to post links after a few days? This same thing happened to me and I have a mac. My first thought was that this should not happen to a Mac, but I had i checked out by Apple just the same. After it came back clean and i tried the exact same post on a friends account I thought it had to be Facebook. I have sent 5 messages to them and screenshots showing my computer is clean. I am a social media coordinator so this problem if freaking me out. Please advise!
Hi Jay, yes I was able to post after three to four days, and that’s what I’m hearing from around the web as well. As a work-around, you can do a couple of things. The first is to set up an extra Facebook account and make that one an admin for the pages you run. That account should be able to post links. The second is to put spaces into the links, e.g. www. jay. com, which Facebook might let you post. Then what you do is go back and modify it, removing the spaces. However, there might not be a page preview.
Thank you Jack!
You’re most welcome, Jay!
now totally locked out on desktop with this b.s. no matter what browser or ip or cookies cleaned etc..;/……………..
extremely annoying, I’m having the same issue…..I’m paranoid enough that I didn’t download their malware but used MSN’s and it said my computer was fine.
I thought maybe my Firefox browser was hacked, so I was going to get rid of it (after salvaging all my bookmarks and putting away safely) and reupload it but then it hit my Internet Explorer, too.
Unless it’s some sort of weird bug that is invisible and goes after each of your browsers, it likely IS FB BS.
I save a lot of links on my wall privately, I “like” a lot of people’s stuff, etc.
So yeah, your theory is probably correct.
One thing I’ve noticed? Once you start saving stuff on FB, all of a sudden you see the “confirmation” windows pop up that make you click on which items are tigers (or watches, etc) to confirm you’re not a spammer.
So they’re trying to make you paranoid that they think you’re a spammer…..and maybe they do. Maybe it’s just a blind system that tries to go after spammers, and they’re just too lazy to fix it, I don’t know.
extremely annoyed….
Dan, I am sorry to hear that. Looks like these idiots have found a way to block people regardless now—and it’s proof once more that it is directly linked to our accounts, and nothing whatsoever to do with our computers.
Hi HTMT: I’ve seen that confirmation window as well. Not very often, but it has come up from time to time. Like you, I share links, but then Facebook has kind of become Digg for me—and they must know that. Apparently personal sharing is down 21 per cent year on year at the moment, so you’d think Facebook, knowing this, wouldn’t be so difficult. It’s entirely possible that it’s an anti-spam feature because the number of bots (and click-farm accounts) on the site is at an incredibly high level. Every day I can find several, and my current record is 277 in a day!
Malware Bytes again confirmed no problems with software on the computers. I won’t guess at (publicly) the system they use to identify spammers but my thinking is that this is the problem. I probably don’t post but 10 or less links per day but I guess it must be more than the average FB user.
They need a better system. Artificial intelligence does not have common sense quite yet. ;)
I posted an article about the hacker from Finland Named Guccifer who said he found it easy to steal Hillary’s emails. Minutes later I received a message from Facebook saying that I could no longer post websites on my account. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The notification directed me to Facebook.com. I tried to log in without posting anything then got a notification saying that the computer I was using had malware and now I need to download F-secure anti-virus software to fix it. F-Secure is headquartered in Finland. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I was using the display computer at The Apple Store when all these notifications happened so I decided to try the comp at the library. Same thing. Got the same message about malware from every comp or Mac I’ve tried to access my Facebook account from. while others were able to log into facebook without any problems. I found that I was able to log in using my phone. So I started a new account and friended my self. Then I tried to bring all my old friends onto my new account. When I did that I got a security message saying please tell us the name of the person in this picture and there was a multiple choice of names. Problem was… there wasn’t any picture. It gave me the option to skip. Which I did. Got the same security question again and again there was no picture. So I skipped again. Then they said “that’s it you used up all your chances”. So now I’m on Twitter. Does anyone know how to counter act this? I tried switching browsers. It didn’t work. I can’t erase cookies on a library comp. I’ve gotten the malware notice using Safari at the Apple Store and Firefox and Internet Explorer at the library. Please help.
HTMT, I totally agree! I have just updated the post with a postscript from another thread, which seems to have got one of my contacts out of his incorrectly black-marked account.
Patrick, I wonder if the latest postscript helps. In my case, it was Kaspersky, but my problem only surfaced after I posted on a website critical of Facebook, and using Facebook’s own comments’ plug-in. I wonder if Facebook would care to admit that its own plug-ins cause these black flags.
