Remove Search.toptopix Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Search.toptopix pop-up alerts may show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the site you visited or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Search.toptopix ad can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the manual of Search.toptopix popups clearing in various ways, as well as inspecting your personal computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Search.toptopix pop-ups?

Search.toptopix popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a significant volume of revenue for adware representatives. These advertisements may consist of sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Search.toptopix push notification

Search.toptopix push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, low-priced and extremely successful marketing method1. It makes it possible for the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is offered at the online store he/she saw previously with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this opportunity and buy it. Taking into consideration the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favourite thing among the marketing teams of large internet retail stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware invasion is a perfect basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And Search.toptopix.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Search.toptopix site
SiteSearch.toptopix.com
HostingAS16509 Amazon.com, Inc.
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address18.193.57.75
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorProtection, Gxpowered, Lawsamelip
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Search.toptopix virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting infected by the adware that lead to the Search.toptopix popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is provided as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of people frequently work with the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different utilities that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of programs are unsafe, because it is very simple to include a Search.toptopix malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Search.toptopix popup malware can likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd web page. Such sites are usually full of colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually accept any type of promos to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also get something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Search.toptopix popup virus can provoke a wide range of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may show you the banners, where you are offered to download one more dubious program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often spread under the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Search.toptopix pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Search.toptopix adware clearing includes 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that fix the effects of its action. The removal procedure is pretty simple, since it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its substantial resources consumption, along with some errors that may be serious for some categories of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses have the ability to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will definitely eliminate the malware from your computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s take care of Search.toptopix adware first.

Removing Search.toptopix 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 Search.toptopix 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 ensure that your browser will be connected the right DNS while connecting to the web page you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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.

However, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware software. Most of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Search.toptopix pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, till you try to open settings again.

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 Search.toptopix Pop-ups?

Name: Search.toptopix

Description: Search.toptopix - 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 Search.toptopix.com push notifications?” or “why do Search.toptopix.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Search.toptopix 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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