How to remove 1vpnfree pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
1vpnfree pop-up alerts can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the site you visited or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the 1vpnfree ad can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of 1vpnfree popups clearing in several methods, and also checking your PC for extra viruses presence.

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What are 1vpnfree pop-ups?

1vpnfree popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a significant amount of revenue for adware distributors. These promotions might have sometimes shocking material, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

1vpnfree push notification

1vpnfree push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, affordable and also very effective advertising method1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ interest to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to purchase is available at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising method is a favorite thing amidst the marketing departments of large online retail stores.

However, such a successful scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is a perfect basis for malevolent tricks with the popup advertisements. And 1vpnfree.xyz ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the 1vpnfree site
Site1vpnfree.xyz
HostingAS15317 Serverel Inc.
United States, San Jose
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address173.214.240.15
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior3abcnews, Expressagaino, Docsave
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the 1vpnfree virus?

There are a lot of methods of becoming contaminated by the adware that create the 1vpnfree popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users frequently work with the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of programs are unsafe, due to the fact that it is very simple to build in a 1vpnfree malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

1vpnfree popup virus may also be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the odd web page. Such sites are in most cases packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally accept any type of promos to be published on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also receive something far more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

The statistic shows that people dislike popup advertising more than other types of promotions

Potentially undesirable programs, like 1vpnfree pop-up virus may cause a wide range of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can present you the promotions, where you are offered to get another unknown program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these promotions, they can be clicked by someone who also uses your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of 1vpnfree pop-up advertisements?

The manual of 1vpnfree adware removal consists of 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and afterwards correct the consequences of its action. The elimination procedure is very easy, due to the fact that it may be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, along with some problems that may be crucial for some categories of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Moreover, various trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly exterminate the viruses from your PC and also make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with 1vpnfree adware first.

Removing 1vpnfree popup virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

  • Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. After the installation, you will be offered to perform the Standard Scan. Approve this action.
  • Gridinsoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

  • Standard scan checks the logical disk where the system files are stored, together with the files of programs you have already installed. The scan lasts up to 6 minutes.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware scan results

  • When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of 1vpnfree malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware - After Cleaning

Now, when the computer is clean of viruses, we can proceed to the browser reset. You can do this step manually, as well as with the use of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Reset browser settings to default

Manual method of browser reset

To reset Edge, do the following steps :
  1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
  2. Reseting the Edge browser

  3. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :
For Mozilla Firefox, do the next actions :
  1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
  2. The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

  3. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
  4. The second step of Firefox restoration
    After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
    The last step for Firefox
If you use Google Chrome
  1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
  2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
  3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :
Opera can be reset in the next way
  1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :

  2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

When the web browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your web browser will definitely be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text3:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Find the hosts.txt file in C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. Rename this file to “hosts.old.txt” (to distinguish it from the new one), and then move the file you created on the desktop to this folder. Remove the hosts.old from this folder. Now you have your hosts file as good as new.

However, there is one problem that makes the things a lot more difficult to repair, specifically without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the 1vpnfree pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, up until you try to open settings once more.

Reset your browser settings with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

To reset your browser with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, open the Tools tab, and click the “Reset browser settings” button.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You can see the list of the options for each browser. By default, they are set up in the manner which fits the majority of users. Press the “Reset” button (lower right corner). In a minute your browser will be as good as new.

Reset Browser Settings tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

The browser reset is recommended to perform through the antivirus tool by GridinSoft, because last is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

How to Remove 1vpnfree Pop-ups?

Name: 1vpnfree

Description: 1vpnfree - a lot of users became a target for the pop-up advertisements. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove 1vpnfree.xyz push notifications?” or “why do 1vpnfree.xyz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with 1vpnfree pop-ups, which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Adware

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References

  1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I recommend it for malware elimination.
  3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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