Without the Internet, the life of a modern person is impossible to imagine. However, it is fraught with many dangers associated with the penetration of various virus applets on user computers or mobile devices. Some of them can steal personal data or confidential information, others harm the operating system or encrypt user files, requiring considerable sums of money to be decrypted, others flood browsers used in the process of surfing the Internet by advertising or spontaneously redirect users to advertising sites or virus-containing resources. Next, we dwell on the appearance of advertising in the browser. Not everyone knows how to remove a virus of such an action (Malware, Adware, Hijackers), therefore a short practical guide is given below, which in most cases will allow you to quickly and completely get rid of all known threats of this nature.
Adware viruses: what is it and how do they work?
To begin with, it is worth saying a few words about the viruses themselves, which open browsers with advertising. Conventionally, they can be divided into several main categories. The first can be attributed only to those that are launched exclusively during the work of browsers. Most often, such threats in the system can be found either in the form of separately installed applications that are completely masked from the user's eyes, or in the form of additional extensions that are integrated into browsers.
The second group includes viruses that once entered the system through gaps in browsers or through the fault of the user who ignored the antivirus warnings and entered a potentially dangerous page, and infested the entire system with ads, regardless of whether the browser program was active in this moment or not. At the same time, pop-up messages and notifications appear on the "Desktop" or in the system tray, since such applets only require an active Internet connection.
In addition, many threats of this type replace the default search engines and start pages that open when browsers start. Sometimes the load on system resources or traffic consumption may increase. Thus, as soon as you, God forbid, notice the first symptoms of such behavior of your own system, immediately proceed to eliminate the threats! But how to remove the ad virus in the browser? For starters, the best solution would be to use specialized portable antivirus programs. In no case do not rely on regular antiviruses, as they have already missed the threats!
Cleaning the computer with Dr. Web cureit
This scanner is considered one of the most powerful tools for recognizing, neutralizing or removing most known threats, including viruses of an advertising nature. If an advertisement pops up in your browser, the virus may not be known to the portable scanner, therefore it is strongly recommended that you run an anti-virus database update immediately after starting the application.
You can not change the default settings. Then simply run the scan and select the action to be taken when a threat is detected. Alas, in practice, everything is not so perfect. The problem is that the scanner defines some programs as potentially dangerous or unwanted software (in particular, it is about iObit software products), after which it removes them or “cures” them. But disabling such actions in the antivirus itself is impossible.
AdwCleaner Program
Now let's see how to remove the ad virus in the browser using the AdwCleaner program. It is believed that this utility, so to speak, is “imprisoned” just for all kinds of advertising applets.
In most cases, if the virus has not penetrated the system too deeply, the application finds all known threats and removes them either automatically or after your confirmation. But you cannot rely solely on the capabilities of this applet.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware Antivirus Scanner
If you understand how to remove a virus advertisement in a browser using another related application from the same developer, then the field of activity is much wider. The only difference is that this package is shareware and sometimes it detects threats, but for some reason, even in the trial version, it does not want to completely delete it.
However, the information obtained using this program can be useful when performing manual removal of virus objects, which will be discussed separately.
HitmanPro App
Now we’ll see how to remove the virus that opens ads in the browser using another shareware, the trial period of which is thirty days.
In general, this term may not be respected, and when you start the application, immediately note the item stating that you will use the program only once. After that, the scan will start automatically. The result will not be long in coming, as many experts call this applet one of the most effective in the fight against advertising threats.
Warning: Never use the widely advertised SpyHunter package. Firstly, although he finds viruses, he doesn’t do anything with them without the obligatory acquisition of a license (which, incidentally, is very expensive). Secondly, getting rid of the software package itself without the necessary skills will not work out manually (even if you try to delete it from the system in safe mode).
How to detect the activity of the viral process?
Now let's assume that the above anti-virus programs did not give the desired result or at the right time you did not have them at hand. How to remove the ad virus in the browser in this situation? You can do this, but you have to sweat, as they say. First you need to identify the activity of the viral process.
