Remove Handkeight.xyz Virus — How to Fix Guide

Handkeight.xyz pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the subject of the site you explored or opening your web browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Handkeight.xyz promotion may result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Handkeight.xyz popups removal in a couple of methods, and also checking your system for additional malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Handkeight.xyz 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.

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What are Handkeight.xyz pop-ups?

Handkeight.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 ads, which generates a large volume of income for adware representatives. These promotions might contain sometimes shocking composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is money.

Handkeight.xyz push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, cheap and very effective advertising solution¹. It makes it possible for the seller to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the consumer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this opportunity and buy it. Considering the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favourite thing among the marketing departments of huge internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful system could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malicious tricks with the popup promotions. And Handkeight.xyz ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Handkeight.xyz site

How have I got the Handkeight.xyz virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming infected by the adware that create the Handkeight.xyz popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people frequently make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different tools that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are dangerous, because it is extremely simple to integrate a Handkeight.xyz 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.

Handkeight.xyz popup malware may likewise be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are usually filled with colorful and blinking ads, and their owners usually permit any type of promotions to be posted on their web page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also receive something far more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Handkeight.xyz popup virus can initiate a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups can show you the banners, where you are offered to get another dubious program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, 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 distribution way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these banners, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – 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 get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Handkeight.xyz adware clearing includes 2 parts. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards take care of the consequences of its activity. The elimination task is pretty easy, since it may be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its substantial resources consumption, along with some defects that may be pivotal for some categories of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will definitely wipe out the malware from your personal computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Handkeight.xyz adware first.

Removing Handkeight.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.

• 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.

• When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Handkeight.xyz malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.

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. 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. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 right DNS while connecting to the site you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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 more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware versions that are used to show you the Handkeight.xyz pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, up until you attempt 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.

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.

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.

1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and also the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.