How to remove Clk2Win pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Clk2Win pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the content of the website you visited or opening your browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Clk2Win advertisement may lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guide of Clk2Win popups clearing in several ways, and also inspecting your system for extra malware presence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Clk2Win 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 Clk2Win pop-ups?

Clk2Win popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a substantial amount of profit for adware representatives. These advertisements might consist of sometimes shocking material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Clk2Win push notification

Clk2Win push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, cheap and very effective advertising instrument1. It permits the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising method is a favourite thing amongst the advertising teams of large internet retailers.

Nevertheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for malicious manipulations with the popup promotions. And Clk2win.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Clk2Win
SiteClk2win.com
HostingAS26496 GoDaddy.com, LLC
Indonesia, Belakangpadang
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address166.62.28.88
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorNew, Mssg, Rgoodsearch
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Clk2Win virus?

There are a plenty of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Clk2Win popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is provided as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of individuals frequently make use of the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these types of applications are unsafe, since it is extremely simple to build in a Clk2Win malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Clk2Win popup virus may also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual site. Such web pages are in most cases loaded with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners typically approve any kind of promotions to be placed on their web page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something much more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 Clk2Win pop-up virus can cause a lot of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can show you the ads, where you are offered to download another unknown program, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a spreading method by different 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 interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Clk2Win pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Clk2Win adware elimination consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that fix the consequences of its action. The removal task is very simple, due to the fact that it may be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its large resources consumption, as well as some problems that can be critical for some kinds of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses have the ability to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will surely erase the malware from your computer and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s handle Clk2Win adware initially.

Removing Clk2Win 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 Clk2Win 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 browser will be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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 harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Clk2Win pop-up ads are modifying the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the normal, until you try to open settings once more.

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 Clk2Win Pop-ups?

Name: Clk2Win

Description: Clk2Win - 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 Clk2win.com push notifications?” or “why do Clk2win.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Clk2Win 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 (5 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

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

Leave a Reply

Sending