To do this, you can use the most common "Task Manager", sort all active processes either by the load on the CPU, or by the consumption of RAM, or by the settings for using a network or Internet connection. If you see some unfamiliar (and not a system) service, through RMB, select the transition point to the file location to locate virus objects on the hard drive.
Also look at the name of the user under whose name it is running (usually it will not be “SYSTEM”, LOCAL SERVICE or NETWORK SERVICE, namely the user account) in the details section. This will come in handy in the future.
Now call the section of programs and components from the “Control Panel”, sort the applications by the installation date and look at those applets that have been installed in recent days. If you see an unfamiliar application in the list or you know for sure that it was not installed (it may even have some abstract name or contain meaningless character sets in the name), you will have to get rid of this program yourself.
An advertisement pops up in a browser: how to remove a virus manually?
From the open list, try to remove the selected suspicious applet using the standard method for this, using the delete / change button located at the top.
If the program is uninstalled, go to the registry editor (regedit), call the search toolkit (Ctrl + F), enter the name of the remote application and press the enter key or the "Find Next" button. Get rid of all found entries (keys and partitions) by moving from one to another by calling up the search again by pressing the above buttons. When the system reports that there are no more matches, close the editor.
Now open Explorer and browse to the location of the files that was previously determined. Delete all files, subdirectories and root directories (if this is, of course, possible).
In addition, for the most complete cleaning of the browser from advertising and viruses, look in the startup section, where you need to uncheck the suspicious objects and services that start with the operating system. In the OS of the seventh version and below, this section is in the configuration (msconfig), and in the eighth and tenth modifications it is taken directly to the "Task Manager" (taskmgr).
How to clean the browser from viruses and ads?
In the next step, launch the browser used to work on the Internet and go to the section for viewing the installed add-ons (extensions). If you find something suspicious, either disable the plugin or completely remove it. Now, in the settings of the start page parameters, set the default one to start as empty, and also change the search system (if it has been modified by a virus), and then exit the browser.
Checking browser shortcuts
Finally, it should be borne in mind that virus advertising in the Yandex browser or in any other browser when the browser is infected can independently generate special links that go to an advertising or potentially dangerous resource immediately when the main program starts.
If a shortcut is created for the browser on the “Desktop”, through the RMB menu, go to the properties item and look at the object type field.
After the name of the executable file for starting the browser with the .exe extension, there should be nothing more! For the Opera browser, the start file is called Launcher.exe. If there is anything else in the field, delete all postscripts, save the changes, and only then close all active programs and restart the computer system completely.
Note: if you have several different browsers installed, including IE or Edge applications built into Windows, similar operations are performed for each of them.
What to do if virus files are not deleted?
If, for some reason, certain actions, most often related to the inability to delete virus applet files from the disk, cannot be performed, try to get rid of the registry keys before uninstalling the programs, and only then use the usual removal in the programs and components section with subsequent cleaning files on your hard drive.
If this does not help, use the Unlocker utility. After installation, its main command will appear in the right-click menu of Explorer. On the selected file, through the PCM, call the utility, and from the action menu select delete object. If this proves impossible, open the tree of processes that are currently using the file, terminate all of them and try again.
If nothing helps at all, download the Kaspersky Recue Disk antivirus image from the official resource, create bootable media on it, start from it instead of loading the OS, check all items for verification, set the most deep scan in the options and wait for the search and neutralization processes to finish threats. It is believed that this particular software product is the most powerful and most effective of all known, because it allows you to track even those viruses that are firmly established in RAM.
Using uninstallers
Finally, it’s worth separately saying a few words about how to remove a virus-advertisement in a browser using uninstaller applications like iObit Uninstaller. First of all, find the dubious applet in the sorted list of applications, then click the delete button and do not forget to check the box for automatically searching and deleting residual files.
Upon completion of the process, go to the section of extensions and browser panels and perform similar actions with the plugins. After that, again check the browser shortcut, make corrections if necessary, and restart the computer. The advantage of such tools is that they ignore restrictions on deleting files and folders, and also delete absolutely all registry entries on their own, which saves you from having to perform such complex actions manually. But the shortcuts of all available browsers will have to clean yourself.