Remove Getnows Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Getnows pop-up notifications may show up unexpectedly, covering the post of the page you visited or opening your web browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Getnows advertisement can result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Getnows popups removal in multiple manners, as well as inspecting your PC for extra viruses presence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Getnows manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Getnows pop-ups?

Quick reference

When the customer does not see a pop-up option, he’ll probably click for the same ad once he discovers it on the TV for sale on a different site.

But what if he doesn’t want to buy? One could argue that this would limit the scope and impact of using the money received to pay for a new and improved system. For our case study, the TV sets we had purchased before for a few weeks, our current set of TVs for a year and now for two, are very different. We don’t want the TV set we gave to TV station, to be delivered quickly that he may buy on a day-to-day basis.

Getnows popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a substantial amount of earnings for adware representatives. These promotions might include explicit information, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is money.

Getnows push notification

Getnows push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, cheap and very productive marketing solution1. It enables the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is offered at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a favourite thing among the marketing teams of huge internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware creators. Option to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup promotions. And Getnows.xyz advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Getnows site
Site Getnows.xyz
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 104.21.65.29
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Mrchdmnscn, Witmayhav, Donothave
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Getnows virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Getnows popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is provided as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people frequently use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various apps that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of programs are dangerous, due to the fact that it is quite easy to include a Getnows malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Getnows popup virus can likewise be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the unusual website. Such sites are usually full of intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often permit any type of promos to be posted on their web page. Thus, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally get something much more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation 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 Getnows pop-up virus can cause a lot of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications can present you the advertisements, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very 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 ads are also exploited as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation 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 programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Getnows adware elimination contains 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that repair the effects of its activity. The elimination procedure is really simple, since it can be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, along with some failures that may be crucial for some kinds of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Additionally, a variety of trojan viruses can disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will definitely eliminate the malware from your PC and also make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s deal with Getnows adware initially.

Removing Getnows 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 Getnows 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 web browser will be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your 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.

However, there is one problem that makes things a lot more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Getnows pop-up ads 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 infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, up until you try to open settings one more time.

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 Getnows Pop-ups?

Name: Getnows

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

Sending
User Review
3 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up ads 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending