Do you think which IT corporation in our country has gross income comparable to the budget of a small state? Someone will immediately remember about Vkontakte (which is not far from the truth), someone will come to mind Odnoklassniki or Yandex. All this is so.
But there is another venerable player in this field. This is Mail.ru Group. Yes, yes, the creators of one of the first Russian postal services, the My World social network, and one terabyte of free and forever clouds.
Unfortunately, more advanced users associate the products of the corporation with something else ... More precisely, with the disgusting distribution model, when almost every free program, browser plugin or codec has an installation kit for some Guard.
So how to remove Mail.ru from the computer? No, the services of this domestic company have recently become much better (thereâs only an updated version of the mailer!), But itâs better to never see a number of their products on your PC.
Why such an attitude?
Firstly, we already wrote that the distribution model of these applications, which is too much like a fraudulent scheme, provokes fierce hostility. So, even the domestic (!) Dr.Web antivirus, their installation kits are recognized as adware, which is already suggestive.
In addition, the computer community still has fresh memories of the recent Trojan epidemic that used original digital signatures from Mail.ru. Even if this data went âto the leftâ (as the official press service said), the impressions were very bad ...
In a word, before you delete Mail.ru from your computer, you do not need to think about the possible benefits of this software for a long time. She is simply not there.
The most unnecessary programs
We have already said that some of the software services from Mail.ru are quite good, but there are also a bunch of not so pleasant exceptions.
The first of them is a small messenger, which at one time pretty well pressed even âICQâ on the Internet. Today, the Russian branch of ICQ has already been âsoldâ to Mail.ru Group, so the need for an âAgentâ has completely disappeared.
To be honest, at one time it was a very good utility, but over time they began to notice quite unpleasant "habits" behind it. So, repeatedly appeared information about hacking mail accounts, users of which had this analogue "ICQ" on the computer. Most likely, it was a lack of effectiveness of protection against external influences.
So how to remove "Agent Mail.ru"? To do this is not too difficult, but you must be as careful as possible.
Main way
We click on the "Start" button, we are looking for the item "Control Panel" in the menu that opens. If you have Windows 8 / 8.1, for this you need to simultaneously hold down the Windows key (with the drawn window logo) and i (regardless of the layout language).
Going to the âPanelâ, left-click on the option âPrograms and componentsâ. A dialog box opens in the form of a list of all the utilities installed on the computer. Before removing âMail.ru Agentâ, look for it in this list and select it with the left mouse button.
At the top of the dialog box there is a âDeleteâ button. Click on it (the button appears only after highlighting the program you need!), After which the standard uninstall wizard starts. Go through all its points, click on "Finish". Think you can relax? No matter how! Before you remove the Mail.ru virus permanently, you will have to perform some more necessary steps.
The âdiligentâ programmers from Mail.ru were not at all eager to make their lives easier. After the "Agent", a bunch of junk remains on the hard drive, which is not at all harmless: forgetting about the remote program, after a while you may well find a socket from the well-known and more than once mentioned company in any of our browsers. How to be
We clean the leftovers
Since it is not so easy to remove Mail.ru from a computer, you have to search the hard drive yourself.
Again, click on the "Start" button. In the "Run" field, enter the command "MSConfig" (without quotes). Press "Enter". If you are the proud owner of Windows 8 / 8.1, you need to hold down the key combination âWin ââ+ Râ. However, users of OS 7 / Vista / XP can do the same. The Run box will appear.
After pressing âEnterâ, you will see the âSystem Configurationâ dialog box. We are interested in two tabs: âStartupâ and âServicesâ. We look in the lists for everything related to Mail.ru, unchecking the boxes. Click on "OK", after which a window pops up with a reboot offer. We press "Reboot", after which we continue to clean out the remnants of the "infection". Especially maliciously "kill" Mail.ru updater. How to delete the remaining files? After all, often they are typed under a hundred or two megabytes!
