Remove FunFollowCollect Virus — How to Fix Guide

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

Clicking the FunFollowCollect ad can lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of FunFollowCollect popups clearing in multiple ways, as well as examining your personal computer for other viruses existence.

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What are FunFollowCollect pop-ups?

FunFollowCollect popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a major volume of income for adware suppliers. These promotions may have sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is money.

FunFollowCollect push notification

FunFollowCollect push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, low-cost and also very successful marketing method1. It enables the vendor to link the buyers’ interest to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is available at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and buy it. Considering the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a favourite thing amongst the marketing departments of large internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup promotions. And Funfollowcollect.live promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short summary for the FunFollowCollect
SiteFunfollowcollect.live
HostingAS209813 Fast Content Delivery LTD
Netherlands, Haarlem
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address5.189.217.102
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorNews, Chicheet, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the FunFollowCollect virus?

There are a lot of methods of becoming infected by the adware that lead to the FunFollowCollect popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can likewise be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people often work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of applications are unsafe, due to the fact that it is quite simple to integrate a FunFollowCollect 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.

FunFollowCollect popup virus can additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual site. Such sites are generally loaded with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically accept any kind of promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may likewise receive something far more threatening, 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 programs, like FunFollowCollect pop-up virus can cause a lot of different problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups may show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed under the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable 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 distribution way by different trojan viruses, for example – 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 interacting with these promotions, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your 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 eliminate the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of FunFollowCollect adware clearing includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and after that fix the results of its activity. The elimination process is pretty simple, since it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its significant resources consumption, as well as some bugs that may be critical for some types of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will undoubtedly erase the viruses from your personal computer and also make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with FunFollowCollect adware initially.

Removing FunFollowCollect 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 FunFollowCollect 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 ensure that your browser will connect the proper DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’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.

However, there is one trouble that makes the things much harder to repair, especially without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variations that are used to show you the FunFollowCollect pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, 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 FunFollowCollect Pop-ups?

Name: FunFollowCollect

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