How to remove Curiositykilledthecat.xyz pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Curiositykilledthecat.xyz pop-up notifications may show up out of the blue, covering the post of the page you visited or opening your web browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Curiositykilledthecat.xyz advertisement may result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Curiositykilledthecat.xyz popups removal in a couple of manners, and also examining your personal computer for other viruses existence.

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What are Curiositykilledthecat.xyz pop-ups?

Curiositykilledthecat.xyz popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a major amount of earnings for adware distributors. These advertisements might have explicit composition, or have a link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Curiositykilledthecat.xyz push notification

Curiositykilledthecat.xyz push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, cheap and very efficient advertising solution1. It permits the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw previously with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this chance and get it. Considering the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a much-loved thing amidst the marketing teams of huge online sellers.

However, such a successful system could not be missed by malware developers. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware invasion is an ideal basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Curiositykilledthecat.xyz promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Curiositykilledthecat.xyz site
SiteCuriositykilledthecat.xyz
HostingAS58061 Scalaxy B.V.
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address185.238.169.36
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorTo, Videocontentspot, Whitelane
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Curiositykilledthecat.xyz virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of becoming infected by the adware that lead to the Curiositykilledthecat.xyz popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of individuals frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various apps that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. All of these sorts of programs are dangerous, because it is quite easy to integrate a Curiositykilledthecat.xyz malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Curiositykilledthecat.xyz popup malware can also be hidden in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are in most cases loaded with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually accept any promotions to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also receive something a lot more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 undesirable programs, like Curiositykilledthecat.xyz popup virus may provoke a variety of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups may show you the ads, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they can be clicked by whoever 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 remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Curiositykilledthecat.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Curiositykilledthecat.xyz adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to deal with the malware, and then take care of the effects of its activity. The elimination process is really easy, because it may be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, along with some problems that can be crucial for some categories of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its use is likely impossible. What’s more, various trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will certainly wipe out the viruses from your computer and make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s deal with Curiositykilledthecat.xyz adware initially.

Removing Curiositykilledthecat.xyz 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 Curiositykilledthecat.xyz 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 make sure that your browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much harder to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Curiositykilledthecat.xyz pop-up ads are changing the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In certain 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 typical, until you attempt 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 Curiositykilledthecat.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Curiositykilledthecat.xyz

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

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