Remove Clickwatch Virus — How to Fix Guide

Clickwatch pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the material of the page you went to or opening your browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking the Clickwatch ad can trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Clickwatch popups removal in various methods, and also examining your personal computer for other viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Clickwatch 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.

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What are Clickwatch pop-ups?

Clickwatch popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a major amount of income for adware distributors. These promotions might consist of explicit information, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Clickwatch push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, affordable and also very successful marketing tool¹. It enables the seller to link the customers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and buy it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favorite thing amidst the advertising teams of large internet sellers.

However, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by malware creators. Option to show the popup ads by force to the people of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup ads. And Clickwatch.site promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a info for the Clickwatch

How have I got the Clickwatch virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Clickwatch popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people regularly work with the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are dangerous, since it is quite simple to build in a Clickwatch 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.

Clickwatch popup malware may likewise be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd website. Such sites are typically filled with bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors generally permit any promotions to be posted on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally receive something far more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Clickwatch popup virus may provoke a wide range of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups may display you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more dubious application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often spread under the last motto. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related banners are also chosen as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these ads, they can be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Clickwatch adware elimination includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and after that correct the results of its action. The elimination task is really easy, since it can be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its substantial resources utilization, as well as some problems that may be serious for some groups of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Furthermore, different trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security tool that will definitely eliminate the malware from your PC and make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Clickwatch adware first.

Removing Clickwatch 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 Clickwatch 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 :

1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :

2. 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. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 definitely connect the proper DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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 things a lot more difficult to repair, specifically without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Clickwatch pop-up ads are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, up until you attempt to open settings once 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 Clickwatch Pop-ups?

Name: Clickwatch

Description: Clickwatch - 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 Clickwatch.site push notifications?” or “why do Clickwatch.site pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Clickwatch 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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1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.