How to remove Check-This-Message pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Check-This-Message pop-up alerts may appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the website you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Check-This-Message advertisement may trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Check-This-Message popups removal in a couple of manners, as well as inspecting your personal computer for additional viruses presence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Check-This-Message 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.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Check-This-Message pop-ups?

Check-This-Message popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a significant amount of revenue for adware distributors. These advertisements may have explicit material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Check-This-Message push notification

Check-This-Message push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, low-cost and very productive marketing solution1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to purchase is provided at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this chance and get it. Considering the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a favourite thing amidst the marketing departments of large internet sellers.

Nevertheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by virus creators. Ability to show the popup ads forcibly to the people of malware attack is a great basis for malevolent tricks with the popup advertisements. And Check-this-message.one advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Check-This-Message site
SiteCheck-this-message.one
HostingAS60781 LeaseWeb Netherlands B.V.
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address213.227.149.216
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorWebsecurerr, Thechronicles, Ouisys
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Check-This-Message virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that lead to the Check-This-Message popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users oftentimes utilize the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of programs are dangerous, because it is very simple to build in a Check-This-Message malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Check-This-Message popup virus can additionally be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange website. Such websites are typically packed with bright and blinking ads, and their owners usually permit any kind of promotions to be published on their web page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise receive something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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 unwanted applications, like Check-This-Message pop-up virus can cause a wide range of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications can show you the advertisements, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable 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 spreading way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions 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 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 programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Check-This-Message pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Check-This-Message adware removal contains 2 parts. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and after that repair the results of its action. The elimination process is very simple, because it may be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its substantial resources utilization, as well as some bugs that can be serious for some kinds of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses can disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will surely wipe out the viruses from your system and make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s handle Check-This-Message adware first.

Removing Check-This-Message 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 Check-This-Message 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 ensure that your web browser will connect the proper DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your 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 issue that makes things much harder to repair, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Check-This-Message pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the typical, 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 Check-This-Message Pop-ups?

Name: Check-This-Message

Description: Check-This-Message - 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 Check-this-message.one push notifications?” or “why do Check-this-message.one pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Check-This-Message 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

Sending
User Review
3 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I recommend 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending