Obsession pop-up alerts can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the site you checked or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.
Clicking the Obsession advertisement may lead to the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guide of Obsession popups clearing in a couple of ways, and also inspecting your personal computer for additional malware existence.
What are Obsession pop-ups?
Obsession popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a massive amount of profit for adware representatives. These promotions may have sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is money.
Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, affordable and also really effective marketing instrument1. It enables the seller to link the customers’ attention to their website, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is provided at the online shop he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this opportunity and buy it. Considering the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a favorite thing among the advertising teams of large online retailers.
However, such a profitable plan could not be missed by virus creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is a great basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup ads. And Obsession.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.
Here is a summary for the Obsession
Site | Obsession.com |
Hosting | AS47846 SEDO GmbH Germany, Frankfurt am Main |
Infection Type | Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads |
IP Address | 64.190.62.111 |
Symptoms | Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner. |
Similar behavior | Gossip, Savideo, Zautils |
Fix Tool | To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC |
How have I got the Obsession virus?
There are a plenty of methods of getting infected by the adware that create the Obsession popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is supplied as a legitimate bundled program.
There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people regularly utilize the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different utilities that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these types of applications are unsafe, since it is quite simple to build in a Obsession 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.
Obsession popup malware may likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange web page. Such websites are in most cases loaded with bright and blinking ads, and their owners typically accept any kind 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 advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise receive something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.
Potentially undesirable applications, like Obsession pop-up virus may cause a wide range of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can show you the promotions, where you are offered to download one more dubious program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often spread under the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also chosen as a distribution way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they can be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.
How can I get rid of Obsession pop-up advertisements?
The manual of Obsession adware removal contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards take care of the results of its activity. The removal process is very simple, because it may be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its large resources utilization, along with some problems that can be crucial for some groups of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its usage is most likely impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.
I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly eliminate the malware from your PC and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s handle Obsession adware initially.
Removing Obsession 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 Obsession 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 :
- Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
- 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 :
- Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
- In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
If you use Google Chrome
- Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
- In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
- 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
- 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 :
- 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 web page you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:
#
# 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 trouble that makes things much harder to restore, specifically without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the Obsession pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, till 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.
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.
How to Remove Obsession Pop-ups?
Name: Obsession
Description: Obsession - 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 Obsession.com push notifications?” or “why do Obsession.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Obsession 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
User Review
( votes)References
- More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
- GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
- Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.