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iPhone 7/Plus "39 viruses found" message can't be removed-how do I solve this?

jmm55

jmm55

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 20, 2018
74
14
I often scan news when I just wake up in the morning, so I am not as cautious about what I'm pushing. It seems that the other morning I must have pushed something that caused a window to open on Firefox that says 39 viruses found on your iphone, and I can't get rid of it. I did not push the button that says OK. I cannot use Firefox at the moment because I can't get past this message, but nothing else on the phone seems to be wrong at this point.

I've found a few different webpages discussing the problem, including this one: https://howtoremove.guide/39-viruses-were-found-iphone-remove/

... but I thought I should check with the fine folks at Macrumors, to see if there are any other ideas or better approaches. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
jmm55 said:
I often scan news when I just wake up in the morning, so I am not as cautious about what I'm pushing. It seems that the other morning I must have pushed something that caused a window to open on Firefox that says 39 viruses found on your iphone, and I can't get rid of it. I did not push the button that says OK. I cannot use Firefox at the moment because I can't get past this message, but nothing else on the phone seems to be wrong at this point.

I've found a few different webpages discussing the problem, including this one: https://howtoremove.guide/39-viruses-were-found-iphone-remove/

... but I thought I should check with the fine folks at Macrumors, to see if there are any other ideas or better approaches. Any advice would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click OK and close the page.
 
It's just a phishing pop up. Nothing had happened yet or had been scanned.
Fake ads embedded into legitimate websites can trigger these. When you see one:

Quit the browser
Go into settings and delete all history and cookies
Restart the phone (probably not necessary)
Don't visit that page again.

Any time you get a pop up message that's threatening or warning or demanding you do something- it's bogus.

Don't click on either the OK button or Cancel button - just quit the browser and clear the data in settings.
 
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Great! I was worried that I could lose my pictures and data (I'm not that smart phone savvy). Thanks for all the replies. I don't have the phone in front of me but I'll do as instructed shortly and report back :)
 
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jmm55 said:
Great! I was worried that I could lose my pictures and data (I'm not that smart phone savvy). Thanks for all the replies. I don't have the phone in front of me but I'll do as instructed shortly and report back :)
Click to expand...

It's just scare tactics. Whilst malicious software can happen, no virus has ever hit iOS to my knowledge. Plus, corrupting your "Apple SIM" is such a bogus thing to say.
 
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now i see it said:
It's just a phishing pop up. Nothing had happened yet or had been scanned.
Fake ads embedded into legitimate websites can trigger these. When you see one:

Quit the browser
Go into settings and delete all history and cookies
Restart the phone (probably not necessary)
Don't visit that page again.

Any time you get a pop up message that's threatening or warning or demanding you do something- it's bogus.

Don't click on either the OK button or Cancel button - just quit the browser and clear the data in settings.
Click to expand...

Do what the above said and you’ll be good. To block all future phishings and ads, download Adguard from the App Store and use it.
 
now i see it said:
It's just a phishing pop up. Nothing had happened yet or had been scanned.
Fake ads embedded into legitimate websites can trigger these. When you see one:

Quit the browser
Go into settings and delete all history and cookies
Restart the phone (probably not necessary)
Don't visit that page again.

Any time you get a pop up message that's threatening or warning or demanding you do something- it's bogus.

Don't click on either the OK button or Cancel button - just quit the browser and clear the data in settings.
Click to expand...

When I go into my Settings, I see a long list things like Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc., but I don't see a tab for history or cookies, or any tab that might lead to same. What am I doing wrong?

Update: Tried googling it, and the only thing I found about finding a button to Clear history and cookies was to look under Safari tab, where I did find a button to clear history and website data. I did this, and restarted the phone, but still get the warning on Firefox.
 
Last edited:
jmm55 said:
Update: Tried googling it, and the only thing I found about finding a button to Clear history and cookies was to look under Safari tab, where I did find a button to clear history and website data. I did this, and restarted the phone, but still get the warning on Firefox.
Click to expand...

I think most people on here, myself included, only really have experience with Safari on iOS. All browsers on iOS use the Safari rendering engine anyway, so unless it's for a feature like bookmark syncing with your desktop, there's not much reason to use anything else; Anyways, point being that it may act differently being that it is a different browser than we're all used to working with; First off, check in Settings under Firefox; The other posters on here may have known more about Firefox for iOS than me and referred to one of its settings inside Settings.
Otherwise, maybe just delete ande reinstall Firefox via the App Store.
 
Thanks for the reply casperes1996. Before reading it I called Apple and spoke to a tech. I'm not a fan of big tech companies in general, but I still appreciate companies that actually have live human beings for customer service. In any event, we tried a few things, and after having no luck, the tech had me delete the Firefox app and reinstall. This worked. I'll be more cautious the next time something pops up. Still appreciate all the replies. Thank goodness for forums, where experienced users are willing to help out those with less experience.
 
