Modern advertising viruses spread on the Internet at an incredible speed, almost every day in their family is added. One of these threats is the SnapDo adware virus. What kind of misfortune, and how to get rid of it, then we'll see. I would like to warn all users in advance that the actions performed are quite simple, and the virus itself belongs to the Adware and Hijacker classes and acts exclusively on web browsers installed on the computer.
SnapDo: what is it?
As already clear, this applet is a virus, but not in the usual sense, since it practically does not affect the operating system (except that sometimes it causes an increase in the load on system resources). Otherwise, it is a standard threat that fills browsers with advertising or redirects users to sites of dubious content. But if everything was so simple. Alas!
How does a virus penetrate a computer and affect a system?
Advertising is not limited to advertising alone. The virus usually replaces the default search engine used by browsers, replacing it with its own module and searching through the search.snapdo.com resource. But the result of setting search queries through an appeal to this false search engine, if you do not notice and remove the threat in time, often becomes the collection of information about your actions, which can be sold or transferred to the disposal of third parties. The first sign of the appearance of this virus is a change in the search engine and start page in web browsers, moreover, in all that are in the system. The virus does not make a difference between them. Incidentally, it differs from many similar applets in that the extensions in the form of ad blockers against it in most cases turn out to be powerless.
What is most sad, banners can appear even on those sites where, you are sure, they should not be. Finally, quite often it is noted that it is impossible to change browser settings. At the same time, if you do not get rid of the malware, no resetting your browsers will help.
As for the penetration of this threat onto user computers, often users themselves are to blame for this, downloading files from the same torrent trackers that are most susceptible to virus infection, or using dubious sources to download hacked or pirated copies of programs.
There are two options: either downloaded distributions or individual files are already infected, or the virus is installed in the system under the guise of affiliate software (the same search engine), which is simply ignored by many users during the installation of applications.
How to remove SnapDo using special utilities?
Now we proceed directly to neutralizing the threat. How to remove SnapDo? To do this, you need to use special utilities designed specifically to detect and neutralize this type of threat. Regular antiviruses (especially free ones), unfortunately, may not respond to this virus, because it is often provided with a certificate of authenticity or has the attribute of trusted software.
In such a situation, if you have tools like AdwCleaner or Anti-Malware at hand, it is better to use them. It may well be that the threat will be found and neutralized.
But how to remove SnapDo, if the use of such utilities did not work? You have to deal with the neutralization of threats in manual mode.
Manual removal: preliminary steps
And first of all, if you know at least approximately the time when the first symptoms of infection appeared, you should look at the recently installed applications in the “Control panels” section, where the installation and removal of programs are carried out in the standard way.
But sorting should be done according to the installation date. It may well be that just uninstalling infected applications (especially suspicious applets that you yourself didn’t install exactly) will allow you to get rid of this virus.
However, after this it is advisable to clean up the residual “tails” in the system registry and in any file manager by searching for elements of remote programs by the name of the main application. But such a method, as you know, is quite inconvenient.
And how to remove SnapDo entirely? In this situation, it is better to give preference to special uninstallation utilities. As one of the most powerful packages you can recommend iObit Uninstaller. In this program, not only the main components of the selected programs are deleted, but also all residual elements (files, folders, and registry entries), moreover, completely automatically.
Note: sometimes it may be necessary to remove suspicious panels or browser extensions.
Web Browser Settings
Finally, we got to the main goal - browser settings, which are exposed to this threat.
And here, as it turns out, really only a complete reset helps. But it should not be performed immediately. First you need to call the properties section of the executable file of the browser or its shortcut, and then in the field indicating the path to the file, delete everything that is after the file name with the extension.
Note: Please note that for some browsers, the startup executable may have a name that is not associated with the original name. For example, for "Opera" it is Launcher.exe.
A few words in the end
As you can see, despite the apparent difficulties, getting rid of the SnapDo virus is quite simple. For the future, in order to protect yourself from the penetration of such threats into the system, pay attention to at least proposals for installing additional software products during the installation of the main application, on which, as a rule, the checkboxes are set immediately. Finally, do not use programs like SpyHunter to neutralize virus threats, since getting rid of them can be even more difficult than finding the virus applets they found (which, by the way, are not removed without paying a license).