Iodides Pop-up Virus — How to Remove Unwanted Ads?

Iodides.com pop-ups that appear while surfing the Internet are the result of a malicious software activity that resides within your web browser. Such pop-ups emerge in ample quantities, diverting and bothering you.

Most of the pop-ups from Iodides.com site are irrelevant, as it presents any promotional material it gets a contract for. Given that a large number of sites promoted in this way are not benevolent, it is obvious to anticipate them to contain dangerous components. In particular, they can expose you to different forms of online frauds.

What are Iodides pop-ups?

By some of the attributes, Iodides.com pop-ups are similar to normal pop-ups you may experience on legit websites. However, all the distinction – and malignancy – arises from this specific website. Pages like Iodides are often established with sole purpose – to propose unsuspecting individuals to allow pop-ups and then start spamming them.

Short summary of the Iodides.com pop-up ads:

Name Iodides.com
Hosting AS16509 Amazon.com, Inc.
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
IP Address 52.58.78.16
Malware type Adware1
Effect Unwanted pop-up advertisements
Hazard level Medium
Malware source Apps from third-party websites, ads on dubious websites
Similar behavior Allcottablog, Encryptiondefender, Ewogloarge
Removal method
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

Ads by the Iodides.com site are not trustworthy either. At best, those will be entirely irrelevant ads, that will still be irritating considering their frequency. Though, more common instances involve advertisements of mysterious deals with 90% discount, adult web pages ads or phishing attempts. Below are some of the standard patterns for pop-up notifications spam:

  • Your system is infected with 15 viruses. Contact our tech support or perform an immediate scan.
  • You’ve received a new message on Facebook, Twitter, or WhatsApp. Beware of phishing links.
  • Visit this new, totally legitimate shopping site and claim your 95% discount coupon.
  • Sign in on this new crypto exchange website and receive a substantial crypto bonus.
  • Discover 5 (10, 20, or even 50) women near you who are eager to chat.
  • Speed up your computer with an incredibly effective system cleaner.

Due to the illegal advertising approach of Iodides.com, no authentic companies will actually utilize their advertisement services. Meanwhile, the whole array of subjects I’ve delineated above is controlled by the same scammy actors as those who are behind Iodides. At times, upon clicking to the pop-up ad, you might be redirected to another page that suggests activating pop-up advertisements. The activity of multiple sources of pop-ups can transform your web browser into an outlet of a pop-up surge.

Iodides push notification

Iodides push notification.

Where did Iodides pop-ups come from?

The main and most widespread method to access the pop-up spamming site is to navigate through content on warez sites, pages containing pirated content, and equivalent platforms. The people responsible for such dubious venues aim to offset expenses via redirects, often as a promotional strategy. This type of redirection is commonly known as an “anti-bot verification”.

An extra plausible source of pop-up advertisements is adware, currently active inside of your system. It alters browser settings in a way so it begins displaying Iodides pop-ups without your knowledge. However, this circumstance is relatively rare, as such malware employs its own, more efficient method to showcasing advertisements.

Are Iodides pop-up ads dangerous?

Yes, they are. At the surface, they may look harmless – just a blinking window that appears from time to time. However, the contents of this window differ drastically from what you used to see in push notifications. Iodides.com web page is controlled by crooks, who intendedly show tons of malicious ads in pop-ups. They also don’t follow any common sense and can launch sporadic pop-up advertisements into a hurricane of promotions. For weak systems, that may be enough to cause performance issues. But problems are not over at this point.

Why people dislike popups

As with any other thing that touches illegal ads, Iodides pop-up notifications do not contain any legit deals to offer. Even when crooks make the banners looking similar to ones from Amazon, Walmart or Ebay, the website these banners will throw you to are completely different. And these pages may offer you to turn on other pop-ups, install a “useful” program, or pay for a thing at a big discount and never receive it. Let’s leave aside the cases when pop-up notifications promote phishing pages or straightforward malware. There’s no way these pages will bring you any good, thus interacting with them is a very bad idea. For the same reason, Iodides pop-up ads are not recommended to click on either, and the best solution is to disable them as soon as possible.

How to remove Iodides pop-ups?

Reset your browsers manually

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 browser will connect the right DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines2:


# 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.

Scan your system for possible viruses

Once the scan is complete, you will see the detections or a notification about a clean system. Proceed with pressing the Clean Up button (or OK when nothing is detected).

References

  1. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

Technical writer covering malware detections, unwanted programs, and browser-based threats. Wilbur turns research notes into step-by-step guides that Windows users can follow safely.

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