How to remove Freeadvcity pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Freeadvcity pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the subject of the website you went to or opening your browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking the Freeadvcity ad may cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of Freeadvcity popups removal in multiple ways, and also checking your computer for additional malware existence.

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What are Freeadvcity pop-ups?

Freeadvcity popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a large amount of revenue for adware representatives. These ads may have sometimes shocking composition, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Freeadvcity push notification

Freeadvcity push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, low-priced and extremely successful advertising solution1. It enables the vendor to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is available at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will certainly use this possibility and purchase it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a favorite thing among the advertising departments of large internet retailers.

Nonetheless, such a successful system could not be missed by virus developers. Ability to show the popup ads by force to the targets of malware invasion is an ideal basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup ads. And Freeadvcity.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a info for the Freeadvcity
SiteFreeadvcity.com
HostingAS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address35.174.183.139
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorGossip, News, Mookilicomputer
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Freeadvcity virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming contaminated by the adware that lead to the Freeadvcity popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is supplied as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users often use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of applications are unsafe, since it is quite simple to build in a Freeadvcity 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.

Freeadvcity popup malware can also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are generally filled with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually permit any promos to be published on their web page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also get something a lot more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 applications, like Freeadvcity popup virus can cause a wide range of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can display you the banners, where you are offered to download one more unknown program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often spread with the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these advertisements, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with 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 Freeadvcity pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Freeadvcity adware elimination consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and then correct the results of its action. The elimination task is very simple, since it may be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, along with some failures that can be critical for some categories of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Additionally, different trojan viruses are capable to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will surely remove the viruses from your computer and also make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Freeadvcity adware initially.

Removing Freeadvcity 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 Freeadvcity 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 browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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 trouble that makes things much more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variations that are used to show you the Freeadvcity pop-up ads are modifying the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, up until you try 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 Freeadvcity Pop-ups?

Name: Freeadvcity

Description: Freeadvcity - 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 Freeadvcity.com push notifications?” or “why do Freeadvcity.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Freeadvcity 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 overview and the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
  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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