Healthy Adware by HealthySoftware — Removal guide

If you spectate the Healthy app running on your PC, it looks like that your system has a problem. All malicious programs are dangerous, with no deviations. Healthy floods your personal computer with a variety of ads, opens your browser without your intention and makes the system unprotected to other malware injection.

What is Healthy App?

Healthy app is an unwanted application that has pretty straightforward adware capabilities. While being promoted as the app with advices for a healthy lifestyle, it in fact floods your browser with useless pages. The administrators of the latter are likely to pay the crooks for this promotion. In particular, it opens the MSN Lifestyle page after the system start, and each time you launch the browser. This malware makes it possible via adding the tasks to a Task Scheduler – another typically malicious action.

It’s worth noting that Healthy app also shows that it connects to unknown IP-addresses. They were never reported as ones that belong to the app’s developer. Hence, it is logical to suppose that these IPs are used to leak personal data about the user. Additionally, it modifies several registry entries that decrease the overall system protection. And that is not clear how can it use this ability in the future. This risky app is definitely unwanted, and because of the page it forcibly shows to the victim, it can be defined as adware.

Adware Summary:

Is Healthy Adware dangerous?

How did I get this virus?

It is hard to trace the origins of malware on your PC. Nowadays, things are mixed, and distribution methods used by adware 5 years ago can be used by spyware nowadays. However, if we abstract from the exact spreading tactic and will think about why it works, the reply will be very basic – low level of cybersecurity understanding. People press on advertisements on odd sites, open the pop-ups they get in their browsers, call the “Microsoft tech support” assuming that the strange banner that says about malware is true. It is necessary to understand what is legitimate – to stay away from misunderstandings when attempting to find out a virus.

Nowadays, there are two of the most widespread methods of malware spreading – bait e-mails and injection into a hacked program. While the first one is not so easy to stay away from – you need to know a lot to recognize a counterfeit – the 2nd one is easy to address: just don’t use cracked programs. Torrent-trackers and various other sources of “free” applications (which are, exactly, paid, but with a disabled license checking) are really a giveaway place of malware. And Healthy Adware is simply within them.

How to remove the Healthy App from my PC?

Reset Browser settings after the adware attack

Adware makes a lot to keep annoying you even after being removed from your computer. It distorts the browser configurations, so it will not work correctly. Until you reset it, of course. Each browser has its own way to restore the default settings. Here are the guides for the most popular ones:

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 be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following content²:


# 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.

1. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.