Remove Ad-free.info Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Ad-free.info pop-up notifications can appear unexpectedly, covering the content of the website you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Ad-free.info promotion may trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Ad-free.info popups clearing in several methods, and also inspecting your computer for additional malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Ad-free.info manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.

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What are Ad-free.info pop-ups?

Ad-free.info popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a substantial amount of income for adware representatives. These promotions may consist of sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Ad-free.info push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-cost and very efficient marketing instrument¹. It makes it possible for the seller to attach the buyers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a much-loved thing among the advertising departments of large online retailers.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Option to show the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup ads. And Ad-free.info ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Ad-free.info

How have I got the Ad-free.info virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that cause the Ad-free.info popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is offered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of individuals frequently make use of the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of applications are risky, since it is very easy to integrate a Ad-free.info 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.

Ad-free.info popup virus can also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are typically full of intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically approve any promotions to be posted on their page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally receive something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Ad-free.info popup virus can initiate a lot of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications can present you the promotions, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these ads, they may be clicked by someone who also uses your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Ad-free.info pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Ad-free.info adware removal includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards fix the consequences of its action. The removal procedure is quite simple, because it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its substantial resources utilization, as well as some bugs that may be serious for some groups of individuals, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses can switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven anti-malware device that will definitely wipe out the malware from your system and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Ad-free.info adware initially.

Removing Ad-free.info 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.

• 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.

• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Ad-free.info malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

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. 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. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the site you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes things a lot harder to repair, especially without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Ad-free.info pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, up until you attempt to open settings once again.

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.

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.

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.

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.