We follow the path âC: \ Program Files \ Mail.ruâ, deleting the folder to this address completely. If a window pops up warning that such an operation requires administrator rights, just click "OK".
But how to remove Mail.ru from the computer if not only the âAgentâ has settled on your hard drive? Let's try to figure it out.
Guard
The second (extremely useless and intrusive) program from the Must Die list is the Guard utility. The name can be interpreted as âProtectionâ, but what this bastion protects from is not entirely clear. It can warn about changes in browser settings (but itâs great for setting up Mail.ru toolbars), connection settings, and more. But! If there is some kind of virus behind all this, then âDefenderâ is completely useless.
"Dark side"
Until recently, it was possible to observe a completely wild picture. When installing, this same "Defender" was very elegantly and cunningly registered in the same IE9-10. Perhaps you didnât know, but when you enter a search query directly from the address bar of Microsoft browsers from Microsoft, the content will be searched through their search engine (Bing).
What do you think Guard is doing? He not only translates the search engine into "Mail.ru Search"! Even if you make default settings by selecting âBingâ as a search engine, even if the Bing icon is displayed in the
address bar , the search will still go through the âmailâ service. Not bad, huh?
All the other software products of this wonderful company do approximately the same thing. By the way, sometimes an even more aggressive policy is observed: toolbars from Mail simply cut Yandex services.
But how to remove Mail.ru from the computer?
We remove the "protection"
We again go to the "System Configuration". We already wrote about its launch, so we simply will not repeat it. In "Startup" and "Services" again we remove all entries in which the name Guard appears in one way or another.
Before you remove Guard Mail.ru permanently, we reboot the computer. After that, we repeat the âStart / Control Panel / Programs and Componentsâ manipulation described above, removing the hateful âDefenderâ. We erase the Mail.ru folder from the hard drive.
Why such difficulties? We have already said that it is still impossible to remove products from a domestic corporation in a good way: they leave a lot of garbage in the system, which often lives an independent life.
A bit about the "satellites"
And one more unpleasant and useless utility. Now we will talk about how to remove "Sputnik Mail.ru". By the way, what is it?
Honestly, this question is difficult to answer. Even on the official page of this âwonderfulâ service there are no clear explanations. It is assumed that he "will make traveling on the Internet more convenient and safer." As a result of its installation, you again get problems accessing your favorite sites, tons of advertising in your inbox, and also a search from Mail.ru. What is security here? These things are known only to developers ...
Fortunately, the removal procedure is no different from all the methods described above. Do not forget to delete the âMail.ruâ folder and clean up the leftovers from âStartupâ!
Talk about browsers ...
All of the above would not have been so noticeable if these programs had not so clearly shown themselves in browsers. A lot of installed panels, blocking of sites that are âobjectionableâ to advertising companies and theft of passwords: this is not a complete list of all the âjoysâ that you may well experience after installing some âDefenderâ.
Google chrome
Recently, this browser could boast of incredible asceticism of settings, among which there was no place for any "left" panels and add-ons. Alas, those days have passed irrevocably. And so many novice users dream of removing Mail.ru from Google Chrome. Just how to do it, they have no idea.
As a rule, the following services are registered in the browser: search, start page and panel (toolbar). All of them do not carry any functional load, with the exception of spying on the user and delivering him a ton of advertising to the mailbox.
Most often we are talking about an intrusive start page, which you will definitely not be able to change using regular means. So, we enter the following command into the address bar: "chrome: // settings / startup" (without quotes). A dialog box will pop up in which you can set the page that you really need.
Doesn't help, does the Mail.ru portal still pop up when loading? Most likely, in your system there is (or was not completely removed) some product from this office. Tips for removing it are given above.
