How to remove Check-and-read.com ads

Check-and-read.com is a website that shows scam messages to make people subscribe to push notifications

Check-and-read.com is a malicious website created by unfair individuals to deploy social engineering attacks and take advantage of innocent users. Most people don't take notice of the name of the site until they start seeing strange pop-ups marked as such. They show up at random times and are never triggered by any specific user actions, which means that they might show up when a video streamed or simply favorite websites are being visited.

This activity is rather intrusive and makes many people concerned, as they think that Check-and-read.com ads are related to a virus infection. While the symptoms might be very consistent with those of aggressive adware, it is not the case this time. The issue is caused by push notifications – a browser feature (API)^[1] that runs on the system level.

In order for the site to be able to send these push notifications, users need to accept the offer to do so at some time prior. However, many don't remember asking for any types of notifications, so what's the deal?

How users get tricked

It is important to note that users end up on Check-and-read.com by accident – and that is totally intentional by its creators. Sometimes adware might be the cause of redirects to potentially malicious websites, while, most commonly, the reason is users who decide to visit websites of dubious origins, which are trapped with fake links and malicious redirect scripts.

As soon as they get there, they are presented with a message which may seem a rather ordinary one – to confirm that the visitor is not a robot. The verification methods such as captcha have been used for many years now to prevent DDoS and other bot attacks. This familiarity is something that pushes people to believe that the process is very legitimate, and the only way to do this, in this case apparently, is by pressing the “Allow” button within the notification prompt.

In other cases, people might be asked to do the same to access some type of 18+ content, a video of a popular movie, and such. In all these cases, the message and the shown image correlate with each other so it makes more sense.

Are Check-and-read.com ads dangerous?

Once users click the “Allow” button within the notification prompt, they are usually unaware of what they have done. What they see at the time is that they are redirected to the same or another similar phishing^[2] website, e.g., Remotedata.vip, News-cihumo.cc, or Desktopnotificationsnews.com. In most cases, this is the time when people completely forget about the ordeal and continue on with their daily tasks.

The push notifications can hold any kind of information within them, including links that are sent by the Check-and-read.com site. The problem is that the scam website uses insecure advertising networks for click monetization, which results in users being exposed to all sorts of misleading and even malicious content.

For example, people might be asked to install an alleged security tool because malware has been found on their devices, only to make them install malware on the device. Get-rich-quick schemes are also very popular, where users are asked to invest some amount of money in exchange for a large return within just a few days. In these cases, people soon find out that there is no money to be received and that they have been scammed.

Check-and-read.com pop-ups removal

In most cases, the unwanted push notifications do not show up until much later, and that's precisely why so many users struggle with connecting the two occurrences together. This also means they don't know how to remove them' according to an experiment done by Mozilla a few years ago,^[3] most people do not interact with push notification prompts on websites, with almost 50% actively denying the offer by pressing the “Block” button.

While this could be a good choice of stopping that particular site from showing the push notifications, you need to access browser settings in order to stop already active ones from Check-and-read.com.

Google Chrome

1. Open Google Chrome browser and go to Menu > Settings.
2. Scroll down and click on Advanced.
3. Locate the Privacy and security section and pick Site Settings > Notifications.
4. Look at the Allow section and look for a suspicious URL.
5. Click the three vertical dots next to it and pick Block. This should remove unwanted notifications from Google Chrome.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and go to Menu > Options.
2. Click on Privacy & Security section.
3. Under Permissions, you should be able to see Notifications. Click the Settings button next to it.
4. In the Settings – Notification Permissions window, click on the drop-down menu by the URL in question.
5. Select Block and then click on Save Changes. This should remove unwanted notifications from Mozilla Firefox.

Safari

1. Click on Safari > Preferences…
2. Go to the Websites tab and, under General, select Notifications.
3. Select the web address in question, click the drop-down menu and select Deny.

MS Edge

1. Open Microsoft Edge, and click the Settings and more button (three horizontal dots) at the top-right of the window.
2. Select Settings and then go to Advanced.
3. Under Website permissions, pick Manage permissions and select the URL in question.
4. Toggle the switch to the left to turn notifications off on Microsoft Edge.

MS Edge (Chromium)

1. Open Microsoft Edge, and go to Settings.
2. Select Site permissions.
3. Go to Notifications on the right.
4. Under Allow, you will find the unwanted entry.
5. Click on More actions and select Block.

Internet Explorer

1. Open Internet Explorer, and click on the Gear icon at the top-right of the window.
2. Select Internet options and go to the Privacy tab.
3. In the Pop-up Blocker section, click on Settings.
4. Locate web address in question under Allowed sites and pick Remove.

Additional checks to make

After you eliminate the push notifications, we strongly advise you to check your system for adware – a type of potentially unwanted software that arrives on users' machines without asking for direct permission in most cases. Due to its deceptive distribution practices, many people might not even realize they have it installed on their systems.

Likewise, malware can also cause redirects to malicious websites such as Check-and-read.com, although in this case, you are likely to encounter some other symptoms. More stealthy malware is even more prevalent also – it runs no active windows, is not shown within the installed app section, and disguises itself under legitimate process names.

Therefore, we recommend performing a full system scan with SpyHunterCombo Cleaner, MalwarebytesMalwarebytes, or another powerful anti-malware software. If something is found, we also advise cleaning the system and browser caches with FortectIntego. If you prefer doing this manually, we provide manual instructions below.