Chesstop2 Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Chesstop2 pop-up notifications can show up out of the blue, covering the post of the page you went to or opening your browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Chesstop2 promotion can lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Chesstop2 popups removal in various manners, as well as inspecting your personal computer for other malware presence.

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What are Chesstop2 pop-ups?

Chesstop2 popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a large volume of revenue for adware distributors. These advertisements may contain explicit composition, or have a web link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Chesstop2 push notification

Chesstop2 push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, low-cost and really successful advertising tool1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is available at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this possibility and buy it. Considering the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favorite thing among the advertising departments of huge internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Chesstop2.xyz promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a info for the Chesstop2 site
Site Chesstop2.xyz
Hosting AS15317 Serverel Inc.
United States, Contra Costa Centre
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 173.214.240.15
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Nt3uq4x2cs, Kinobot, Newlistiong
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Chesstop2 virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that create the Chesstop2 popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users often utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are dangerous, because it is extremely simple to integrate a Chesstop2 malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Chesstop2 popup virus may also be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd site. Such websites are generally full of bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors typically approve any promos to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking on 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 additionally receive something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Chesstop2 pop-up virus can initiate a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups may display you the ads, where you are offered to download one more unknown application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also chosen as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they can be clicked by someone who also uses your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Chesstop2 pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Chesstop2 adware removal contains 2 sections. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards repair the results of its action. The elimination task is quite simple, because it may be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, due to its large resources consumption, along with some problems that can be pivotal for some types of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its usage is most likely impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses have the ability to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will undoubtedly remove the viruses from your system and also make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s take care of Chesstop2 adware initially.

Removing Chesstop2 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 Chesstop2 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 web browser will be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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.

Nevertheless, there is one problem that makes the things much more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the Chesstop2 pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, 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 Chesstop2 Pop-ups?

Name: Chesstop2

Description: Chesstop2 - 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 Chesstop2.xyz push notifications?” or “why do Chesstop2.xyz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Chesstop2 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 ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview 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.

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