Alphaspeedbooster browser plugin may appear unexpectedly, making your browsing experience much worse. Claiming to be a “browser booster”, it acts like adware virus.
Alphaspeedbooster is a browser plugin available for Chrome and Mozilla web browsers. It possibly has a part of the functionality that its developers promise, however, it also spams you with advertisements. Classic ways of spreading for that pseudo-useful plugin are malvertising on the Web and redirect pages.
What is the Alphaspeedbooster plugin?
Alphaspeedbooster plugin is an unwanted browser add-on with adware functionality. Adware is a type of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a substantial volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These ads might consist of sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash. This plugin is propagated as a booster tool which will make the page loading faster. However, it just stops the GIF and other animation auto-loading, and compensates the speed-up with tens of banners
AlphaSpeedBooster plugin description
Browser add-ons (or plugins) are pretty useful when you need to personalize your browser or make it more comfortable to use. They appeared pretty long ago, and became a must-have for almost each user. You will barely find a person who does not use at least 1-2 plugins. However, cybercriminals found a way to monetize these things. Chrome Web Store – the biggest marketplace for browser add-ons – has no moderation. Hence, it is quite easy to add the malicious thing into it, and then promote it heavily. Browser hijackers based on the plugins are the new meta of malware development. And Alphaspeedbooster is just one of the examples of this scam.
Here is a summary for the Alphaspeedbooster plugin:
| Name | Alphaspeedbooster |
| Malware type | Malicious browser plugin, unwanted program |
| Distribution ways | Malvertising, software bundling, redirect links |
| Symptoms | Excesive advertisements on different sites |
| Similar behavior | Tobepartou, Krestinaful |
| Fix Tool | To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC |
How have I got the Alphaspeedbooster virus?
There are a lot of methods of becoming contaminated by the adware that cause the Alphaspeedbooster plugin appearance. A lion’s part of this unwanted plugin appearances happen after clicking the malicious advertisements on the Web. Free software may likewise be the reason – this plugin can be part of the bundle. Finally, you can just receive a redirect link that pushes you to the page where you see the offer like this:
It is important to recognize the hazard source correctly to avoid malware injection. It usually looks like the promotion somewhere on the unusual web page. Such websites are generally full of bright and blinking ads, and their owners generally permit any kind of promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider knows what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like Alphaspeedbooster, adware or unwanted programs, you may also receive something much more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.
How dangerous is the Alphaspeedbooster?
Potentially undesirable applications, like Alphaspeedbooster pop-up virus can provoke a wide range of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – this plugin may show you the banners, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last slogan. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one if you don’t know the exact names.
Example of malicious advertisements
Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, malvertising is also chosen as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses are 100% unwanted and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they can be clicked by whoever also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.
How can I get rid of Alphaspeedbooster pop-up advertisements?
The guide of Alphaspeedbooster adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that fix the effects of its activity. The elimination procedure is really simple, because it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its huge resources consumption, along with some errors that may be crucial for some kinds of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. What’s more, a variety of trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.
I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware1 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will certainly erase the viruses from your PC and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Alphaspeedbooster adware first.
Removing Alphaspeedbooster 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 Alphaspeedbooster 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 :
- Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
- 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 :
- Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
- In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
If you use Google Chrome
- Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
- In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
- 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
- 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 :
- 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 ensure that your browser will connect the correct DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content2:
# 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 issue that makes things a lot more difficult to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variants that are used to show you the Alphaspeedbooster 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 computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, until you attempt to open settings 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.
How to Remove Alphaspeedbooster Pop-ups?
Name: Alphaspeedbooster
Description: Alphaspeedbooster - 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 Alphaspeedbooster.com push notifications?” or “why do Alphaspeedbooster.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Alphaspeedbooster 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
User Review
( votes)References
- GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
- Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.