I am not sure if it would work though since you have already tried other computers. And interestingly, Facebook shut down its Get Satisfaction forum, where there were an increasing number of people reporting faults with the website. I guess they were too scared of the truth getting out about their databases possibly dying and their bugs.
Your report certainly confirms that Facebook has it in for some accounts, either by design or through bugs. In my case, for many years, I have been unable to post certain links, even very respectable ones, and what this tells me is that I hit these issues before most people. Very frequently, the system would prevent me from liking, commenting or sharing. I was out for 69 hours one time through not having broken any Facebook rules—the system just died. Like you, I started a fresh account after the January 2016 incident, though I only have seven of my 2,300 friends on there, as I think this whole Facebook thing is passé. When I think about it, I only need it to manage a handful of pages and groups.
All I can suggest temporarily, given that the mobile version works, is to access m.facebook.com even on your desktop computer. It is a separate site, and maybe you can, at least, get something on to your wall about it. My belief is that the errors pass after three days, probably when Facebook staff realize they have buggered up another lot of accounts.
Whatever the case, if they want fewer people using it, then they are going about it the right way.
Jack, Thanks for getting back to me. I will try your suggestions. Correction: Guccifer is from Rumania. F-Secure is a company based in Finland. I’ve had this problem for over a week.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed, Patrick. Andrew’s suggestions in the postscript might not work in your case, since you’ve tried so many different places, which obviously have different IP addresses. But maybe m.facebook.com might work as a temporary work-around.
If it’s been down for over a week, then I’m not sure what to suggest further though, as I don’t know what one can expect. Get Satisfaction was filled with people who were denied access, though many did not return to fill others in on how long they were out for, or whether they ever got back in. (This could have been another reason Facebook shut down the forum.)
What I do know is that Facebook is broken, very broken, just by observing how crappy it handles the basics now—yet my fresh account seems to be fine. By blaming users for malware, etc., they don’t have to admit to Wall Street that their databases are probably failing. It’s full of spam as well: not a day has gone by over the last year and a bit where I have not had a spammer or a bot trying to join one of my groups, which means Facebook’s user-number claims could well be bogus. The minute they admit to any of this, the company will lose an incredible amount of its value.
I was able to log on to facebook at the Apple Store. Miracle of miracles. Still can’t access it at the library. Tried the m.facebook.com work-around. It didn’t work for me. Mostly because I only use public access computer’s and I’m blocked from dowloading and running any programs.
That’s positive news about the Apple Store, Patrick. Not downloading their crap is good though—I fell for it and learned the hard way. I did notice that they would lock out Windows computers more than Macs and Unix OSs. I could still post on Mac and Linux when it happened to me, but just nothing with links. But on Windows I had to download and run their crap, which was probably spyware that sent a bunch of private information to them. I know Kaspersky clams up and deletes comments on their blog when you ask them; they also stop conversing on Twitter when you raise this topic with them. Facebook never answers (of course).
I was all in debating EMF dangers on a newspaper-site in norway when all my threads in this debate suddenly disappeared and I got logged out of face claiming my mac infected my malware. Wtf!!!
Ongoing Facebook saga: Apparently the phony malware message was only happening on PC or Mac. Other people were able to access Facebook on the same computers without any problems. I was able to log on with my phone. So I sent up a second account on Facebook using Gmail address. I tried to friend all my old friends on the first account. When I did that I got reported for being an Imposter. And I had to send FACEBOOK a copy of my ID. They reopened the second account. Then they said I was an Imposter of the first account. So I sent my ID again. Then they said this ID is unacceptable. They accepted it before but now all of a sudden it is unacceptable. Somebody at Facebook doesn’t like me.
There’s definitely no consistency in the way Facebook works. I still spot a bunch of fake accounts each day, and report them, and Facebook does nothing. Meanwhile, it keeps knocking out real accounts. When spammers and bots have more rights than we do, something is deeply screwy with that site. And we know from this video that Facebook is in league with spammers.
Every time I see a friend request from some hot 20 something and she only has one pic on her a account, that’s a sure sign of a fake and I usually report it. But it happens so often now I don’t even bother wasting my time. It seems like the fembots own Facebook.
After sending my ID to Facebook for the umteenth time they are now saying that I used a different name on my Facebook account. Not True. I’ve always been Patrick Flanagan. I’ve always used Patrick Flanagan on Facebook. Unless somebody totally hacked into the account and changed the name. But Facebook should have records to show which name the account was originally started with.
