Remove Hourtenwalk Virus Removal Guide

Hourtenwalk pop-ups notification can appear out of the blue, covering the subject of the page you checked or opening your web browser when you don’t desire it to be opened. Clicking on the Hourtenwalk pop-up advertisement can cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Hourtenwalk popups clearing in various manners, as well as checking your system for additional viruses existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Hourtenwalk 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 Hourtenwalk pop-ups?

Hourtenwalk popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a massive amount of profit for adware distributors. These promotions might have sometimes shocking material, or have a link to harmful content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Hourtenwalk push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, cheap and also very successful advertising method¹ It makes it possible for the seller to link the customers’ attention to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is available at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and purchase it. Taking into consideration the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favorite thing among the marketing teams of big online retail stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by malware developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the people of a malware attack is a perfect basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Hourtenwalk ads is one of the hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Hourtenwalk

How have I got the Hourtenwalk virus?

There are a number of ways of becoming infected by the adware that trigger the Hourtenwalk popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus case 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 offered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users regularly use the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are risky, since it is quite easy to integrate a Hourtenwalk malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algorithm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Hourtenwalk popup virus can likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the odd website. Such websites are in most cases full of colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically accept any type of promotions to be placed on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise get something far more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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

How can I get rid of Hourtenwalk pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Hourtenwalk adware elimination includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and then deal with the consequences of its activity. The elimination task is quite easy, because it may be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its huge resource consumption, along with some failures that may be crucial for some types of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses have the ability to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use a separate program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security tool that will undoubtedly wipe out the malware from your PC and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s manage Hourtenwalk adware first.

Removing Hourtenwalk 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 Hourtenwalk 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 accurate DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file named “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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much more difficult to restore, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of the adware variations that are utilized to show you the Hourtenwalk pop-up advertisements are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, a huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. The browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to normal, up 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.

You can see the list of the 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.

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.

1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.