Remove Smoothmicro2.xyz Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Smoothmicro2.xyz pop-up alerts may show up out of the blue, covering the subject of the site you visited or opening your web browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Smoothmicro2.xyz ad can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guideline of Smoothmicro2.xyz popups clearing in a couple of methods, as well as examining your PC for other malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Smoothmicro2.xyz 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 Smoothmicro2.xyz pop-ups?

Smoothmicro2.xyz popups are an outcome of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a massive volume of revenue for adware distributors. These advertisements might contain explicit content, or have a link to harmful content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their single target is money.

Smoothmicro2.xyz push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a very good, low-priced and really productive advertising solution¹. It enables the seller to attach the customers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to buy is available at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the advertising departments of huge online stores.

Nevertheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to show the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware attack is an ideal basis for malicious tricks with the popup ads. And Smoothmicro2.xyz ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short info for the Smoothmicro2.xyz site

How have I got the Smoothmicro2.xyz virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming contaminated by the adware that result in the Smoothmicro2.xyz popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users frequently utilize the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are unsafe, due to the fact that it is quite simple to include a Smoothmicro2.xyz malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Smoothmicro2.xyz popup virus may additionally be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are usually packed with intense and blinking ads, and their owners usually approve any type of promotions to be published on their page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can likewise receive something far more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious promotions.

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Smoothmicro2.xyz popup virus can initiate a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can present you the promotions, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may 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 potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these promotions, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Smoothmicro2.xyz pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Smoothmicro2.xyz adware removal consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to remove the malware, and after that deal with the effects of its action. The removal task is quite easy, due to the fact that it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, due to its significant resources usage, along with some errors that can be crucial for some types of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its usage is most likely impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses have the ability to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will definitely remove the viruses from your system and make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Smoothmicro2.xyz adware first.

Removing Smoothmicro2.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.

• 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 Smoothmicro2.xyz 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 ensure that your browser will definitely connect the correct DNS while connecting to the website you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following text³:

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 things a lot more difficult to fix, particularly without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware variations that are used to show you the Smoothmicro2.xyz pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser setups, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the normal, up 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.

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 Smoothmicro2.xyz Pop-ups?

Name: Smoothmicro2.xyz

Description: Smoothmicro2.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 Smoothmicro2.xyz push notifications?” or “why do Smoothmicro2.xyz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Smoothmicro2.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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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.