This has gone on for over a month now. I can’t help but feel that it is politically motivated because of my support of Bernie Sanders. But it could have been anyone who disagreed with me on any other issues. I’ve posted some Anti-Scientology stuff too. And we all know how vindictive they are.
So I’m really starting to consider taking some legal action here. Any advice?
I wish I’ve read your text before I downloaded and run this Facebook Kaspersky scanner. OMG what should I do now?! It’s scanning now and seems there’s no way to uninstal it or stop the scanning! How to uninstall it? Am I in some kind of danger now? Help!
I’ve just got a notification from Facebook that says: Kaspersky Malware Scanner is finished and didn’t find any malware. These scans help keep Facebook secure, so thanks for your patience.
Remember, to protect your computer from malware, only download and run programs from sources you trust.
_____________________________________
WTF is going on???
I can’t run the Kaspersky programs because I’m using public computers and I don’t have admin rights. Other people are using the same computers and logging into Facebook without any problem. So it’s just a wat to block me from my account.
After 30 days my situation has been resolved. I got my original account back. But really don’t appreciate getting the run around from Facebook. This whole thing has been so strange creepy and weird. I heard Zuckerberg got His ownTwitter account hacked. Now he knows what it feels like.
Thank you for your update, Patrick. Glad it finally got resolved—though you are right, it is all very creepy. It’s creepy that not only does Facebook clam up (as usual) but all these supposedly ethical antivirus companies when confronted with this. All the evidence points to the fact that this was nothing to do with malware—if not, then what?
Strange how as soon as I threatened legal action it got cleared up the next day. At one point they wanted me to identify my friends. So they asked me to give the name of the person in a picture. There was a multiple choice of names but NO PICTURE! So of course I failed. Based on that they said I was an imposter and that I really didn’t know the people in my account. Then they gave me the runaround with the ID. Well you know the whole story. I can understand they want to weed out spammers but this whole process was abusive. I hope somebody does sue. There should be some type of class action because this happens to a lot of people.
I don’t think this is just a case of using too much of their server. I ran the scan and then after logging in I got a notification about a page they said they permanently unpublished. It was about sensible environmentalism, not the mainstream version of environmentalism, and encouraged a respectful discussion over global warming. But I started it a week ago and only had 8 posts. Certainly nothing on it that broke any policies. Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not.
I’m having this problem as well for three days, with no resolve. And I’ve tried the cache and cookies stuff, and another account works fine, and it works fine (but with limits) from another IP and/or other machine… sort of.
Really want to see this resolved without having to resort to legal action as well! This is absurd, and infuriating, and it’s how the IBM/Microsoft anti-trust lawsuit went down, in may ways, so many years ago.
Hi Kimberly, it does seem Facebook has blocked the easy methods I outlined. I am curious about the antitrust suit you mention though: can you let me know what happened?
She may be referring to this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/technology/microsoft-to-pay-ibm-775-million-in-settlement.html?_r=0
Thanks, Patrick. I can’t see the persuasiveness of the precedent myself but some big sums from a lawsuit would be nice. More than enough people have been affected globally.
Well today it happend to me and nothing is working. I delete cookies, try every recomending here. So I just need wait? How long?
(really sorry for my English, trying my best)
Hi Errem, the wisdom now does appear to be to wait, possibly three or four days. Facebook has been finding ways to block people from these solutions, perhaps to force people to download their questionable software. In the meantime, maybe look at setting up a new account so you can continue to browse the pages and groups you visit. The new account will not be affected by these false and fraudulent accusations from Facebook.
Yep. Happened to me too. 3 PCs, 3 laptops, a tablet, & smartphone. Windows 7, various Linux, OS X, android, Firefox, Pale Moon, Chrome, & Opera. All of them rejected my login until I download & install their spyware from Trend Micro on my machine, saying I have a virus, no matter what machine, OS, or browser I used. I even tried to go mobile, & login through different ISPs with no luck. My account was targeted, not any particular machine or ISP.
However I was able to login to my friend’s FB account, roommate’s FB account, & my company’s 2 FB accounts on all of the the same devices with no problem.
But my account that demanded that I download & install Trend Micro is the only one where I’ll comment on something political, controversial, Snowden, or the NSA. At no time did I break the rules with something hateful, dirty, rageful, or with porn. I broke no TOS.
