Remove Theonlygames.com Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham

Unwanted Theonlygames.com pop-up notifications can show up out of the blue, covering the post of the page you explored or opening your browser when you do not need it to be opened. Clicking on the Theonlygames.com pop-up promotion may cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the manual of Theonlygames.com popups removal in various ways, as well as examining your computer for additional malware presence.

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What are Theonlygames.com pop-ups?

Theonlygames.com popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which creates a substantial amount of revenue for adware representatives. These advertisements might have explicit composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Theonlygames.com push notification

Theonlygames.com push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, low-cost and also extremely productive advertising solution1 It enables the seller to attach the customers’ interest to their website, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to buy. When the person will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online store he/she visited earlier with a 15% discount, one will certainly use this chance and buy it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing instrument is a much-loved thing amongst the marketing teams of large internet retail stores.

However, such a rewarding system could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware attack is an excellent basis for malicious tricks with the popup advertisements. And Theonlygames.com ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short summary for the Theonlygames.com
Site Theonlygames.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 172.64.101.4
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Casttravel1.xyz, Uploadhub.co, Ritonengi.online
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Theonlygames.com virus?

There are a lot of methods of getting contaminated by the adware that trigger the Theonlygames.com 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. Freeware may also be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is offered as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of individuals oftentimes use the unreliable programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of software are unsafe, since it is very easy to build in a Theonlygames.com malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Theonlygames.com popup malware can likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual web page. Such sites are generally full of bright and blinking advertisements, and their owners generally approve any promos to be placed on their page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a shot in the dark: only the ad contractor realizes what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can also get something much more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the substantial share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

How can I get rid of Theonlygames.com pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Theonlygames.com adware clearing contains 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and then repair the consequences of its activity. The removal process is quite simple, due to the fact that it can be done even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware tool that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its substantial resources consumption, as well as some defects that may be crucial for some kinds of users, Defender is oftentimes disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses have the ability to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far 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 antivirus device that will definitely exterminate the viruses from your computer and also create an impenetrable shield with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s take care of Theonlygames.com adware initially.

Removing Theonlygames.com 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 Theonlygames.com 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 browser will be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’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 issue that makes things much more difficult to fix, especially without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Theonlygames.com pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, but huge 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 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 Theonlygames.com Pop-ups?

Name: Theonlygames.com

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