Remove Exotikcontent.ru Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Exotikcontent.ru pop-up notifications may show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the site you checked or opening your browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking on the Exotikcontent.ru advertisement can cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Exotikcontent.ru popups clearing in several manners, and also checking your personal computer for additional malware existence.

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What are Exotikcontent.ru pop-ups?

Exotikcontent.ru popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a massive volume of profit for adware distributors. These ads might have explicit composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Exotikcontent.ru push notification

Exotikcontent.ru push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, cheap and extremely successful advertising solution1. It allows the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online shop he/she visited earlier with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a favourite thing among the marketing teams of big internet stores.

However, such a rewarding system could not be missed by malware developers. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is an excellent basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup promotions. And Exotikcontent.ru advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Exotikcontent.ru site
SiteExotikcontent.ru
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address104.248.207.50
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorAre, News, Freeadvfit
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Exotikcontent.ru virus?

There are a lot of methods of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Exotikcontent.ru 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 additionally be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is provided as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users oftentimes use the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different tools that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are unsafe, since it is quite simple to integrate a Exotikcontent.ru 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.

Exotikcontent.ru popup virus may likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange site. Such web pages are generally loaded with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners usually permit any kind of promos to be placed on their web page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider realizes what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise receive something a lot more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 unwanted programs, like Exotikcontent.ru popup virus can cause a variety of different problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can show you the banners, where you are offered to get another strange application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often distributed 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 good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also chosen as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these advertisements, 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 solve it without data loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Exotikcontent.ru pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Exotikcontent.ru adware removal contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and then deal with the effects of its action. The removal task is really simple, because it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its huge resources consumption, along with some problems that can be crucial for some groups of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Furthermore, different trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will undoubtedly erase the malware from your PC and also create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s take care of Exotikcontent.ru adware initially.

Removing Exotikcontent.ru 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 Exotikcontent.ru 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 definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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 the things a lot harder to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Exotikcontent.ru pop-up advertisements are modifying the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, up 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 Exotikcontent.ru Pop-ups?

Name: Exotikcontent.ru

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

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