Phoukruph Notification Removal — How to Fix Your Browser

Written by Wilbur Woodham

Phoukrupho.com pop-ups that appear while navigating the Internet are the result of a malicious software activity that resides inside your web browser. Such pop-ups emerge in ample quantities, distracting and bothering you.

The most of the pop-ups from Phoukrupho.com site are irrelevant, as it shows any advertising elements it gets a deal for. Given that numerous sites promoted in this manner are not benevolent, it is apparent to anticipate them to feature dangerous components. Specifically, they can throw you into various forms of web scams.

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What are Phoukruph push notifications?

By certain properties, Phoukrupho.com pop-ups are to standard pop-ups you may come across on common sites. However, all the difference – and detriment – stems from this exact website. Pages like Phoukruph are commonly established with sole intention – to propose unsuspecting people to enable pop-ups and then begin spamming them.

Brief description of the Phoukrupho.com pop-up ads:

NamePhoukrupho.com
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
IP Address104.21.63.170
Malware typeAdware1
EffectUnwanted pop-up advertisements
Hazard levelMedium
Malware sourceApps from third-party websites, ads on dubious websites
Similar behaviorNews, Altaipeak, Boxenfot
Removal method
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

Ads by the Phoukrupho.com site are not legitimate either. At best, those will be entirely irrelevant promotions, that will still be bothersome taking into account their frequency. Nevertheless, more typical scenarios encompass advertisements of obscure deals with 90% off, adult sites ads or phishing attempts. Below are some of the classic patterns for pop-up spam:

  • Your system is infected with 15 viruses. Contact our tech support or perform an immediate scan.
  • You’ve received a new message on Facebook, Twitter, or WhatsApp. Beware of phishing links.
  • Visit this new, totally legitimate shopping site and claim your 95% discount coupon.
  • Sign in on this new crypto exchange website and receive a substantial crypto bonus.
  • Discover 5 (10, 20, or even 50) women near you who are eager to chat.
  • Speed up your computer with an incredibly effective system cleaner.

Due to the illicit advertising model of Phoukrupho.com, no lawful enterprises will actually use their promotional offerings. Meanwhile, the entire spectrum of matters I’ve outlined above is handled by the same fraudulent actors as those who are responsible for Phoukruph. Occasionally, upon clicking to the pop-up promotion, you might be thrown to another page that offers activating pop-up advertisements. The activity of several origins of pop-ups can transform your web browser into an pathway of a pop-up surge.

Phoukruph push notification

Phoukruph push notification.

Where did Phoukruph pop-ups come from?

The primary and most common approach to access the pop-up spamming site is to browse content on warez sites, pages containing pirated content, and equivalent platforms. The people responsible for such dubious venues aim to compensate for expenses via redirects, often as a promotion tactic. This type of redirection is commonly known as an “anti-bot verification”.

A further plausible origin of pop-up advertisements is adware, currently active inside of your system. It changes browser settings in a manner so it begins displaying Phoukruph pop-ups without your knowledge. However, this circumstance is relatively uncommon, as such malware employs its own, more productive approach to showcasing advertisements.

Are Phoukruph pop-up advertisements dangerous?

Yes, they are. At the surface, they can look safe – just a colourful pop-up that appears a couple times in an hour. However, the things this window promotes differ drastically from what you used to see in pop-up ads. Phoukrupho.com site is ruled by fraudsters, who intendedly throw hundreds and thousands of irrelevant ads in pop-ups. They also never follow any manners of advertising and can make sporadic push notifications into a hurricane of promotions. For weak systems, that may be enough to make the system slower. But that is not all problems these pop-up notifications carry.

Why people dislike popups

As with any other thing that touches illegal advertising, Phoukruph pop-ups don’t have legit offers. Even though crooks make the banners looking similar to ones from well-known retailers, the web page these ads will throw you to are completely different. And these pages may offer you to turn on other pop-ups, install a “useful” program, or pay for a thing at a big discount and never receive it. Let’s leave aside the cases when push notifications promote phishing pages or straightforward malware. There’s no way these pages will bring you any good, thus interacting with them is a very bad idea. For the same reason, Phoukruph push notifications are not recommended to click on either, and the best solution is to disable them as soon as possible.

How to remove Phoukruph pop-ups?

Fortunately, Phoukruph pop-up ads removal is pretty easy. They parasite in the browser and can’t hide themselves on a disk. Nevertheless, as I stated above, some push notifications may deliver malicious software to your system. It is hard to show all cases, and manual attempts to remove malware is a bad idea. For that reason, after removing the source of the pop-up advertisements the best option is to use anti-malware software. This step is especially recommended if you have never allowed pop-up ads, but they still appeared. This situation can point at adware activity. GridinSoft Anti-Malware will perfectly fit both recovery and malware removal purposes, because of its system recovery functionality and multi-layer detection system.

Remove Phoukrupho.com with Gridinsoft Anti-Malware

We have also been using this software on our systems ever since, and it has always been successful in detecting viruses. It has blocked the most common malicious pop-ups as shown from our tests with the software, and we assure you that it can remove Phoukrupho.com as well as other malware hiding on your computer.

