Remove Thbstvd Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Thbstvd pop-up notices may appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the website you visited or opening your browser when you do not need it to be opened.

Clicking on the Thbstvd advertisement can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guide of Thbstvd popups removal in a couple of methods, and also inspecting your system for other malware existence.

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What are Thbstvd pop-ups?

Thbstvd popups are an effect of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a large volume of earnings for adware suppliers. These ads may have sometimes shocking material, or have a web link to harmful content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Thbstvd push notification

Thbstvd push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a good, low-priced and very productive advertising tool1. It makes it possible for the seller to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online shop he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this possibility and buy it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing method is a favourite thing amongst the advertising teams of large internet sellers.

However, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Option to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware invasion is a great basis for evil-minded adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Thbstvd.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Thbstvd
Site Thbstvd.com
Hosting AS15317 Serverel Inc.
United States, Sunnyvale
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 173.214.240.15
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior News, Noutzing, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Thbstvd virus?

There are a plenty of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Thbstvd popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the main website, and the adware is presented as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users regularly work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are unsafe, since it is very easy to include a Thbstvd malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Thbstvd popup virus may additionally be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange website. Such websites are generally loaded with intense and blinking ads, and their proprietors often approve any promos to be posted on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can additionally receive something a lot more dangerous, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable applications, like Thbstvd popup virus can initiate a wide range of troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-up notifications can present you the promotions, where you are offered to download another unknown application, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is very hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also exploited as a distribution 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 tapping these promotions, they can be clicked by someone 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 solve it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Thbstvd adware removal consists of 2 sections. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and afterwards fix the consequences of its activity. The removal procedure is really simple, due to the fact that it may be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its significant resources utilization, as well as some defects that can be pivotal for some types of individuals, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly wipe out the malware from your system and also make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. However, let’s deal with Thbstvd adware initially.

Removing Thbstvd 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 Thbstvd 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 browser will be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following lines3:

# 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.

Nonetheless, there is one issue that makes things much more difficult to restore, particularly without the anti-malware program. Most of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Thbstvd pop-up ads are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your system was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the normal, until 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.

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 Thbstvd Pop-ups?

Name: Thbstvd

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