Remove Sifenews Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Sifenews pop-up notices may appear out of the blue, covering the material of the page you checked or opening your web browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Sifenews ad can cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Sifenews popups removal in multiple ways, and also checking your personal computer for other malware existence.

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What are Sifenews pop-ups?

Sifenews popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a large amount of revenue for adware representatives. These ads may contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Sifenews push notification

Sifenews push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, cheap and very effective marketing solution1. It makes it possible for the seller to link the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the consumer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this possibility and buy it. Taking into consideration the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favourite thing amidst the advertising departments of huge online retail stores.

Nonetheless, such a successful scheme could not be missed by virus creators. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware invasion is a great basis for malicious manipulations with the popup promotions. And Sifenews.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short info for the Sifenews site
SiteSifenews.com
HostingAS16509 Amazon.com, Inc.
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address143.204.98.83
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorDefendyourfiles, Date4you2, Klemusvid
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Sifenews virus?

There are a number of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that result in the Sifenews popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of individuals often work with the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are unsafe, due to the fact that it is quite easy to integrate a Sifenews 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.

Sifenews popup virus can likewise be hidden in the ad somewhere on the odd web page. Such web pages are in most cases packed with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors typically permit any kind of promos to be published on their web page. Hence, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may additionally receive something a lot more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial 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 unwanted applications, like Sifenews pop-up virus may initiate a variety of different problems on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups may display you the advertisements, where you are offered to download another unknown application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these ads, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – 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 antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The tutorial of Sifenews adware clearing consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and then correct the effects of its action. The elimination task is pretty simple, due to the fact that it may be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its huge resources usage, along with some defects that can be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. In addition, different trojan viruses have the ability to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will certainly exterminate the malware from your system and also create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s manage Sifenews adware initially.

Removing Sifenews 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 Sifenews 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 ensure that your web browser will be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things much more difficult to repair, specifically without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Sifenews pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, but huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, 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 Sifenews Pop-ups?

Name: Sifenews

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