Remove Smartcaptcha.top Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Smartcaptcha.top pop-up notices may show up unexpectedly, covering the post of the page you checked or opening your web browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Smartcaptcha.top advertisement can cause the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Smartcaptcha.top popups clearing in multiple manners, and also checking your PC for other malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Smartcaptcha.top 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.

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What are Smartcaptcha.top pop-ups?

Smartcaptcha.top popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a large amount of income for adware suppliers. These promotions may contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malicious 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 cash.

Smartcaptcha.top push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, low-cost and extremely effective advertising method¹. It permits the vendor to attach the buyers’ interest to their website, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will definitely use this possibility and get it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising tool is a favorite thing among the advertising teams of large online retailers.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding scheme could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to show the popup advertisements forcibly to the targets of malware attack is an ideal basis for malevolent tricks with the popup advertisements. And Smartcaptcha.top ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a details for the Smartcaptcha.top site

How have I got the Smartcaptcha.top virus?

There are a number of ways of getting infected by the adware that result in the Smartcaptcha.top popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may likewise be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is supplied as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people oftentimes use the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are unsafe, since it is very easy to integrate a Smartcaptcha.top 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.

Smartcaptcha.top popup malware may additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual website. Such sites are usually filled with colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors typically permit any promotions to be published on their page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: 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 receive something far more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 undesirable applications, like Smartcaptcha.top pop-up virus may cause a lot of different problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups can display you the banners, where you are offered to download another strange application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed under the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your 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 antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Smartcaptcha.top pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Smartcaptcha.top adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards correct the consequences of its action. The elimination procedure is pretty simple, due to the fact that it may be done even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its significant resources consumption, as well as some errors that can be crucial for some categories of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Moreover, various trojan viruses have the ability to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will definitely wipe out the malware from your system and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s handle Smartcaptcha.top adware first.

Removing Smartcaptcha.top 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 Smartcaptcha.top 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 make sure that your web browser will definitely be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that 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 problem that makes things a lot more difficult to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variations that are used to show you the Smartcaptcha.top 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 machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, up until you attempt 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.

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.

How to Remove Smartcaptcha.top Pop-ups?

Name: Smartcaptcha.top

Description: Smartcaptcha.top - 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 Smartcaptcha.top push notifications?” or “why do Smartcaptcha.top pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Smartcaptcha.top 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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1. More about pop-up ads on Wikipedia.
2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.