PopAds virus. How to remove? (Uninstall guide)
PopAds is an adware redirecting users to popads.net ads
Questions about PopAds virus
PopAds virus can start bothering you all of a sudden, especially if you tend to install computer programs in a rush. It turns out that this potentially unwanted program[1] (PUP) can reach your computer with your permission only; therefore, it cannot be called a malicious virus. Experts tend to call it adware program because it usually serves a lot of pop-up ads for the user. Originally, these ads come from PopAds.net server. This program itself is an advertising network[2], and seeing these ads means that your PC was infected with a program that takes these ads from the ad network and displays them for you, hoping that you will click on them. However, the ad network can precisely monitor all of the content that third-party websites provide, therefore, we must advise you to be very careful when clicking on ads by PopAds. Each external site that you can get redirected to has its own privacy policy and reading it is a must. You can never know how these external websites collect information about you and how do they use it, so be careful.


Click 'Start -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features' (if you are 'Windows XP' user, click on 'Add/Remove Programs').

If you are 'Windows 10 / Windows 8' user, then right-click in the lower left corner of the screen. Once 'Quick Access Menu' shows up, select 'Control Panel' and 'Uninstall a Program'.

Right click on each of suspicious entries and select 'Uninstall'

Cick 'Go' and select 'Applications'

Click on every malicious entry and select 'Move to Trash'

Click on menu icon and select 'Manage add-ons'

Right click on each of malicious entries and select 'Disable'

Delete malicious URL, enter your desired domain name and click 'Apply' to save changes

Go to 'Advanced' tab and click on 'Reset' button. Now select 'Delete personal settings' and click on 'Reset' button again

Go to Settings and select 'Choose what to clear'

Select 'Clear' button

Open the start menu and select 'Task Manager'

Right-click 'Microsoft Edge' and select 'Go to details'

Select 'More details' if 'Go to details' option fails to show up

Find Microsoft Edge entries and select 'End Task'

Go to Microsoft Edge folder on your computer, right-click every entry and click 'Delete'

Find Windows PowerShell, right-click it and select 'Run as administrator'

Copy and paste a required command and press 'Enter'

Click on menu icon and select 'Add-ons'

Select 'Extensions' and look for malicious entries. Click 'Remove' to get rid of each of them

Click on menu icon and then on '?'. Select 'Troubleshooting Information'

Click on 'Reset Firefox' button for a couple of times

Click on menu icon. Select 'Tools' and 'Extensions'

Look for malicious entries and delete each of them by clicking on the Trash bin icon

When in 'Settings', select 'Manage search engines...'

Click 'X' to remove malicious URLs

When in 'Settings', scroll down to 'Reset browser settings' button and click on it

Click on 'Reset' button to complete your removal

Click on 'Safari' and select 'Preferences'

Go to 'Extensions' and uninstall malicious add-ons

Click on 'Safari' and select 'Reset Safari...'

