Smartopc.xyz Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Smartopc.xyz pop-up alerts can show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the website you checked or opening your browser when you don’t want it to be opened.

Clicking on the Smartopc.xyz promotion can lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Smartopc.xyz popups clearing in several manners, and also inspecting your computer for additional malware existence.

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What are Smartopc.xyz pop-ups?

Smartopc.xyz popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a major volume of income for adware distributors. These ads may have sometimes shocking material, or have a web link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Smartopc.xyz push notification

Smartopc.xyz push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, cheap and also really effective marketing instrument1. It allows the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their website, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is provided at the online store he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will surely use this opportunity and purchase it. Considering the very low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a favourite thing amidst the marketing departments of big internet stores.

However, such a rewarding strategy could not be missed by virus creators. Option to show the popup ads forcibly to the people of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Smartopc.xyz promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short info for the Smartopc.xyz site
SiteSmartopc.xyz
HostingAS198068 P.A.G.M. OU
Estonia, Jõhvi
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address5.45.112.153
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorTakebonuseshere, News, Securityanalysisreport
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Smartopc.xyz virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of becoming infected by the adware that trigger the Smartopc.xyz popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can also be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of people regularly work with the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are risky, because it is very easy to integrate a Smartopc.xyz malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Smartopc.xyz popup virus can likewise be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual website. Such sites are generally filled with intense and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors often permit any type of promotions to be placed on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement provider knows what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise receive something much more damaging, 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 programs, like Smartopc.xyz pop-up virus can provoke a wide range of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can present you the banners, where you are offered to get another dubious program, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking 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 data loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Smartopc.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Smartopc.xyz adware clearing includes 2 sections. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and after that repair the consequences of its action. The removal task is really simple, because it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, due to its large resources usage, along with some errors that can be critical for some types of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. Moreover, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security tool that will undoubtedly erase the viruses from your computer and make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Smartopc.xyz adware first.

Removing Smartopc.xyz 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 Smartopc.xyz 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 need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your desktop, then 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 issue that makes the things much more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Smartopc.xyz pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, 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.

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 Smartopc.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Smartopc.xyz

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