Tiktok-flow Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Tiktok-flow pop-up notifications may show up unexpectedly, covering the content of the page you checked or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Tiktok-flow advertisement may result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Tiktok-flow popups clearing in multiple manners, as well as checking your PC for extra viruses existence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Tiktok-flow 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.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Tiktok-flow pop-ups?

Tiktok-flow popups are an effect of adware activity. Adware is a sort of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a major volume of profit for adware representatives. These promotions might consist of sometimes shocking information, or have a web link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no purpose to examine the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Tiktok-flow push notification

Tiktok-flow push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, affordable and extremely efficient marketing method1. It allows the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they intend to purchase. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to purchase is available at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% discount, one will certainly use this chance and get it. Taking into consideration the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing instrument is a favorite thing among the marketing departments of big online sellers.

Nevertheless, such a profitable system could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malevolent manipulations with the popup advertisements. And Tiktok-flow.com advertisements is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short summary for the Tiktok-flow
Site Tiktok-flow.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 172.67.184.105
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Www, Rushpushy, Promo
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Tiktok-flow virus?

There are a plenty of methods of becoming infected by the adware that cause the Tiktok-flow popups tornado. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Free software may also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is provided as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of people oftentimes use the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of software are unsafe, due to the fact that it is very easy to include a Tiktok-flow 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.

Tiktok-flow popup virus can likewise be hidden in the promotion somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are generally filled with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally accept any kind of promos to be posted on their web page. Hence, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise get something much more risky, like ransomware or coin miner; the big 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 unwanted applications, like Tiktok-flow popup virus may provoke a wide range of different problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications may present you the promotions, where you are offered to get another strange program, or “a effective security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can 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 pseudo antiviruses, popup-related advertisements are also used as a distribution method by various trojan viruses, for example – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these ads, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Tiktok-flow pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Tiktok-flow adware elimination consists of 2 parts. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and after that take care of the consequences of its action. The elimination process is very easy, since it may be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, due to its substantial resources usage, along with some errors that may be pivotal for some groups of individuals, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its use is probably impossible. Additionally, a wide range of trojan viruses have the ability to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly eliminate the malware from your PC and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s handle Tiktok-flow adware initially.

Removing Tiktok-flow 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 Tiktok-flow 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 web browser will definitely connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the website 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 problem that makes the things a lot harder to restore, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Tiktok-flow pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse soon. Sometimes, you will see no crash, but large lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the typical, till you attempt 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 Tiktok-flow Pop-ups?

Name: Tiktok-flow

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

Sending
User Review
3.67 (6 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

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.

Leave a Reply

Sending