Select all options and click on 'Reset' button
If you accidentally installed a free but ad-supported program, it is likely that you will see PopAds.net ads everywhere you go on the Internet. These ads might automatically show up in the form of pop-up, pop-under, banner, full-screen, or in-text ads. It is important to realize that while some of these ads can actually provide you with useful offers, others can provide you with inappropriate content, for instance, this ad network admits to be promoting adult websites, which means that one of the ads from this platform can throw you, your relatives, or your kids onto adult content websites. Despite the visual material published by them, you should think of all dangers[3] related to links and ads provided by these websites. Security researchers know that ads served by such sites are often risky because of the whole malvertising[4] concept. It is not a secret that scammers try to infect ad networks just to serve malware-laden ads to users via popular Internet websites. Therefore, if you started receiving loads of ads from the described ad network, it might mean that you have installed a program that promotes content from it. If you wish to disable these ads, remove adware first. With Reimage, you can complete this task in minutes, meanwhile, attempts to take matters into your own hands can take much longer. Therefore, that is the main reason why we recommend choosing automatic PopAds removal option.
How to protect my PC from popAds?
Adware is a type of a free program that displays ads for the victim during his browsing sessions. Usually, users end up installing them when they decide to install computer programs using “Recommended,” “Default” or “Standard” installation option[5]. Most of the free programs suggest installing extra programs alongside them to earn pay-per-install revenue. However, such deals usually do not benefit the end-user. The majority of users end up installing unwanted software on their PCs only because they do not pay enough attention to software setup settings and think that suggested installation options are the best ones. That is not true – only choosing Custom or Advanced settings can provide you with an opportunity to adjust components of your download and drop off the ones that you don’t need. After configuring installation settings, you can finish the installation in a usual manner.
Removal tips for PopAds
If the described advertisements appear on your screen in an intrusive way, do not tolerate it. We highly recommend you to remove PopAds virus automatically, because trying to find it on your computer can become a time-consuming activity, and we bet that you have something better to do. For automatic removal, you can use one of the recommended anti-spyware or anti-malware programs such as Reimage. If you want to try to get rid of PopAds.net manually before you try the anti-malware tool, you should follow instructions provided below the article.
You can remove virus damage automatically with a help of one of these programs: Reimage, Malwarebytes MalwarebytesCombo Cleaner, Plumbytes Anti-MalwareMalwarebytes Malwarebytes. We recommend these applications because they detect potentially unwanted programs and viruses with all their files and registry entries that are related to them.
To remove PopAds virus, follow these steps:
Eliminate PopAds from Windows systems
If you started to notice pop-ups and banners with a “By PopAds” mark one them, look through the list of programs that were recently installed on your computer. Uninstall them according to these instructions.
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Click Start → Control Panel → Programs and Features (if you are Windows XP user, click on Add/Remove Programs).
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If you are Windows 10 / Windows 8 user, then right-click in the lower left corner of the screen. Once Quick Access Menu shows up, select Control Panel and Uninstall a Program.
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Uninstall PopAds and related programs
Here, look for PopAds or any other recently installed suspicious programs. -
Uninstall them and click OK to save these changes.
Remove PopAds from Mac OS X system
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If you are using OS X, click Go button at the top left of the screen and select Applications.
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Wait until you see Applications folder and look for PopAds or any other suspicious programs on it. Now right click on every of such entries and select Move to Trash.
Uninstall PopAds from Internet Explorer (IE)
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Remove dangerous add-ons
Open Internet Explorer, click on the Gear icon (IE menu) on the top right corner of the browser and choose Manage Add-ons. -
You will see a Manage Add-ons window. Here, look for PopAds and other suspicious plugins. Disable these entries by clicking Disable:
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Change your homepage if it was altered by virus:
Click on the gear icon (menu) on the top right corner of the browser and select Internet Options. Stay in General tab. -
Here, remove malicious URL and enter preferable domain name. Click Apply to save changes.
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Reset Internet Explorer
Click on the gear icon (menu) again and select Internet options. Go to Advanced tab. - Here, select Reset.
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When in the new window, check Delete personal settings and select Reset again to complete PopAds removal.
Get rid of PopAds virus from Microsoft Edge
Reset Microsoft Edge settings (Method 1):
- Launch Microsoft Edge app and click More (three dots at the top right corner of the screen).
- Click Settings to open more options.
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Once Settings window shows up, click Choose what to clear button under Clear browsing data option.
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Here, select all what you want to remove and click Clear.
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Now you should right-click on the Start button (Windows logo). Here, select Task Manager.
- When in Processes tab, search for Microsoft Edge.
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Right-click on it and choose Go to details option. If can’t see Go to details option, click More details and repeat previous steps.
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When Details tab shows up, find every entry with Microsoft Edge name in it. Right click on each of them and select End Task to end these entries.
Resetting Microsoft Edge browser (Method 2):
If Method 1 failed to help you, you need to use an advanced Edge reset method.
- Note: you need to backup your data before using this method.
- Find this folder on your computer:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe.
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Select every entry which is saved on it and right click with your mouse. Then Delete option.
- Click the Start button (Windows logo) and type in window power in Search my stuff line.
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Right-click the Windows PowerShell entry and choose Run as administrator.
- Once Administrator: Windows PowerShell window shows up, paste this command line after PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> and press Enter:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml -Verbose}
Once these steps are finished, PopAds should be removed from your Microsoft Edge browser.
WindowsMac OS XInternet ExplorerMicrosoft EdgeFirefoxGoogle ChromeSafariDelete PopAds from Mozilla Firefox (FF)
Clean Firefox by removing all suspicious extensions that might be serving PopAds advertisements to you. If you can't find an extension called PopAds, look for other shady-looking extensions and delete them.
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Remove dangerous extensions
Open Mozilla Firefox, click on the menu icon (top right corner) and select Add-ons → Extensions. -
Here, select PopAds and other questionable plugins. Click Remove to delete these entries.
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Reset Mozilla Firefox
Click on the Firefox menu on the top left and click on the question mark. Here, choose Troubleshooting Information. -
Now you will see Reset Firefox to its default state message with Reset Firefox button. Click this button for several times and complete PopAds removal.
Erase PopAds from Google Chrome
In Chrome, you will find a panel called Extensions. You must open it and look through the list of programs installed on it. Next, delete the ones that seem suspicious to you. If you can find an extension called PopAds, get rid of it as soon as possible.
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Delete malicious plugins
Open Google Chrome, click on the menu icon (top right corner) and select Tools → Extensions. -
Here, select PopAds and other malicious plugins and select trash icon to delete these entries.
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Click on menu icon again and choose Settings → Manage Search engines under the Search section.
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When in Search Engines..., remove malicious search sites. You should leave only Google or your preferred domain name.
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Reset Google Chrome
Click on menu icon on the top right of your Google Chrome and select Settings. -
Scroll down to the end of the page and click on Reset browser settings.
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Click Reset to confirm this action and complete PopAds removal.
Eliminate PopAds from Safari
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Remove dangerous extensions
Open Safari web browser and click on Safari in menu at the top left of the screen. Once you do this, select Preferences. -
Here, select Extensions and look for PopAds or other suspicious entries. Click on the Uninstall button to get rid each of them.
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Reset Safari
Open Safari browser and click on Safari in menu section at the top left of the screen. Here, select Reset Safari.... -
Now you will see a detailed dialog window filled with reset options. All of those options are usually checked, but you can specify which of them you want to reset. Click the Reset button to complete PopAds removal process.
About the author
References
- ^ Potentially unwanted program. Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia.
- ^ How Ad Networks are Being Used for Scamvertising. zvelo. Content Categorization, Brand Safety, Ad Fraud Prevention.
- ^ Olivia Morelli. Peeking into porno websites: or how you can get infected. NoVirus. Information about Computer Viruses.
- ^ Rahul Kashyap. Why Malvertising Is Cybercriminals’ Latest Sweet Spot. WIRED. Get In-Depth Coverage of Current and Future Trends in Technology, and How They are Shaping Business.
- ^ Top 10 Ways PUPs Sneak Onto Your Computer. And How To Avoid Them.. Emsisoft Blog. All about Computer Security.