Many users are currently seeing a popup on their smartphone that only appears to come from Facebook.

This is what it looks like:

Screenshot: mimikama.org
Screenshot: mimikama.org

“Dear user, to celebrate Facebook's 14th birthday, we are hosting a reward for you to receive valuable gifts.
Pick the scratches and try your luck.”

Even if it looks like you are still on Facebook, you should be careful: these pop-ups lure you into data collection traps or want to install malicious software.

The trigger is often advertising banners

These pop-ups not only appear when you are on Facebook, but also often on reputable websites (even sometimes on mimikama.org, as users reported to us).

Even reputable website operators have no influence over which advertising banners are displayed on their own site! They only provide advertising space, but the content depends on the provider and the surfing behavior of the users.

How to prevent these pop-ups?

Facebook uses its own browser for websites, a so-called “InApp browser”. However, you can deactivate this so that you no longer see external links within the Facebook app, but in the smartphone's standard browser.

  1. To do this, open the Facebook app on your smartphone.
  2. Access the app's settings via the three-bar icon in the top menu bar.
  3. Scroll down to “Settings and Privacy”…
  4. ..and here directly below to the “Settings”
  5. If you now tap on “Media and Contacts” you will find…
  6. ...here the option “Links are opened externally” is available.
  7. Activate the option to be able to open external links via the Facebook app as usual with your favorite Android browser.

You can find illustrated instructions for this

You should also follow the following steps:

  1. To be on the safe side, you should generally have so-called value-added services blocked by your cell phone provider, because you can never be sure that such advertising banners/apps will not become active in the background.
  2. also strongly recommend a third-party block .
  3. Deletes the “history” and “saved website content” as well as the “cookies” directly in the browser.
  4. Consider an antivirus app.
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )