Remove News-Zaqaz Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
News-Zaqaz pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the content of the site you explored or opening your web browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking on the News-Zaqaz promotion can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of News-Zaqaz popups clearing in several manners, as well as checking your computer for other malware existence.

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What are News-Zaqaz pop-ups?

News-Zaqaz popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a large volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These promotions may have sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to harmful content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

News-Zaqaz push notification

News-Zaqaz push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, cheap and really successful marketing solution1. It enables the seller to link the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is offered at the online shop he/she saw previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this chance and buy it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a much-loved thing among the marketing departments of big internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Option to show the popup ads by force to the victims of malware invasion is a great basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And News-zaqaz.cc advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the News-Zaqaz
SiteNews-zaqaz.cc
HostingAS63023 GTHost
United Kingdom, London
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address149.7.16.223
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorUishoaarran, News, Gineaersifyo
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the News-Zaqaz virus?

There are a plenty of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that create the News-Zaqaz popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people oftentimes work with the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various apps that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are dangerous, because it is extremely easy to integrate a News-Zaqaz 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.

News-Zaqaz popup malware can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are typically loaded with intense and blinking advertisements, and their owners often permit any type of promotions to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider realizes what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like News-Zaqaz popup virus can provoke a wide range of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups can show you the banners, where you are offered to download one more dubious program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often spread with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also exploited as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they can be clicked by someone who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of News-Zaqaz pop-up advertisements?

The manual of News-Zaqaz adware removal includes 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and then correct the results of its activity. The removal procedure is quite easy, due to the fact that it may be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its substantial resources utilization, along with some bugs that may be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Moreover, different trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly eliminate the viruses from your personal computer and create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage News-Zaqaz adware first.

Removing News-Zaqaz 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 News-Zaqaz 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 definitely be connected the correct DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that 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.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes the things a lot more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are used to show you the News-Zaqaz pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, until you attempt 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 News-Zaqaz Pop-ups?

Name: News-Zaqaz

Description: News-Zaqaz - 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 News-zaqaz.cc push notifications?” or “why do News-zaqaz.cc pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with News-Zaqaz 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 review and the reasons why I recommend 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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