It’s sneaky spyware that they install too. You can’t normally uninstall it. It’s not in your program files. It’s buried deep in your username app data files & your registry. It refuses permission for you access to it or to delete it. I booted into Linux to get at the files in the windows partition to delete them. I was also smart enough to create a system restore point before being forced to download & install their Trend Micro spyware to access my FB account. So after removing every trace of their software, I also did a system restore of from before I downloaded it.
So if I did have a virus (but I know I didn’t), it would still be there. I was able to get back on FB with Trend Micro removed. In my Activity section of FB I see Trend Micro completed 96% of a scan to my machine without my knowledge & permission before I disabled & deleted it.
If you use a lot of script blocking, ad blocking, & selectively deny or block some cookies, or use FB heavily, or post controversial & political stuff, you will be targeted for their spyware so they can track you, & inspect your computer. After they collect your personal data, & stuff from your machine, install spyware, they let you back in.
got the message that my account might be hacked 2hours ago on 1 of 3 waterfox profiles . i still can login to FB WITH BOTH OTHERS ; SAME WITH COMETBIRD AND GOOGLE CHROME … this cant be computer related . it just bout the main browser (1st profile) that is used maily . and YES i´m a heavy user ! i wont download their software and will let u know if it happens to the other browsers too or if the main browser will be useable again after some time being offline with it . have a nice day and TY for running this blog
Well, glad to know Im not the only one, I dont post anything objectionable, and thus far it is only happening on my main machine…. I am still logged in by phone, and on my tablet… but nothing about my main computer. Whats really strange is I went so far ‘to uninstall chrome, delete app data, and then when i tried to log on, today I was presented with ESET *yesterday was Kaspersky*… it looks like my only option now is to wait and see when fb decided to let me out of jail…. this whole experience has been very strange, and really irritating. Not to mention the timing is really bad too, as I need the account to communicate with my wife :/
Just had this happen to me…cleared cookies didn’t work. Switching browswers didn’t work. And AMAZINGLY the THREE other computers I used also didn’t help. HMMM sounds fishy to me!
It’s as though Facebook discovered that the cookie-deletion method didn’t work and found a way to circumvent that. Basically it worked up till April 2016; then they found other ways to force this fake scan on us.
I am so stinking frustrated with FB and the amount of time I have wasted trying to get around this anti malware software that they want me to download.
I’ve cleared the cookies, and all of the recommendations. I was presented with McAffee, ESET and Kaspersky just like Jesse Delphin and still I sit in FB jail.
Just wondering if this is actually a wait it out and it will go away thing or is there something I can do to fix this? Going crazy with the amount of time and effort that I have spent on this.
Thanks for any help that you can provide.
Shawn, I reckon (and this is all guesswork based on some experience of using such websites) this is all down to Facebook lying to the public because their servers are stuffed. But if they started taking responsibility and admitted it, their share price would go down. Instead, they force this download on affected users so we stop using the site and waste our time.
Up till April you could clear the cookies, but they blocked that—and the wisdom now seems to be to wait it out. If you’re running your business on Facebook, then I’d set up a new profile and make that your admin account, so you have a back door. Facebook won’t admit to having any databasing issues any time soon, and they’re going to keep forcing this BS on us as its site gets more and more rickety.
Good Morning!
I just wanted to let you know that you were absolutely right when you told me it’s a waiting game. They set me free from FB jail this morning. Five days of pulling my hair out and research….. Thank you for your support and help, you made it more bearable for me!
Enjoy your holidays!
Shawn Picker
Hi Shawn, that is really good news! Looks like the databases get screwed up for five days—thanks for reporting back, as we now have more evidence of this bug, and that it’s nothing to do with malware. More Facebook lies … All the best, and thanks again!
Waiting isn’t working. They’ve been telling me my computer has been hacked for three weeks, since before thanksgiving. My other access methods — phone, tablet, desktop — all have no problems. But they block this computer even from other locations.
Just wait it out… You can still access it from other computers, tablets and phones on the same network, I was locked out for three days and then it came back. No reason at all and it was very annoying but hey, I guess it happens.I was allowed back with zero restrictions and it just seemed very random to me, as I don’t post anything inflammatory.
I wonder if it’s worth running a real malware scan (not Facebook’s) in your case, if you haven’t already. Facebook will never level with us over what the real issue is, so there’s also no predicting what will really work. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I believe its databases are in a terrible state for some users, and that could mean that your account is affected for a longer time. However, I’m not sure why you still have access via other devices—in many of the earlier cases, users were affected on all platforms, but someone else logging in on the same “infected” devices would be fine.