For others that might find this thread, for iOS Firefox, as of this writing:
  • Bring up Firefox
  • Tap three bars at lower right of screen
  • Settings > Data Management
  • Toggle on what you want to clear, then tap "Clear Private Data"
  • On same screen, Tap Website Data, then "Clear All Website Data"
And as others have mentioned, install an ad blocker, and stay away from sketchy sites.
 
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Just to be clear, the three bars could not be activated when the message was showing, and neither could the refresh or back button, but for any other situation I trust the advice.
 
My bad. Yes, you are correct.

Something else to try if it happens again. Settings > Firefox > Skip Session Restore. Turn that on. I was able to sorta mimic the situation by generating a Javascript alert, swipe away/quit Firefox, toggle on, restart, all gone.
 
I have seen something similar and my reaction is not to click the OK or the X- which might activate something, but straight away switch off the machine and reboot which gets rid of these scams.
 
You could also probably restart the device or close the app from multitasking, turn on Airplane mode, and then reopen the app and close the malicious website while offline so it can't load.
 
Please use an Ad blocker like Purify or AdGuard. Make sure you enable it in Safari settings under Content Blockers.
 
Last edited:
casperes1996 said:
I think most people on here, myself included, only really have experience with Safari on iOS. All browsers on iOS use the Safari rendering engine anyway, so unless it's for a feature like bookmark syncing with your desktop, there's not much reason to use anything else
Click to expand...

I'd suggest you actually try a browser like iCab, which offers a desktop-class experience, and an almost dizzying array of customization options and things like built-in ad blocking and gesture control.

There are plenty of reasons to use something aside from Safari, on both desktop and iOS.
 
TheIntruder said:
I'd suggest you actually try a browser like iCab, which offers a desktop-class experience, and an almost dizzying array of customization options and things like built-in ad blocking and gesture control.
Click to expand...

I genuinely really like Safari. On my phone I don't really need much from a browser, my iPad runs iPadOS 13, and Safari is actually really quite nice on it, and on macOS I like how little resources Safari use while still giving quite a feature rich experience.

TheIntruder said:
There are plenty of reasons to use something aside from Safari, on both desktop and iOS.
Click to expand...

But sure, yes there are a plethora of reasons. But less on iOS than on the desktop, since the backend is always Safari. You only change the View Controller layer, not the browser model
[doublepost=1567867547][/doublepost]
jmm55 said:
Thanks for the reply casperes1996. Before reading it I called Apple and spoke to a tech. I'm not a fan of big tech companies in general, but I still appreciate companies that actually have live human beings for customer service. In any event, we tried a few things, and after having no luck, the tech had me delete the Firefox app and reinstall. This worked. I'll be more cautious the next time something pops up. Still appreciate all the replies. Thank goodness for forums, where experienced users are willing to help out those with less experience.
Click to expand...


You're welcome. happy you got it sorted.

Sadly my experiences with Apple Support haven't been very good. I'm not in the US, and there's no Apple Store here (Denmark), only AASP. You can't email Apple, you can't text them, only call. I'm not a big fan of phone calls. I like to have the time to formulate proper sentences from my thoughts when I'm dealing with formal situations like support. And when I have called, even though it's somewhat nice they have Danes answering the phones to make it somewhat local, more often than not the answer ends up being "I don't know, hope you figure something out, or you could pay someone to work on it"
 
jmm55 said:
I often scan news when I just wake up in the morning, so I am not as cautious about what I'm pushing. It seems that the other morning I must have pushed something that caused a window to open on Firefox that says 39 viruses found on your iphone, and I can't get rid of it. I did not push the button that says OK. I cannot use Firefox at the moment because I can't get past this message, but nothing else on the phone seems to be wrong at this point.

I've found a few different webpages discussing the problem, including this one: https://howtoremove.guide/39-viruses-were-found-iphone-remove/

... but I thought I should check with the fine folks at Macrumors, to see if there are any other ideas or better approaches. Any advice would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
bruh this happend to me too. when i was on google i saw an message ('the message was *WARNING THERES 39 VIRUSES ON YOUR PHONE (CLICK THIS TO REPAIR NOW) and also the message was diffirent because i was on android it happend at probably 9:39 AND I WAS SO PARANOID THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS REAL AND SEARCH HOW MUCH TO REPAIR MY PHONE WITH 39 VIRUSES
 
Yeah, as others have said this is just a common scare tactic used by malicious code on websites. It really is just a warning message popup. They hope that you'll click whatever link they put and then download whatever spyware/ransomware they are trying to push. Sometimes they just want to con you into paying a fee for a fake "virus clean."


Also, as others have said use Safari and a "content blocker" app. On iOS, there really is little benefit (other than the look of the browser) to using Firefox. All iOS browsers use the safari engine in the background to render pages, but lose many of the protections and integrations native Safari has.

On Android, I'd say absolutely Firefox is one of the best.
 
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