Remove Phoalard.net Virus — How to Fix Guide

Phoalard.net pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the post of the site you went to or opening your web browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Phoalard.net advertisement can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Phoalard.net popups clearing in a couple of manners, as well as inspecting your computer for additional malware presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Phoalard.net manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.

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What are Phoalard.net pop-ups?

Phoalard.net popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a significant amount of profit for adware distributors. These promotions might contain sometimes shocking composition, or have a link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Phoalard.net push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, affordable and also extremely effective advertising instrument¹. It makes it possible for the seller to attach the buyers’ attention to their website, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is available at the online shop he/she visited earlier with a 15% discount, one will surely use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising instrument is a favourite thing amidst the marketing departments of large internet stores.

Nonetheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup promotions. And Phoalard.net ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Phoalard.net site

How have I got the Phoalard.net virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming infected by the adware that create the Phoalard.net popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is offered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users regularly make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of software are dangerous, because it is extremely simple to integrate a Phoalard.net 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.

Phoalard.net popup virus can likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange site. Such websites are in most cases full of colorful and blinking ads, and their owners typically permit any kind of promos to be published on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can additionally get something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Phoalard.net pop-up virus may cause a wide range of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can show you the advertisements, where you are offered to download one more unknown application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted 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 spreading way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Phoalard.net pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Phoalard.net adware elimination includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and afterwards repair the effects of its activity. The removal procedure is quite easy, since it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, due to its huge resources utilization, along with some failures that may be serious for some types of individuals, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. Furthermore, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus device that will undoubtedly erase the malware from your personal computer and make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s take care of Phoalard.net adware initially.

Removing Phoalard.net 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 Phoalard.net 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 :

1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :

2. 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. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :

After choosing this option, you will see the next message :

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 be connected the right DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content³:

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 repair, especially without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware versions that are used to show you the Phoalard.net pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, until you try to open settings once more.

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 Phoalard.net Pop-ups?

Name: Phoalard.net

Description: Phoalard.net - 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 Phoalard.net push notifications?” or “why do Phoalard.net pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Phoalard.net 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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1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.