How to remove Smilerweek pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Smilerweek pop-up alerts may appear out of the blue, covering the subject of the site you went to or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Smilerweek advertisement can trigger the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Smilerweek popups removal in multiple methods, as well as inspecting your PC for other malware presence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Smilerweek 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 Smilerweek pop-ups?

Smilerweek popups are an effect of adware action. Adware is a type of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a significant amount of profit for adware distributors. These advertisements may have sometimes shocking material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Smilerweek push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is an excellent, affordable and very efficient marketing instrument¹. It permits the vendor to attach the customers’ interest to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is offered at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will certainly use this possibility and purchase it. Taking into consideration the very low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a favourite thing amongst the marketing departments of big online retail stores.

Nonetheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the people of malware attack is an ideal basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Smilerweek.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Smilerweek

How have I got the Smilerweek virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that result in the Smilerweek popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is delivered as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users regularly utilize the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are unsafe, due to the fact that it is very easy to integrate a Smilerweek 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.

Smilerweek popup malware can additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual website. Such web pages are usually packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their owners often permit any type of promos to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also get something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Smilerweek pop-up virus can cause a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications can present you the banners, where you are offered to download another strange program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very 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 promotions 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 interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Smilerweek adware removal contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and after that correct the results of its activity. The removal process is very simple, because it may be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, along with some problems that can be pivotal for some types of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Additionally, different trojan viruses can disable the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven antivirus device that will surely erase the viruses from your PC and also create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s manage Smilerweek adware first.

Removing Smilerweek 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 Smilerweek 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 browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’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 much more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are used to show you the Smilerweek pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the typical, till 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 recommend it for malware removal.
3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.