How to remove Thefreeadv pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Thefreeadv pop-up alerts can appear unexpectedly, covering the subject of the website you checked or opening your web browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking the Thefreeadv advertisement may cause the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the manual of Thefreeadv popups removal in multiple ways, as well as inspecting your computer for additional malware existence.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

Removing Thefreeadv 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 Thefreeadv pop-ups?

Thefreeadv popups are a result of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which produces a significant volume of earnings for adware representatives. These advertisements may include explicit composition, or have a web link to harmful content/website, due to the fact that adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to show – their solitary target is money.

Thefreeadv push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-cost and extremely productive marketing instrument¹. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the customers’ interest to their site, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this chance and buy it. Considering the exceptionally small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a favorite thing among the marketing teams of large online retail stores.

However, such a rewarding strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to demonstrate the popup ads by force to the people of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious adjustments with the popup ads. And Thefreeadv.com advertisements is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Thefreeadv site

How have I got the Thefreeadv virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that trigger the Thefreeadv popups tornado. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally 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 number of people often use the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free, or even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely simple to integrate a Thefreeadv 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.

Thefreeadv popup virus may also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual web page. Such websites are typically packed with intense and blinking ads, and their proprietors often approve any kind of promotions to be published on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider realizes what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may also receive something much more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Thefreeadv pop-up virus may provoke a variety of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may show you the ads, where you are offered to get one more strange application, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty 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 advertisements are also exploited as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these promotions, they may 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 anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Thefreeadv adware clearing includes 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and afterwards fix the effects of its activity. The removal procedure is very simple, since it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, due to its significant resources consumption, along with some bugs that may be critical for some groups of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Additionally, a wide range of trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is much better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware² – a well-proven security device that will definitely eliminate the viruses from your system and create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s deal with Thefreeadv adware first.

Removing Thefreeadv 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 Thefreeadv 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 browsers are reset, you need to ensure that your web browser will definitely connect the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following lines³:

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 problem that makes things a lot harder to repair, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Thefreeadv pop-up ads are modifying the deep browser settings, 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 crash soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, up 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.

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 Thefreeadv Pop-ups?

Name: Thefreeadv

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