But browsers have their own subtleties. So, âChromeâ has been expanding relatively recently. Let's go to them by clicking the icon with three dashes in the upper right corner. The control panel will open, in which you need to find the item "Tools-Extensions". You will be able to remove Mail.ru from Google Chrome after you find something like âSatelliteâ in the list of extensions. Having found, mark it with the left mouse button, and then click on the button, made in the form of a trash can. All! There is no more trash left in Chrome.
Firefox
Once upon a time, when the computers of most of the users had unforgettable IE6, this glorious descendant of the legendary Netscape Navigator was already starting to win the hearts of users. Fast, intuitive and simple, he was a whole head superior to his competitor.
Unfortunately, you always have to pay for popularity. This time, such a payment was that manufacturers of various kinds of malware noticed the browser. Therefore, many users today complain that it does not work to remove Mail.ru from Firefox.
To complete this work, we will follow the path already described above, focusing on the features of this particular Internet browser. Like last time, let's start by restoring the normal start page.
So, for this we need to click on the button of the main control window, which is located in the upper left corner of the open browser. We will follow this path: "Settings-General". In the tab that opens, there is an item "Home Page" and a button "Restore to Default". So you can delete the start page of Mail.ru.
Click it, click on the âOKâ button, enjoy the clean internet. We deal with âusefulâ add-ons like âSputnikâ in much the same way as in the previous case.
Again, click on the "Firefox" button in the upper left corner, click on the "Add-ons" button. In the list of all installed plugins we look for the âmalwareâ we need, then select it with the left mouse button and click on the âDeleteâ button. After restarting, the browser will be clean. Here's How To Remove Mail.ru From Firefox!
Amigo is not our friend, but the Internet is not the Internet!
Immediately after the release of Chromium from Google, which turned out to be quite good, there were a lot of fakes based on it. Browsers rushed to release decisively everyone who was somehow connected with the IT industry. Naturally, all the "beloved" domestic company could not stay away.
But only in contrast to the domestic Yandex, the browser of which is gradually becoming really good, the Mail released two products: Amigo and Internet! They have a lot in common, but the main distinguishing feature is a keen interest in user data, wretched services with spy inclinations, as well as the introduction of their search engine, which can never find anything really useful to anyone. Therefore, the question immediately arises for users about how to remove the Mail.ru browser .
Well, the first method is simple and painfully familiar to everyone. We click on the "Start" button, go to the "Control Panel", in it we find the item "Programs and Features". We find your miracle browser in the list that opens, click on it with the left mouse button, click on the âDeleteâ button at the top of the window.
The uninstallation wizard will open, which will âdeleteâ all unnecessary from your computer. It is no coincidence that we wrote âdeleteâ in quotation marks: the program will only remove its main files, leaving a lot of garbage in the registry, and in normal browsers - toolbars and its search engine.
Have to clean the registry. You can use something like CCleaner for this, but it does not give a 100% guarantee. Better to do otherwise. In the line âRunâ (how to find it, read above), the command âRegeditâ is entered. A
registry editor window will open
. Press the key combination âCtrl + Fâ, after which a small search dialog box appears. Enter the name Mail.ru already hated by the line, click "Find Next".
A window with the search results will open, in which you need to delete all the keys containing the mail to Mail. The process can be long, since the programs of this manufacturer have an extremely bad habit of pretty messing up the registry. Before you delete the Mail.ru browser, do not forget about turning off all services and processes at startup.
Visual bookmarks
This problem is not so rare. By the way, what kind of bookmarks are these? What are they needed for?
The idea itself is not so bad: visual bookmarks make it possible not only to add the tabs you need to the start page, but also allow you to apply some interesting topics, use interactive tickers with currency exchange rates, traffic information, etc. .
As you might have guessed, the implementation spoils everything ... So, users want to remove the visual bookmarks of Mail.ru because of the same imposition of dubious services, an inadequate search engine and tons of advertising.
