Remove Apel.top Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Apel.top pop-up alerts can appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the page you checked or opening your browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Apel.top ad may lead to the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guide of Apel.top popups removal in several manners, and also inspecting your personal computer for other viruses presence.

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What are Apel.top pop-ups?

Apel.top popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a significant amount of revenue for adware distributors. These advertisements might have sometimes shocking composition, or have a web link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Apel.top push notification

Apel.top push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, cheap and also really productive advertising solution1. It permits the vendor to link the buyers’ interest to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the customer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is offered at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and purchase it. Taking into consideration the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the marketing teams of large internet sellers.

However, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Option to demonstrate the popup ads by force to the targets of malware attack is a great basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup ads. And Apel.top promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a info for the Apel.top
Site Apel.top
Hosting AS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 165.22.198.175
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Alwaysnewvideos, Syncrenewedintenselythefile, Wakanmounds
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Apel.top virus?

There are a plenty of methods of getting infected by the adware that result in the Apel.top popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users oftentimes use the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are unsafe, since it is extremely simple to integrate a Apel.top malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Apel.top popup virus can likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual website. Such websites are usually packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often approve any kind of promotions to be published on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Apel.top pop-up virus may cause a variety of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can display you the promotions, where you are offered to download one more unknown program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a distribution way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these ads, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Apel.top pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Apel.top adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards correct the consequences of its activity. The removal task is quite easy, because it may be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, as well as some problems that can be critical for some types of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its use is probably impossible. Moreover, different trojan viruses have the ability to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will definitely exterminate the viruses from your computer and make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with Apel.top adware initially.

Removing Apel.top 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 Apel.top 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 browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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 trouble that makes the things much harder to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variations that are used to show you the Apel.top pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, till you try to open settings one more time.

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 Apel.top Pop-ups?

Name: Apel.top

Description: Apel.top - 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 Apel.top push notifications?” or “why do Apel.top pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Apel.top 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 advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I suggest 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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