Remove Topfreeshop Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Topfreeshop pop-up notifications can show up unexpectedly, covering the material of the website you went to or opening your browser when you don’t wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Topfreeshop advertisement can result in the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Topfreeshop popups removal in multiple manners, and also examining your personal computer for other malware existence.

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What are Topfreeshop pop-ups?

Topfreeshop popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which generates a substantial volume of income for adware representatives. These ads might consist of explicit information, or have a link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no purpose to check the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their single target is money.

Topfreeshop push notification

Topfreeshop push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, cheap and very efficient advertising instrument1. It permits the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is provided at the online shop he/she visited previously with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this possibility and get it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a much-loved thing among the advertising teams of huge online sellers.

Nonetheless, such a successful system could not be missed by virus creators. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the victims of malware invasion is a great basis for malicious tricks with the popup advertisements. And Topfreeshop.xyz ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Topfreeshop site
SiteTopfreeshop.xyz
HostingAS15317 Serverel Inc.
United States, Sunnyvale
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address173.214.250.52
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorSaretx, Recordered, Neglions
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Topfreeshop virus?

There are a lot of ways of becoming contaminated by the adware that trigger the Topfreeshop popups storm. A lion’s part of this malware instances is after the free software or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Free software may additionally be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is provided as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users oftentimes utilize the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various utilities that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of applications are unsafe, since it is extremely simple to integrate a Topfreeshop 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.

Topfreeshop popup malware can also be concealed in the ad somewhere on the strange site. Such websites are typically loaded with intense and blinking ads, and their owners often accept any promotions to be posted on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a shot in the dark: only the advertisement provider knows what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may additionally get something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation 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 applications, like Topfreeshop popup virus can provoke a wide range of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications may show you the ads, where you are offered to download one more unknown application, or “a perfect anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last motto. Potentially unwanted programs, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also used as a spreading way by different trojan viruses, for instance – 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 can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Topfreeshop adware removal consists of 2 sections. First, we need to get rid of the malware, and then take care of the results of its action. The elimination task is pretty easy, due to the fact that it may be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its substantial resources consumption, along with some bugs that can be serious for some categories of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Moreover, various 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 vulnerabilities.

I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus device that will certainly exterminate the viruses from your computer and also create an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s take care of Topfreeshop adware first.

Removing Topfreeshop 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 Topfreeshop 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 web browser will definitely connect the right DNS while connecting to the website you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, then open it and fill it with the following content3:

# 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.

Nevertheless, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot more difficult to repair, especially without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are used to show you the Topfreeshop pop-up advertisements are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your system 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 pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the typical, till you try to open settings one more time.

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 Topfreeshop Pop-ups?

Name: Topfreeshop

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