Remove Hao360.cn Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Hao360.cn pop-up alerts can appear out of the blue, covering the content of the page you explored or opening your browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Hao360.cn ad can lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of Hao360.cn popups removal in multiple manners, as well as inspecting your computer for other malware presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Hao360.cn 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.

DOWNLOAD NOW

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 Hao360.cn pop-ups?

Hao360.cn popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a massive volume of income for adware distributors. These promotions may include sometimes shocking composition, or have a link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Hao360.cn push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-priced and really effective marketing instrument¹. It permits the seller to link the customers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this chance and buy it. Considering the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the advertising teams of large online retailers.

Nevertheless, such a successful system could not be missed by malware creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup ads. And Hao360.cn promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Hao360.cn

How have I got the Hao360.cn virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming infected by the adware that lead to the Hao360.cn popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals regularly use the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of applications are risky, due to the fact that it is extremely easy to include a Hao360.cn malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Hao360.cn popup virus can likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd website. Such websites are in most cases filled with bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally permit any type of promotions to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also receive something a lot more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Hao360.cn popup virus may provoke a wide range of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can display you the promotions, where you are offered to download another unknown application, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware 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 uses 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 data loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Hao360.cn pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Hao360.cn adware clearing contains 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and after that repair the consequences of its action. The elimination process is very easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its significant resources consumption, as well as some problems that may be crucial for some categories of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Furthermore, different trojan viruses have the ability to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus tool that will undoubtedly erase the viruses from your computer and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Hao360.cn adware initially.

Removing Hao360.cn 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 Hao360.cn 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 web browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then 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 issue that makes the things much more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Hao360.cn pop-up advertisements are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then 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.

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 the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.