Remove Icotocotac Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Icotocotac pop-up alerts may appear unexpectedly, covering the subject of the site you visited or opening your browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Icotocotac promotion can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Icotocotac popups removal in various manners, and also checking your system for additional malware presence.

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What are Icotocotac pop-ups?

Icotocotac popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a significant volume of profit for adware representatives. These ads may include explicit composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is money.

Icotocotac push notification

Icotocotac push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, affordable and also really efficient marketing method1. It allows the seller to link the customers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to purchase is available at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the extremely low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favorite thing amidst the advertising teams of huge internet stores.

Nonetheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And Icotocotac.biz promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a info for the Icotocotac
SiteIcotocotac.biz
HostingAS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address34.196.151.230
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorTyoconcer, Musicandsunshine, Regecish
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Icotocotac virus?

There are a lot of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Icotocotac popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may additionally 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 work with the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of software are unsafe, because it is extremely easy to build in a Icotocotac malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Icotocotac popup virus can also be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are generally packed with bright and blinking advertisements, and their owners usually approve any kind of promos to be published on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may additionally receive something much more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Icotocotac pop-up virus may cause a lot of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups may present you the ads, where you are offered to download one more dubious application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. 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 fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also chosen as a spreading way by different 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 advertisements, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of 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 and money loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Icotocotac adware removal contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and then correct the results of its action. The removal process is pretty simple, due to the fact that it may be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its huge resources utilization, as well as some failures that can be critical for some types of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. Additionally, different trojan viruses have the ability to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will surely eliminate the viruses from your system and also create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s manage Icotocotac adware first.

Removing Icotocotac 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.
  • Gridinsoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

  • 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.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware scan results

  • When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Icotocotac malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware - After Cleaning

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. Reseting the Edge browser

  3. 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. The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

  3. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
  4. The second step of Firefox restoration
    After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
    The last step for Firefox
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 be connected the right DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much harder to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware versions that are used to show you the Icotocotac pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, till you try to open settings one more time.

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.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

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.

Reset Browser Settings tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

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.

How to Remove Icotocotac Pop-ups?

Name: Icotocotac

Description: Icotocotac - a lot of users became a target for the pop-up advertisements. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove Icotocotac.biz push notifications?” or “why do Icotocotac.biz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Icotocotac pop-ups, which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Adware

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References

  1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
  3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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