Today on the Internet you can find so many implicit advertising threats that relate to potentially unwanted software that you can be surprised for a very long time. One of the most annoying can be called a group of viruses with the general name Powered by. How to remove any of them will be described in full below. The proposed solutions can also be applied to other advertising threats that fall into the categories of Adware, Hijackers and PUP.
Powered by: what is this virus and what are its varieties?
To begin with, Powered by is not a single threat or application that installs on user computers or as additional (partner) software when installing other products, when the user simply agrees that the installer offers, without delving into it will be installed additionally, or spontaneously in the process of Internet surfing, when the user clicks on banners and links to resources of a dubious nature.
Let us leave aside the question of how to remove Powered by, but let's see how many interesting things there are in terms of the types of threats. The most common in different variations are considered such as:
- Powered by Cinema.
- Powered by Name.
- Powered by Info.
- Powered by Marouane.
- Powered by Capricornus et al.
Actually, the whole group belongs to browser hijackers, changing the start pages, search engines, filling browsers with advertising with a constant redirect to questionable sites. Nothing unusual.
How to remove Powered by Cinema and similar threats in a standard way?
The only thing that can please an ordinary user is that removing all threats from this group implies using the same algorithm. Since antiviruses or firewalls installed at the entrance to the system when visiting Internet resources do not recognize this threat, you will have to deal with its manual removal.
So how to remove Powered by Name or any other type? First, as usual, the standard program and component section is used, located in the Control Panel, where one or more installed virus applets are selected, and then they are removed (the built-in Windows service is triggered).
Sometimes you can find your own uninstaller programs located in the same Start menu. But neither the system’s built-in tools, nor “native” uninstallers completely remove the application. The essence of understanding the problem boils down to the fact that after the standard removal procedure, the system remains a huge number of undeleted elements through which viruses can be reactivated again (files and registry keys). Thus, it is clear that the question of how to remove Powered by any category also involves cleaning the computer system of these components. But this is not all, because it will be necessary to apply a change in the settings of browsers, where viruses build their own additions and subscriptions to the executable files of browsers.
How to remove Powered by Name and its analogues: cleaning residues
The first step is to call the registry editor (regedit in the Run menu), followed by a search for the items you are looking for. The search system is called through the combination Ctrl + F, after which you need to enter the partial name of the virus (Powered by) in the corresponding field, and not the full name (as you can see, there can be a lot of varieties of such software, and if you enter the name of only one applet then the rest will remain undeleted).
Next, everything that will be found is deleted. Go to the results using the "Find Next ..." button or by pressing the F3 key. When the search is over, we close the editor and go to the next step.
How to remove Powered by Info or another type of threat at this stage? To do this, in the most ordinary “Explorer” a search is set, again by a common name, and all results are deleted. It is doubtful, of course, that some element will be denied access, but just in case, it is better to have the Unlocker program at your disposal, which allows you to unlock it in a couple of seconds.
After that, you need to check absolutely all browsers, disable Powered by extensions, if any, and in the properties of the shortcut check the type field of the object in which the path should end with the name of the browser with the .exe extension. All postscript entered after this are deleted, the changes are saved, and then the system is completely rebooted.
Sometimes, however, it is immediately necessary to change the search engine and the start page, and if it is impossible to apply a complete reset of the browser settings to the initial ones.
Using uninstallers
In general, the most optimal solution to the problem of how to remove Powered by is to use special programs designed to uninstall everything that can be found on Windows. One of the most prominent representatives is the iObit Uninstaller application.
In a program to remove threats of this type, you can use either a list of installed programs, or a section of browser panels, or both. After the standard uninstall procedure, you need to activate a powerful scan and get rid of all the leftovers found, simultaneously checking the box on the destruction of files.
Additional measures
After uninstalling and restarting Windows, as an additional measure, you can recommend checking the system with Dr. Web CureIt or Adware as portable versions. Most likely, nothing will be detected, but this is, so to speak, a preventive measure. Typically, manually uninstalling or using uninstall programs works one hundred percent.