Sefaks.live Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Sefaks.live pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the post of the website you explored or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Sefaks.live advertisement can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Sefaks.live popups clearing in several ways, as well as checking your system for extra viruses presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Sefaks.live 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.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon

Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Sefaks.live pop-ups?

Sefaks.live popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which creates a large volume of income for adware suppliers. These ads may include 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 single target is cash.

Sefaks.live push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, affordable and extremely efficient marketing solution¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. 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 checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and get it. Considering the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a favorite thing amidst the advertising teams of huge internet sellers.

However, such a profitable plan could not be missed by malware developers. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware invasion is an ideal basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Sefaks.live advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Sefaks.live

How have I got the Sefaks.live virus?

There are a number of methods of getting infected by the adware that cause the Sefaks.live popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is offered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people oftentimes utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various apps that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are risky, since it is extremely simple to build in a Sefaks.live 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.

Sefaks.live popup malware may also be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the unusual site. Such websites are usually packed with intense and blinking ads, and their proprietors usually approve any kind of promos to be placed on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something a lot 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 Sefaks.live pop-up virus can provoke a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups may show you the ads, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. 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 banners are also used as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for instance – 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 clicking these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Sefaks.live pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Sefaks.live adware elimination consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards fix the results of its activity. The elimination task is really simple, since it may be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its substantial resources utilization, as well as some errors that may be pivotal for some kinds of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. What’s more, various trojan viruses have the ability to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security tool that will certainly erase the viruses from your personal computer and also make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s handle Sefaks.live adware first.

Removing Sefaks.live 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 Sefaks.live 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 web browser will definitely be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file titled “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.

However, there is one trouble that makes things a lot harder to restore, particularly without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Sefaks.live pop-up promotions are modifying the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, until you try to open settings once 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.

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.

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