Horgi.top Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Horgi.top pop-up notifications can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the page you visited or opening your web browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking on the Horgi.top ad can cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of Horgi.top popups clearing in several methods, and also examining your personal computer for other malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Horgi.top 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 Horgi.top pop-ups?

Horgi.top popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a major amount of earnings for adware suppliers. These promotions may have explicit information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Horgi.top push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, affordable and also very efficient advertising instrument¹. It makes it possible for the seller to link the buyers’ interest to their website, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this chance and buy it. Taking into consideration the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favourite thing amongst the advertising departments of huge online retailers.

However, such a profitable scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is a perfect basis for malevolent tricks with the popup promotions. And Horgi.top promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Horgi.top

How have I got the Horgi.top virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming infected by the adware that result in the Horgi.top popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people regularly make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are unsafe, because it is extremely easy to build in a Horgi.top malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Horgi.top popup virus can additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange site. Such websites are usually full of bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors often permit any promotions to be placed on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider realizes what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally receive something a lot more unsafe, 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 Horgi.top popup virus may cause a variety of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups may present you the promotions, where you are offered to download another strange program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these promotions, they can be clicked by someone 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 remove the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Horgi.top pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Horgi.top adware clearing consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and then deal with the results of its activity. The elimination process is very easy, due to the fact that it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security tool that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, as well as some problems that can be serious for some categories of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Additionally, various trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly remove the malware from your system and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Horgi.top adware first.

Removing Horgi.top 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 Horgi.top 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 ensure that your web browser will definitely connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text³:

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 issue that makes things much harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Horgi.top pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, up 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 overview and the reasons why I suggest it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.