Remove Pushwhy.com Virus — How to Fix Guide

Pushwhy.com pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the post of the page you visited or opening your web browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking the Pushwhy.com promotion can cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Pushwhy.com popups clearing in several methods, as well as examining your personal computer for additional malware presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Pushwhy.com 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 Pushwhy.com pop-ups?

Pushwhy.com popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a major volume of profit for adware suppliers. These advertisements may contain sometimes shocking composition, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the material they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Pushwhy.com push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, low-priced and also really productive advertising method¹. It allows the vendor to link the customers’ interest to their website, and the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and get it. Considering the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favourite thing amidst the marketing teams of big online retail stores.

However, such a successful scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup promotions. And Pushwhy.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short summary for the Pushwhy.com site

How have I got the Pushwhy.com virus?

There are a number of methods of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Pushwhy.com popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware cases is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can likewise be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people oftentimes make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various apps that are free, or even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of applications are unsafe, due to the fact that it is extremely simple to integrate a Pushwhy.com 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.

Pushwhy.com popup malware can additionally be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange web page. Such web pages are generally loaded with bright and blinking advertisements, and their owners usually approve any kind of promotions to be posted on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise receive something much more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Pushwhy.com pop-up virus may initiate a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications may present you the banners, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may 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 pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Pushwhy.com pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Pushwhy.com adware elimination includes 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that take care of the results of its action. The removal process is very easy, due to the fact that it may be performed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, as well as some defects that can be critical for some kinds of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. Furthermore, different trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will surely wipe out the viruses from your personal computer and make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s handle Pushwhy.com adware first.

Removing Pushwhy.com 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 Pushwhy.com 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 browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will connect the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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 a lot harder to fix, specifically without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are used to show you the Pushwhy.com pop-up advertisements are modifying the deep browser setups, 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. In certain cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, up until 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 Pushwhy.com Pop-ups?

Name: Pushwhy.com

Description: Pushwhy.com - 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 Pushwhy.com push notifications?” or “why do Pushwhy.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Pushwhy.com 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 overview and also the reasons why I recommend it for malware elimination.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.