How to remove Flowext pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Flowext pop-up notices may appear out of the blue, covering the subject of the site you explored or opening your web browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Flowext promotion can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guide of Flowext popups clearing in several ways, and also inspecting your computer for other viruses existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Flowext 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.

DOWNLOAD NOW

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 Flowext pop-ups?

Flowext popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a significant volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These advertisements may contain explicit material, or have a link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Flowext push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-cost and also really productive advertising tool¹. It makes it possible for the seller to link the customers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this chance and get it. Considering the exceptionally small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising method is a favorite thing among the advertising departments of large internet retail stores.

However, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to show the popup advertisements by force to the people of malware invasion is a great basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Flowext.com ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Flowext site

How have I got the Flowext virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that result in the Flowext popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is offered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different apps that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are risky, because it is quite simple to include a Flowext malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Flowext popup virus may additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual web page. Such web pages are typically loaded with colorful and blinking ads, and their owners generally accept any kind of promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also get something much more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Flowext pop-up virus can provoke a variety of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can display you the ads, where you are offered to get another unknown program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Flowext adware elimination contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards correct the consequences of its activity. The removal procedure is really simple, due to the fact that it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its substantial resources consumption, along with some problems that may be critical for some categories of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its use is probably impossible. Moreover, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to disable the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly exterminate the malware from your computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Flowext adware first.

Removing Flowext 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 Flowext 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 web browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your web browser will definitely be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text³:

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 problem that makes things much harder to repair, particularly without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Flowext pop-up promotions are modifying the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, up until you try to open settings 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 Flowext Pop-ups?

Name: Flowext

Description: Flowext - 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 Flowext.com push notifications?” or “why do Flowext.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Flowext 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 (6 votes)

Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.