Houbekuwu Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Houbekuwu pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the post of the website you explored or opening your browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking on the Houbekuwu advertisement may trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Houbekuwu popups clearing in a couple of methods, as well as inspecting your PC for additional malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Houbekuwu 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 Houbekuwu pop-ups?

Houbekuwu popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a massive amount of profit for adware representatives. These advertisements may consist of sometimes shocking content, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Houbekuwu push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, affordable and very efficient marketing solution¹. It permits the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to purchase is offered at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and buy it. Considering the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a favourite thing among the advertising departments of large internet retailers.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding system could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the people of malware invasion is an ideal basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup promotions. And Houbekuwucoo.com ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Houbekuwu site

How have I got the Houbekuwu virus?

There are a number of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Houbekuwu popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is provided as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to build in a Houbekuwu malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Houbekuwu popup virus may likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd web page. Such websites are typically loaded with bright and blinking ads, and their owners typically permit any promotions to be posted on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise get something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Houbekuwu pop-up virus may provoke a variety of troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications may show you the banners, where you are offered to get one more strange program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for instance – 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 interacting with these advertisements, they can be clicked by whoever 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 eliminate the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Houbekuwu adware clearing contains 2 sections. First, we need to remove the malware, and afterwards deal with the results of its activity. The removal procedure is very easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its significant resources consumption, along with some bugs that may be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Moreover, a variety of trojan viruses are able to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will definitely remove the malware from your personal computer and make an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Houbekuwu adware initially.

Removing Houbekuwu 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 Houbekuwu 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 be connected the right DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that 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 more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Houbekuwu pop-up advertisements are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, 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 review and also the reasons why I advise it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.