Oddly enough, but they are removed easier than other "useful" applications from the domestic search engine. So, in Google Chrome for this you need to go to the main menu (we wrote about this above), find the âExtension Toolsâ, select âBookmarksâ with the left mouse button and delete it by clicking on the trash can icon. Using the same âFirefox Add-on Buttonâ algorithm, you can eradicate them from âFirefoxâ.
Browser Panels
We have repeatedly mentioned the toolbars, but have not yet told you how to remove them. Even the greenest newcomer can cope with them.
So how to remove the Mail.ru panel? If we are talking about Mozilla Firefox, then the problem is sometimes solved after right-clicking on the toolbar. A menu appears through which a boring menu is quickly and easily removed. After that, do not forget to go to the add-ons control panel (using the method described above) and remove all the "Satellites" and other tinsel from there.
In Google Chrome, everything is done through the same âExtension Toolsâ. Find the corresponding item there, and then delete.
Account
So we got to the root of the problem. If you have an account in My World or Agent (even if you deleted it), do not avoid spam in the mailbox and other unpleasant consequences. To avoid all this, you need to think about how to delete your Mail.ru account. To make it quite real.
Weâll deal with My World first. Once again: the idea itself (this time the social network) was again not bad, and with proper administration it could well compete with the same âContactâ. In any case, back in 2009-2010 there were many users there.
But wise leadership turned the project into a reserve for spam bots, aggressive personalities and other marginalized people. To remove all traces of your stay on the pages of this social network, you must first go to your page in the "World".
Left-click on the âmoreâ link, look for the âSettingsâ item there. Scrolling down the entire sheet of the menu, we find the inconspicuous button "Delete My World". Advice! Not too trusting the decency of a company that promises the complete destruction of your data, before you delete the Mail.ru page, change all your data from the profile.
After that, you can click on the treasured button, accept the warning about the liquidation of all your information (we sincerely hope for the veracity of this), after which we wait a couple of days. All! Bored service is deleted.
By the way, we are very skeptical of the statement about the complete destruction of data also because the page (with all settings and friends) can be restored at least a year after its âdeletionâ.
Say goodbye to your inbox
The final stage of our epic should be the complete destruction of the mailbox on the "Mail". This can be done if only because a person has not yet come up with a more effective magnet for attracting an incredible amount of spam.
First you need to go to the site. Fortunately, this will be the last time. Enter your username and password from the box, get into it. At the very bottom of the page is hidden an inconspicuous Help button, which you should click on.
A question and answer page opens, in which you need to find the topic "How to delete a mailbox?". In response to the question there is a link âSpecial interfaceâ. Feel free to click on it.
After that, you will be immediately transferred to the deletion page. Carefully read all the terms of the agreement: according to it, you also consent to the liquidation of all your blogs, photos and some entries that you created over the entire time you use this service. To remove Mail.ru from the computer in this case, enter your password from the mailbox in the appropriate field and click on the "Delete" button.
For sim, we finish our story about the fight against harmful and unnecessary programs on your computer. Finally, we recall once again that prevention is much preferable to treatment.
To protect yourself from introducing such unwanted utilities into your browser, OS, and other programs, follow simple rules. First, when installing freeware and shareware programs, never settle for the âdefaultâ option. Always choose Custom. Uncheck all the wild âInstall Satellite, Guardâ options and other spyware modules.
In addition, try to still have a normal antivirus on the computer. Unfortunately, the very fashionable Microsoft Security Essentials has not responded to Mail.ru products in any way, and therefore you will have to look for something more substantial.
Try to work on the computer without using the âAdministratorâ account, so that all sorts of malicious programs could not comfortably settle in the system. If you download a file from the tracker, carefully look at its extension: if it looks like âmovie.torrent.exeâ, then with a 100% probability you will ârun intoâ either a trojan or some kind of âsuper- duper is fast and convenient âdownloader from Mail.ru or a similar company not seen in following high moral principles.
Using these simple tips, you protect the privacy of your own data, and hundreds of emails from spammers will never arrive in your inbox. Good luck