Gadsoks.com Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

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

Clicking the Gadsoks.com advertisement may lead to the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Gadsoks.com popups clearing in various ways, as well as examining your personal computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Gadsoks.com pop-ups?

Gadsoks.com popups are an outcome of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a major amount of earnings for adware representatives. These advertisements might consist of explicit material, or have a link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Gadsoks.com push notification

Gadsoks.com push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-priced and also extremely successful advertising solution1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the buyers’ interest to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and get it. Considering the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favorite thing amongst the marketing teams of huge online retail stores.

Nonetheless, such a successful system could not be missed by virus creators. Ability to show the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Gadsoks.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Gadsoks.com site
SiteGadsoks.com
HostingAS39572 DataWeb Global Group B.V.
United States, Washington
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address192.243.59.20
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorNewssysstem, Touchycart, Iconbecoming
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Gadsoks.com virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that create the Gadsoks.com popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users frequently make use of the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these kinds of programs are unsafe, because it is very simple to include a Gadsoks.com 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.

Gadsoks.com popup virus may also be hidden in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are usually filled with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often approve any promotions to be placed on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something much more damaging, 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 undesirable programs, like Gadsoks.com popup virus may initiate a variety of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications can display you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more strange application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is quite 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 advertisements are also used as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds 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 can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Gadsoks.com pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Gadsoks.com adware removal includes 2 parts. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards fix the effects of its action. The elimination process is very easy, because it can be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its large resources utilization, as well as some errors that can be crucial for some categories of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its usage is most likely impossible. Furthermore, various trojan viruses have the ability to disable the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will undoubtedly erase the viruses from your personal computer and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s manage Gadsoks.com adware initially.

Removing Gadsoks.com 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 Gadsoks.com 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 be connected the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that 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.

Nonetheless, there is one problem that makes the things a lot more difficult to restore, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are used to show you the Gadsoks.com pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser setups, 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 crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the normal, till 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 Gadsoks.com Pop-ups?

Name: Gadsoks.com

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