Remove Darkbrowse.co Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Darkbrowse.co pop-up notifications can appear unexpectedly, covering the subject of the website you checked or opening your web browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking the Darkbrowse.co promotion may cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the manual of Darkbrowse.co popups clearing in a couple of methods, as well as examining your system for additional viruses presence.

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

Darkbrowse.co popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a large volume of profit for adware representatives. These advertisements might contain sometimes shocking content, or have a web link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Darkbrowse.co push notification

Darkbrowse.co push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, cheap and really productive marketing solution1. It enables the vendor to link the buyers’ interest to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is available at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and get it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a favourite thing amongst the marketing departments of big internet retailers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for malevolent tricks with the popup advertisements. And Darkbrowse.co ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Darkbrowse.co
SiteDarkbrowse.co
HostingAS22612 Namecheap, Inc.
United States, Los Angeles
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address162.255.119.162
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorMydefensivesoft, Spaceytab, Qwvbgp
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Darkbrowse.co virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Darkbrowse.co popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can additionally be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people frequently work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different tools that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of software are unsafe, since it is quite easy to integrate a Darkbrowse.co malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Darkbrowse.co popup malware can also be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd website. Such websites are in most cases full of intense and blinking ads, and their owners typically permit any kind of promos to be published on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also get something a lot more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 unwanted applications, like Darkbrowse.co pop-up virus can cause a lot of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications may present you the ads, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last motto. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – 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 tapping these ads, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may 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 anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Darkbrowse.co pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Darkbrowse.co adware removal includes 2 parts. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards deal with the effects of its activity. The elimination task is pretty simple, due to the fact that it may be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its significant resources usage, as well as some defects that may be serious for some types of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is probably impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will certainly wipe out the malware from your system and also create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with Darkbrowse.co adware first.

Removing Darkbrowse.co 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 Darkbrowse.co 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 be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s 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.

Nonetheless, there is one problem that makes things a lot harder to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Darkbrowse.co pop-up advertisements are adjusting the deep browser setups, 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. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, 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.

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 Darkbrowse.co Pop-ups?

Name: Darkbrowse.co

Description: Darkbrowse.co - 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 Darkbrowse.co push notifications?” or “why do Darkbrowse.co pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Darkbrowse.co 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
3.5 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

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