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware - Main Screen

To use Gridinsoft for remove malicious threats, follow the steps below:

1. Begin by downloading Gridinsoft Anti-Malware, accessible via the blue button below or directly from the official website gridinsoft.com.

2.Once the Gridinsoft setup file (setup-gridinsoft-fix.exe) is downloaded, execute it by clicking on the file.

setup-gridinsoft-fix.exe

3.Follow the installation setup wizard's instructions diligently.

Gridinsoft Setup Wizard

4. Access the "Scan Tab" on the application's start screen and launch a comprehensive "Full Scan" to examine your entire computer. This inclusive scan encompasses the memory, startup items, the registry, services, drivers, and all files, ensuring that it detects malware hidden in all possible locations.

Scan for Phoukrupho.com malicious pop-ups

Be patient, as the scan duration depends on the number of files and your computer's hardware capabilities. Use this time to relax or attend to other tasks.

5. Upon completion, Anti-Malware will present a detailed report containing all the detected malicious items and threats on your PC.

The Phoukrupho.com was Found

6. Select all the identified items from the report and confidently click the "Clean Now" button. This action will safely remove the malicious files from your computer, transferring them to the secure quarantine zone of the anti-malware program to prevent any further harmful actions.

The Phoukrupho.com has been removed

8. If prompted, restart your computer to finalize the full system scan procedure. This step is crucial to ensure thorough removal of any remaining threats. After the restart, Gridinsoft Anti-Malware will open and display a message confirming the completion of the scan.

Remember Gridinsoft offers a 6-day free trial. This means you can take advantage of the trial period at no cost to experience the full benefits of the software and prevent any future malware infections on your system. Embrace this opportunity to fortify your computer's security without any financial commitment.

Trojan Killer for “Phoukrupho.com” removal on locked PC

In situations where it becomes impossible to download antivirus applications directly onto the infected computer due to malware blocking access to websites, an alternative solution is to utilize the Trojan Killer application.

Trojan Killer - Main View

There is a really little number of security tools that are able to be set up on the USB drives, and antiviruses that can do so in most cases require to obtain quite an expensive license. For this instance, I can recommend you to use another solution of GridinSoft - Trojan Killer Portable. It has a 14-days cost-free trial mode that offers the entire features of the paid version. This term will definitely be 100% enough to wipe malware out.

Trojan Killer is a valuable tool in your cybersecurity arsenal, helping you to effectively remove malware from infected computers. Now, we will walk you through the process of using Trojan Killer from a USB flash drive to scan and remove malware on an infected PC. Remember, always obtain permission to scan and remove malware from a computer that you do not own.

Step 1: Download & Install Trojan Killer on a Clean Computer:

1. Go to the official GridinSoft website (gridinsoft.com) and download Trojan Killer to a computer that is not infected.

Download Trojan Killer

2. Insert a USB flash drive into this computer.

3. Install Trojan Killer to the "removable drive" following the on-screen instructions.

Install Trojan Killer to Removable Drive

4. Once the installation is complete, launch Trojan Killer.

Step 2: Update Signature Databases:

5. After launching Trojan Killer, ensure that your computer is connected to the Internet.

6. Click "Update" icon to download the latest signature databases, which will ensure the tool can detect the most recent threats.

Click Update Button

Step 3: Scan the Infected PC:

7. Safely eject the USB flash drive from the clean computer.

8. Boot the infected computer to the Safe Mode.

9. Insert the USB flash drive.

10. Run tk.exe

11. Once the program is open, click on "Full Scan" to begin the malware scanning process.

Searching Phoukrupho.com Virus

Step 4: Remove Found Threats:

12. After the scan is complete, Trojan Killer will display a list of detected threats.

Searching Phoukrupho.com Finished

13. Click on "Cure PC!" to remove the identified malware from the infected PC.

14. Follow any additional on-screen prompts to complete the removal process.

Restart needed

Step 5: Restart Your Computer:

15. Once the threats are removed, click on "Restart PC" to reboot your computer.

16. Remove the USB flash drive from the infected computer.

Congratulations on effectively removing Phoukrupho.com and the concealed threats from your computer! You can now have peace of mind, knowing that they won't resurface again. Thanks to Gridinsoft's capabilities and commitment to cybersecurity, your system is now protected.

Now, you should reset your browser settings. You can do that in manual or automated way. The former, obviously, takes more time to complete and may be somewhat complicated if you have never done that. Automated supposes the use of anti-malware programs that can reset all browser settings at once.

Reset your browsers 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 options for each browser. By default, they are set up in a manner that 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 the latter is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

Reset your browsers manually

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 connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines2:


# 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.

Scan your system for possible viruses

After removing the Phoukruph push notifications, it’s time to see if these pop-ups brought any threat to your system. Launch GridinSoft Anti-Malware, and then click on Standard scan. It will be enough in most cases to find and remove malware. The scan will last 5-10 minutes; you are free to use your system during that process.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

Once the scan is complete, you will see the detections or a notification about a clean system. Proceed with pressing the Clean Up button (or OK when nothing is detected).

GridinSoft scan finished

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References

  1. More about this malware type on GridinSoft Encyclopedia.
  2. 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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