Remove Thecred.info Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Thecred.info pop-up notifications can appear out of the blue, covering the material of the site you visited or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Thecred.info advertisement can lead to the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the manual of Thecred.info popups removal in several methods, and also examining your PC for extra viruses presence.

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What are Thecred.info pop-ups?

Thecred.info popups are a result of adware presence. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a large volume of earnings for adware representatives. These advertisements might have explicit material, or have a link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Thecred.info push notification

Thecred.info push notification.

Pop-up advertising itself is a very good, low-priced and also really effective marketing method1. It allows the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their website, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is available at the online store he/she checked out earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this possibility and buy it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a favorite thing amongst the advertising teams of large internet retailers.

However, such a successful system could not be missed by virus creators. Option to demonstrate the popup ads forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is an excellent basis for evil-minded manipulations with the popup ads. And Thecred.info advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Thecred.info
SiteThecred.info
HostingAS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address34.193.82.36
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorFresh, Gmansu, News
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Thecred.info virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting infected by the adware that lead to the Thecred.info 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 may also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is provided as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people regularly work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these kinds of software are dangerous, since it is quite easy to build in a Thecred.info malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Thecred.info popup virus can additionally be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the odd site. Such sites are usually full of colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors typically permit any type of promos to be posted on their page. Hence, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can also receive something far more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Thecred.info popup virus may initiate a lot of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-ups may display you the banners, where you are offered to get another unknown program, or “a effective anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related ads are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with 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 deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Thecred.info pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Thecred.info adware removal consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and then fix the results of its action. The elimination procedure is pretty easy, due to the fact that it may be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, because of its significant resources utilization, along with some problems that may be crucial for some categories of users, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its usage is likely impossible. What’s more, a variety of trojan viruses are able to disable the embedded antivirus. It is much better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly eliminate the viruses from your system and also make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. But let’s manage Thecred.info adware initially.

Removing Thecred.info 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 Thecred.info 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 ensure that your browser will definitely connect the appropriate 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 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.

However, there is one problem that makes things much more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are utilized to show you the Thecred.info pop-up ads are changing 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 certainly crash quickly. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the normal, until 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 Thecred.info Pop-ups?

Name: Thecred.info

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