How to remove Socialnetwork-adblocker pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Socialnetwork-adblocker pop-up alerts can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the website you visited or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking the Socialnetwork-adblocker ad can trigger the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Socialnetwork-adblocker popups clearing in a couple of manners, as well as inspecting your personal computer for extra viruses existence.

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What are Socialnetwork-adblocker pop-ups?

Socialnetwork-adblocker popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a large volume of revenue for adware suppliers. These promotions might include sometimes shocking material, or have a web link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to show – their single target is money.

Socialnetwork-adblocker push notification

Socialnetwork-adblocker push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and very productive marketing solution1. It permits the vendor to attach the buyers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he likes to purchase is provided at the online store he/she checked out earlier with a 15% discount, one will surely use this opportunity and purchase it. Taking into consideration the incredibly small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a favorite thing amongst the advertising departments of huge online retail stores.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware invasion is an excellent basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup advertisements. And Socialnetwork-adblocker.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Socialnetwork-adblocker site
Site Socialnetwork-adblocker.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 172.67.157.172
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Alrecomefuk, Media, Oackoubs
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Socialnetwork-adblocker virus?

There are a number of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that cause the Socialnetwork-adblocker popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of individuals oftentimes use the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of applications are risky, due to the fact that it is extremely simple to build in a Socialnetwork-adblocker 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.

Socialnetwork-adblocker popup virus may additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual web page. Such websites are generally packed with bright and blinking ads, and their proprietors generally permit any kind of promotions to be posted on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider realizes what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something much more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Socialnetwork-adblocker pop-up virus can initiate a wide range of problems on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups can present you the advertisements, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last slogun. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable 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 chosen as a spreading method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these ads, they may be clicked by someone who also uses your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Socialnetwork-adblocker pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Socialnetwork-adblocker adware clearing consists of 2 parts. First, we need to remove the malware, and after that take care of the consequences of its activity. The removal procedure is pretty easy, since it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its large resources usage, along with some bugs that can be crucial for some types of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will certainly eliminate the viruses from your system and also make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s manage Socialnetwork-adblocker adware first.

Removing Socialnetwork-adblocker 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 Socialnetwork-adblocker 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 make sure that your web browser will connect the proper DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s 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 things a lot more difficult to fix, specifically without the anti-malware software. Most of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Socialnetwork-adblocker pop-up ads are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your machine was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, but significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, till 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 Socialnetwork-adblocker Pop-ups?

Name: Socialnetwork-adblocker

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