Remove Link2captcha.top Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Link2captcha.top pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the material of the page you went to or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Link2captcha.top advertisement can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guideline of Link2captcha.top popups removal in multiple methods, and also checking your personal computer for extra malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Link2captcha.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.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon

Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Link2captcha.top pop-ups?

Link2captcha.top popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a substantial amount of revenue for adware suppliers. These advertisements may include sometimes shocking information, or have a link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Link2captcha.top push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, low-cost and also very effective advertising method¹. It allows the seller to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is offered at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this chance and buy it. Considering the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a favorite thing amongst the marketing teams of huge online retail stores.

However, such a profitable plan could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for malevolent tricks with the popup promotions. And Link2captcha.top promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a info for the Link2captcha.top

How have I got the Link2captcha.top virus?

There are a plenty of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that trigger the Link2captcha.top popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people frequently use the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, and even hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are risky, since it is very simple to include a Link2captcha.top malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Link2captcha.top popup malware may additionally be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange website. Such web pages are in most cases full of intense and blinking advertisements, and their owners often accept any type of promotions to be posted on their page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also receive something much more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Link2captcha.top popup virus can initiate a lot of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups may display you the ads, where you are offered to get another strange application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also used as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these advertisements, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Link2captcha.top pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Link2captcha.top adware elimination includes 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that repair the results of its action. The elimination task is pretty simple, since it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its substantial resources utilization, as well as some failures that may be crucial for some types of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. Additionally, various trojan viruses can shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will certainly eliminate the malware from your computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Link2captcha.top adware first.

Removing Link2captcha.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 Link2captcha.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 web browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your web browser will definitely be connected the right DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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.

However, there is one problem that makes the things a lot more difficult to fix, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware versions that are used to show you the Link2captcha.top pop-up advertisements are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In some cases, 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 typical, up until you attempt to open settings once again.

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 advertisements 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.