Remove Oackoubs Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Oackoubs pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the content of the page you explored or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Oackoubs ad can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Oackoubs popups clearing in multiple methods, and also checking your system for other viruses existence.

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What are Oackoubs pop-ups?

Oackoubs popups are an outcome of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a massive volume of revenue for adware suppliers. These promotions may include explicit information, or have a web link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Oackoubs push notification

Oackoubs push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, affordable and also really efficient marketing solution1. It permits the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this chance and purchase it. Taking into consideration the extremely low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a favourite thing among the marketing teams of huge online sellers.

However, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by virus creators. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Oackoubs.com promotions is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Oackoubs site
SiteOackoubs.com
HostingAS9002 RETN Limited
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address139.45.197.239
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorCodeformylife, Untiljusttyerece, Avactivationwno2
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Oackoubs virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Oackoubs popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of individuals frequently work with the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of programs are dangerous, due to the fact that it is extremely simple to include a Oackoubs 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.

Oackoubs popup virus may also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are in most cases filled with colorful and blinking ads, and their owners usually accept any type of promos to be posted on their page. Thus, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider realizes what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something a lot more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 undesirable programs, like Oackoubs pop-up virus can initiate a variety of different problems on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can display you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for example – 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 promotions, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Oackoubs adware clearing includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and after that correct the effects of its activity. The elimination procedure is very simple, because it can be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, because of its large resources consumption, along with some defects that can be crucial for some types of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. In addition, different trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will certainly exterminate the viruses from your personal computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s deal with Oackoubs adware first.

Removing Oackoubs 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 Oackoubs 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 browser will definitely be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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.

However, there is one problem that makes the things a lot harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Oackoubs pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the normal, 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.

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 Oackoubs Pop-ups?

Name: Oackoubs

Description: Oackoubs - 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 Oackoubs.com push notifications?” or “why do Oackoubs.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Oackoubs 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 also the reasons why I advise 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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