Remove Makemydownload Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Makemydownload pop-up alerts can appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the site you checked or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Makemydownload ad may lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Makemydownload popups clearing in multiple methods, and also checking your personal computer for additional viruses presence.

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What are Makemydownload pop-ups?

Makemydownload popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a large volume of profit for adware representatives. These promotions may include explicit composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Makemydownload push notification

Makemydownload push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-cost and very effective advertising solution1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is provided at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% discount, one will certainly use this possibility and purchase it. Considering the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising method is a much-loved thing among the marketing departments of big internet retailers.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware attack is a great basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup advertisements. And Makemydownload.com ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Makemydownload
SiteMakemydownload.com
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address188.114.97.7
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorPlayoriginalextremelythefile, Datingtorrid, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Makemydownload virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that trigger the Makemydownload popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can also 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 people regularly work with the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various tools that are free, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of programs are dangerous, because it is very easy to include a Makemydownload malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Makemydownload popup malware can also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual website. Such web pages are generally packed with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners usually accept any kind of promos to be placed on their page. Hence, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise get something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Makemydownload pop-up virus may cause a variety of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups may present you the banners, where you are offered to download another dubious application, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may 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 pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a distribution method by different 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 banners, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Makemydownload adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that take care of the results of its activity. The removal task is very easy, since it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, along with some problems that can be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. In addition, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will certainly wipe out the malware from your computer and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s handle Makemydownload adware first.

Removing Makemydownload 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 Makemydownload 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 web browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your browser will definitely connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much more difficult to fix, specifically without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware versions that are used to show you the Makemydownload pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser settings, 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 crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, up until you try to open settings 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.

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 Makemydownload Pop-ups?

Name: Makemydownload

Description: Makemydownload - 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 Makemydownload.com push notifications?” or “why do Makemydownload.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Makemydownload 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 ads on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I advise it for malware elimination.
  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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