Remove Onlineshield.info Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Onlineshield.info pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the subject of the website you visited or opening your browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Onlineshield.info ad can result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Onlineshield.info popups removal in multiple ways, as well as examining your system for other malware presence.

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What are Onlineshield.info pop-ups?

Onlineshield.info popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a massive amount of earnings for adware representatives. These promotions may have sometimes shocking material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Onlineshield.info push notification

Onlineshield.info push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-priced and also extremely effective advertising tool1. It enables the seller to link the customers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers to receive 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 offered at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this chance and purchase it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a much-loved thing amidst the advertising departments of large online retail stores.

Nevertheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by virus creators. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware attack is an excellent basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup promotions. And Onlineshield.info promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Onlineshield.info
SiteOnlineshield.info
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address165.22.199.156
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorSalecomics2, News, Smartsoftware
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Onlineshield.info virus?

There are a number of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Onlineshield.info popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people often make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various apps that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of programs are dangerous, since it is very easy to integrate a Onlineshield.info malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Onlineshield.info popup virus may additionally be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are generally packed with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically permit any type of promos to be posted on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may additionally receive something much more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Onlineshield.info popup virus may initiate a variety of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications may present you the banners, where you are offered to download one more unknown application, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also chosen as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these banners, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your 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 Onlineshield.info pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Onlineshield.info adware elimination consists of 2 sections. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards take care of the results of its activity. The removal task is quite simple, since it can be performed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its substantial resources consumption, along with some bugs that can be crucial for some types of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. What’s more, different trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is 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 device that will surely exterminate the viruses from your system and also make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Onlineshield.info adware initially.

Removing Onlineshield.info 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 Onlineshield.info 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 make sure that your browser will definitely connect the appropriate 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 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much more difficult to repair, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware versions that are used to show you the Onlineshield.info pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, until you try 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 Onlineshield.info Pop-ups?

Name: Onlineshield.info

Description: Onlineshield.info - 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 Onlineshield.info push notifications?” or “why do Onlineshield.info pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Onlineshield.info 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 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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