Remove Freedirtygame Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Freedirtygame pop-up alerts may show up out of the blue, covering the post of the website you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Freedirtygame ad may result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Freedirtygame popups removal in several manners, and also inspecting your computer for extra viruses presence.

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What are Freedirtygame pop-ups?

Freedirtygame popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a massive amount of revenue for adware suppliers. These promotions may have sometimes shocking material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Freedirtygame push notification

Freedirtygame push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, affordable and also extremely effective marketing tool1. It makes it possible for the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this chance and purchase it. Taking into consideration the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a much-loved thing amidst the advertising teams of big internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Option to show the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup ads. And Freedirtygame.com ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Freedirtygame
SiteFreedirtygame.com
HostingAS51167 Contabo GmbH
Germany, Nürnberg
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address5.189.171.71
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorLukdliketobep, Eofgreatbrit, Ainasimpleg
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Freedirtygame virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that result in the Freedirtygame popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users often make use of the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are unsafe, due to the fact that it is quite easy to build in a Freedirtygame 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.

Freedirtygame popup malware may likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd site. Such sites are typically full of intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally accept any kind of promotions to be published on their page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also get something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Freedirtygame pop-up virus can initiate a variety of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications may display you the advertisements, where you are offered to get another strange program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these advertisements, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of 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 data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Freedirtygame adware clearing contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and then take care of the consequences of its action. The elimination task is very easy, because it can be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its substantial resources utilization, as well as some errors that can be pivotal for some kinds of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will certainly exterminate the malware from your system and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Freedirtygame adware initially.

Removing Freedirtygame 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 Freedirtygame 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 browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then 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.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes the things a lot harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Freedirtygame pop-up ads are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the typical, 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 Freedirtygame Pop-ups?

Name: Freedirtygame

Description: Freedirtygame - 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 Freedirtygame.com push notifications?” or “why do Freedirtygame.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Freedirtygame 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 review and also the reasons why I recommend 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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