Remove Softwarewit Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Softwarewit pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the content of the page you checked or opening your web browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking the Softwarewit advertisement may result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guideline of Softwarewit popups clearing in several methods, as well as inspecting your computer for additional malware presence.

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What are Softwarewit pop-ups?

Softwarewit popups are an outcome of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which creates a substantial volume of profit for adware representatives. These advertisements might have explicit material, or have a link to malevolent content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Softwarewit push notification

Softwarewit push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-cost and also very successful marketing tool1. It allows the vendor to attach the buyers’ interest to their website, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is provided at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this opportunity and get it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a favorite thing among the advertising departments of huge online stores.

However, such a profitable system could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the people of malware attack is an excellent basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Softwarewit.com advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Softwarewit site
SiteSoftwarewit.com
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address188.114.97.7
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorPromo, Onlinevideoconverter, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Softwarewit virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Softwarewit popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software can likewise be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is presented as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people regularly make use of the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are dangerous, because it is very easy to include a Softwarewit malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Softwarewit popup malware may also be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual site. Such websites are generally packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors typically permit any promos to be published on their web page. Thus, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad provider knows what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also receive something far more unsafe, 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 undesirable programs, like Softwarewit pop-up virus may initiate a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups can present you the ads, where you are offered to download one more strange program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last slogun. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also used 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 several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these banners, 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 solve it without information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Softwarewit adware clearing contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and then repair the results of its action. The elimination process is very simple, due to the fact that it may be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, as well as some failures that may be crucial for some groups of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its use is probably impossible. Moreover, different trojan viruses are capable to disable the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly eliminate the malware from your computer and also make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Softwarewit adware first.

Removing Softwarewit 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 Softwarewit 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 ensure that your browser will be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that 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 trouble that makes things a lot more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware software. A lot of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Softwarewit pop-up promotions are modifying the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the typical, till you attempt to open settings once more.

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 Softwarewit Pop-ups?

Name: Softwarewit

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