Remove Gcouncerne.xyz Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Gcouncerne.xyz pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the material of the site you went to or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Gcouncerne.xyz ad can result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Gcouncerne.xyz popups removal in several ways, and also inspecting your system for extra viruses presence.

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What are Gcouncerne.xyz pop-ups?

Gcouncerne.xyz popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a large volume of income for adware suppliers. These ads may contain sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is money.

Gcouncerne.xyz push notification

Gcouncerne.xyz push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, cheap and extremely successful advertising solution1. It permits the vendor to link the customers’ interest to their site, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this possibility and get it. Considering the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a favourite thing among the advertising teams of huge online retailers.

However, such a profitable scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Option to show the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware invasion is an ideal basis for malicious adjustments with the popup ads. And Gcouncerne.xyz ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Gcouncerne.xyz
Site Gcouncerne.xyz
Hosting AS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 107.22.28.167
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Fixstrongoverlythefile, Live, Sismscoldne
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Gcouncerne.xyz virus?

There are a plenty of methods of getting infected by the adware that result in the Gcouncerne.xyz popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is offered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users frequently utilize the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of applications are risky, because it is very easy to build in a Gcouncerne.xyz malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Gcouncerne.xyz popup malware can likewise be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange website. Such web pages are usually packed with bright and blinking advertisements, and their owners generally accept any type of promos to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider realizes what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally receive something far more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 applications, like Gcouncerne.xyz pop-up virus may initiate a lot of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications can show you the ads, where you are offered to get one more dubious application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also used as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these ads, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Gcouncerne.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Gcouncerne.xyz adware removal consists of 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards fix the effects of its action. The elimination procedure is very easy, because it may be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, because of its significant resources consumption, as well as some defects that may be serious for some kinds of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is probably impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will surely remove the malware from your PC and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s manage Gcouncerne.xyz adware initially.

Removing Gcouncerne.xyz 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 Gcouncerne.xyz 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 be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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 things much more difficult to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Gcouncerne.xyz pop-up promotions are modifying the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, 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 Gcouncerne.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Gcouncerne.xyz

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