Remove Harolddebris Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Harolddebris pop-up notifications can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the website you checked or opening your web browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Harolddebris advertisement can result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the manual of Harolddebris popups clearing in a couple of methods, and also checking your computer for other malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Harolddebris 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 Harolddebris pop-ups?

Harolddebris popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a substantial amount of profit for adware representatives. These advertisements may contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malevolent content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Harolddebris push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, cheap and really efficient marketing method¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the customers’ interest to their site, and the customers 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 wishes to buy is offered at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% discount, one will surely use this opportunity and buy it. Considering the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the advertising teams of huge online sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful plan could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to show the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware invasion is an ideal basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Harolddebris.com advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Harolddebris site

How have I got the Harolddebris virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that cause the Harolddebris popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed 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 number of people oftentimes make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different tools that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these types of software are risky, due to the fact that it is extremely simple to integrate a Harolddebris 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.

Harolddebris popup virus can also be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are generally filled with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners often approve any promos to be posted on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider knows what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also receive something far more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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 undesirable applications, like Harolddebris popup virus can initiate a wide range of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can show you the promotions, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also chosen as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for instance – 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 clicking these banners, they may be clicked by someone who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things 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 antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Harolddebris adware elimination consists of 2 parts. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and then fix the effects of its activity. The elimination task is very easy, since it can be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its significant resources consumption, along with some problems that can be crucial for some groups of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Additionally, different trojan viruses are capable to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will undoubtedly remove the viruses from your computer and make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Harolddebris adware initially.

Removing Harolddebris 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 Harolddebris 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 connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’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 problem that makes things a lot harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Harolddebris pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, up 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.

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 suggest it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.