How to remove Searchsafes pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Searchsafes pop-up alerts may show up out of the blue, covering the subject of the website you explored or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Searchsafes ad can cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Searchsafes popups clearing in a couple of manners, as well as examining your personal computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Searchsafes pop-ups?

Searchsafes popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a substantial amount of income for adware representatives. These advertisements might consist of sometimes shocking content, or have a web link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Searchsafes push notification

Searchsafes push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-priced and really efficient advertising method1. It enables the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will certainly use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a much-loved thing among the advertising teams of huge online sellers.

Nevertheless, such a successful plan could not be missed by virus developers. Option to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Searchsafes.com advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Searchsafes site
Site Searchsafes.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 188.114.96.3
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Upgradeinfo24, Helthtop, Myauto
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Searchsafes virus?

There are a number of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that create the Searchsafes popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of individuals often utilize the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to include a Searchsafes malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Searchsafes popup malware may additionally be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd website. Such sites are generally full of colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors often approve any promotions to be placed on their web page. Hence, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement contractor knows what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally get something much more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution 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 Searchsafes popup virus can cause a wide range of troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications can show you the promotions, where you are offered to download one more dubious application, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. 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 dubious antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also used 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 tapping these banners, they may be clicked by someone who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Searchsafes adware removal consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that correct the effects of its action. The elimination process is quite simple, due to the fact that it may be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, along with some failures that may be crucial for some types of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is most likely impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly remove the viruses from your computer and create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Searchsafes adware initially.

Removing Searchsafes 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 Searchsafes 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 web browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your web browser will definitely connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, after that 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.

Nonetheless, there is one issue that makes the things a lot more difficult to fix, particularly without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Searchsafes pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, till you attempt to open settings once more.

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 Searchsafes Pop-ups?

Name: Searchsafes

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

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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