How to remove Shortblue.site pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Shortblue.site pop-up alerts can appear out of the blue, covering the post of the page you visited or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking on the Shortblue.site promotion may trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the manual of Shortblue.site popups clearing in multiple manners, as well as inspecting your computer for other malware presence.

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What are Shortblue.site pop-ups?

Shortblue.site popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a massive volume of profit for adware representatives. These advertisements may contain explicit material, or have a link to harmful content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Shortblue.site push notification

Shortblue.site push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, cheap and also extremely efficient advertising instrument1. It allows the vendor to link the customers’ interest to their website, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the consumer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and get it. Considering the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favorite thing amidst the marketing departments of big internet retailers.

However, such a successful scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is an excellent basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup ads. And Shortblue.site promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Shortblue.site site
SiteShortblue.site
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
United States, Santa Clara
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address137.184.85.42
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorYrsii, Ativesathyas, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Shortblue.site virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Shortblue.site popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can additionally be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is provided as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of users frequently utilize the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to build in a Shortblue.site malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Shortblue.site popup malware can additionally be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual site. Such websites are usually filled with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their owners generally permit any kind of promotions to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Shortblue.site popup virus may cause a lot of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups can present you the advertisements, where you are offered to download another dubious application, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and fake antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these banners, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Shortblue.site pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Shortblue.site adware elimination includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and afterwards repair the results of its action. The elimination procedure is really easy, due to the fact that it may be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its large resources consumption, along with some defects that may be critical for some types of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses are able to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will surely exterminate the malware from your personal computer and also make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Shortblue.site adware first.

Removing Shortblue.site 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 Shortblue.site 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 be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the website 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 problem that makes the things a lot harder to repair, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variants that are used to show you the Shortblue.site pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, up until you attempt 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.

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 Shortblue.site Pop-ups?

Name: Shortblue.site

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