Hapex.live Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Hapex.live pop-up notifications can appear unexpectedly, covering the subject of the site you went to or opening your web browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking the Hapex.live ad may cause the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Hapex.live popups removal in multiple methods, and also inspecting your system for other viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Hapex.live 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 Hapex.live pop-ups?

Hapex.live popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a major amount of revenue for adware distributors. These promotions might have explicit content, or have a link to malicious content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the material they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Hapex.live push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-cost and extremely productive advertising instrument¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online store he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a favorite thing amidst the advertising departments of large internet retailers.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware invasion is a perfect basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup advertisements. And Hapex.live promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Hapex.live site

How have I got the Hapex.live virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that lead to the Hapex.live popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is offered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users oftentimes work with the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are risky, because it is quite simple to build in a Hapex.live malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Hapex.live popup virus may also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are in most cases full of intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often accept any promos to be published on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement provider realizes what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise get something a lot more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Hapex.live popup virus can cause a lot of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more dubious application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related banners are also used as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses 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 data and money loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Hapex.live pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Hapex.live adware clearing contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that deal with the results of its action. The elimination procedure is pretty easy, since it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its significant resources consumption, along with some defects that may be serious for some types of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. Additionally, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly eliminate the viruses from your computer and also create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s manage Hapex.live adware initially.

Removing Hapex.live 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 Hapex.live 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 browser will definitely connect the proper DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content³:

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 things a lot harder to repair, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Hapex.live 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 penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, until you attempt 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 review and the reasons why I suggest it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.