Remove Safestar.info Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Safestar.info pop-up notifications may show up unexpectedly, covering the subject of the page you explored or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking on the Safestar.info promotion may trigger the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Safestar.info popups removal in multiple methods, as well as inspecting your personal computer for extra viruses existence.

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What are Safestar.info pop-ups?

Safestar.info popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a substantial amount of profit for adware distributors. These ads may include explicit material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Safestar.info push notification

Safestar.info push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and also really effective advertising instrument1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the consumer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is available at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this chance and purchase it. Taking into consideration the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favorite thing among the marketing teams of huge online sellers.

However, such a rewarding strategy could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware attack is a perfect basis for malevolent tricks with the popup promotions. And Safestar.info promotions is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short summary for the Safestar.info
SiteSafestar.info
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address188.114.96.3
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorPiran, Fulltimesecuritysystem, Apple
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Safestar.info virus?

There are a number of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that cause the Safestar.info popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can additionally be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is supplied as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users often use the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of programs are risky, since it is very easy to build in a Safestar.info malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Safestar.info popup virus may additionally be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange website. Such websites are usually full of intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally accept any type of promotions to be posted on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Safestar.info pop-up virus can initiate a wide range of different problems on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can present you the advertisements, where you are offered to get another dubious program, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, 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 pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also chosen as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these ads, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Safestar.info pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Safestar.info adware elimination consists of 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and then deal with the consequences of its activity. The removal task is quite easy, because it can be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its substantial resources consumption, as well as some problems that can be crucial for some groups of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. Additionally, a variety of trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will definitely eliminate the viruses from your computer and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Safestar.info adware initially.

Removing Safestar.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 Safestar.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 browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your web browser will connect the proper DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes things a lot more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Safestar.info pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the 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.

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 Safestar.info Pop-ups?

Name: Safestar.info

Description: Safestar.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 Safestar.info push notifications?” or “why do Safestar.info pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Safestar.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 advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I advise 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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