Remove Trackztoolz Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Trackztoolz pop-up notices may appear unexpectedly, covering the content of the site you checked or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Trackztoolz promotion can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guideline of Trackztoolz popups clearing in several methods, and also checking your system for other malware presence.

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What are Trackztoolz pop-ups?

Trackztoolz popups are a consequence of adware presence. Adware is a type of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a significant amount of profit for adware distributors. These promotions might contain sometimes shocking composition, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Trackztoolz push notification

Trackztoolz push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is an excellent, affordable and really efficient advertising solution1. It allows the vendor to attach the customers’ interest to their website, and the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. When the person will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is offered at the online store he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and purchase it. Considering the extremely low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing tool is a much-loved thing amidst the advertising departments of big internet retail stores.

Nonetheless, such a successful plan could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup ads by force to the victims of malware attack is an ideal basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup advertisements. And Trackztoolz.com promotions is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a details for the Trackztoolz site
Site Trackztoolz.com
Hosting AS62904 Eonix Corporation
United States, Seattle
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 23.231.40.109
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Listen, Webouttwo, Video
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Trackztoolz virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Trackztoolz 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. Free software may also be downloaded from the main web page, and the adware is supplied as a legit bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users often make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different utilities that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of software are unsafe, since it is very simple to integrate a Trackztoolz malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Trackztoolz popup malware may likewise be concealed in the ad somewhere on the unusual website. Such web pages are usually loaded with colorful and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors usually permit any promotions to be published on their web page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the ad contractor knows what will happen when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you may likewise get something far more damaging, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious promotions.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted programs, like Trackztoolz popup virus can cause a lot of different troubles on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications can present you the banners, where you are offered to get another strange program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also exploited as a spreading way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not tapping these banners, 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 deal with it without data and money loss. It is recommended to wipe out the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

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

The manual of Trackztoolz adware removal includes 2 sections. Initially, we need to exterminate the malware, and then fix the effects of its action. The elimination procedure is very simple, because it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources usage, as well as some bugs that can be pivotal for some groups of individuals, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. Additionally, a variety of trojan viruses can disable the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly advise you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly eliminate the malware from your system and make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection feature. But let’s take care of Trackztoolz adware first.

Removing Trackztoolz 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 Trackztoolz 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 web browser will be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following text3:

# 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 the things a lot harder to fix, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variations that are used to show you the Trackztoolz pop-up ads are altering the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your computer was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, till you try 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 Trackztoolz Pop-ups?

Name: Trackztoolz

Description: Trackztoolz - 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 Trackztoolz.com push notifications?” or “why do Trackztoolz.com pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Trackztoolz 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 overview and also the reasons why I recommend it for malware removal.
  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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