Remove Browntouchmysky Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Browntouchmysky pop-up notifications can appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the page you visited or opening your web browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking the Browntouchmysky advertisement may lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the manual of Browntouchmysky popups removal in multiple ways, and also checking your personal computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Browntouchmysky pop-ups?

Browntouchmysky popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a massive volume of income for adware distributors. These ads might include sometimes shocking information, or have a link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Browntouchmysky push notification

Browntouchmysky push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, cheap and also extremely successful advertising instrument1. It allows the vendor to link the buyers’ interest to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online store he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a much-loved thing among the marketing teams of large online retailers.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding system could not be missed by malware creators. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And Browntouchmysky.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short summary for the Browntouchmysky
SiteBrowntouchmysky.com
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address165.22.198.175
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorNews, Pmetorealiukze, Rplnd40
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Browntouchmysky virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Browntouchmysky popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of individuals regularly use the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of software are risky, due to the fact that it is quite easy to include a Browntouchmysky 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.

Browntouchmysky popup malware can likewise be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange site. Such sites are in most cases filled with bright and blinking ads, and their owners generally accept any kind of promos to be posted on their page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also receive something much more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Browntouchmysky popup virus can provoke a variety of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups can display you the ads, where you are offered to download another dubious application, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and pseudo 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% unpleasant, 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 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 solve it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Browntouchmysky pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Browntouchmysky adware removal includes 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and afterwards deal with the consequences of its action. The elimination task is pretty easy, since it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its huge resources consumption, as well as some defects that can be pivotal for some groups of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses are able to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will surely exterminate the malware from your PC and create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s manage Browntouchmysky adware first.

Removing Browntouchmysky 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 Browntouchmysky 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 browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will connect the correct DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then 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 problem that makes things a lot more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware versions that are used to show you the Browntouchmysky pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, up until you attempt 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 Browntouchmysky Pop-ups?

Name: Browntouchmysky

Description: Browntouchmysky - 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 Browntouchmysky.com push notifications?” or “why do Browntouchmysky.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Browntouchmysky 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 review and also the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
  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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