Remove Trusted-captcha.top Pop-up Ads — How to Fix Gude

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Trusted-captcha.top pop-up alerts can appear unexpectedly, covering the content of the page you went to or opening your browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Trusted-captcha.top ad can result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the guideline of Trusted-captcha.top popups clearing in multiple methods, and also examining your system for additional malware existence.

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What are Trusted-captcha.top pop-ups?

Trusted-captcha.top popups are a result of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a substantial volume of earnings for adware representatives. These advertisements might consist of sometimes shocking information, or have a link to malicious 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.

Trusted-captcha.top push notification

Trusted-captcha.top push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-priced and also very effective advertising instrument1. It permits the vendor to link the customers’ attention to their website, as well as the buyers 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 desires to purchase is provided at the online store he/she visited earlier with a 15% price cut, one will definitely use this chance and get it. Considering the very small cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing method is a favourite thing amongst the marketing teams of large internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by malware creators. Ability to demonstrate the popup ads by force to the targets of malware attack is an excellent basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup ads. And Trusted-captcha.top ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a summary for the Trusted-captcha.top site
Site Trusted-captcha.top
Hosting AS24940 Hetzner Online GmbH
Germany, Oberdorla
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 162.55.59.222
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Notadvertise, News, Computeradszone
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Trusted-captcha.top virus?

There are a number of methods of getting infected by the adware that lead to the Trusted-captcha.top popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are distributed on the peering networks. Freeware can also be downloaded from the main site, and the adware is delivered as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of users frequently use the uncertain programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, different apps that are free of cost, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of programs are dangerous, since it is very simple to integrate a Trusted-captcha.top 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.

Trusted-captcha.top popup virus may also be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange website. Such web pages are usually filled with intense and blinking ads, and their proprietors typically permit any promos to be published on their page. Therefore, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may also get something far more unsafe, 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 undesirable applications, like Trusted-captcha.top pop-up virus may cause a lot of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-up notifications may display you the banners, where you are offered to download another dubious application, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is often spread with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is very hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also chosen as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of activity of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they can be clicked by someone who also uses your computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Trusted-captcha.top pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Trusted-captcha.top adware elimination consists of 2 parts. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and then correct the results of its activity. The elimination procedure is pretty easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-malware program that is present on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its huge resources consumption, as well as some errors that may be serious for some groups of individuals, Defender is oftentimes turned off by the users, so its utilization is probably impossible. In addition, a wide range of trojan viruses are capable to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly suggest you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will undoubtedly remove the viruses from your computer and create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Trusted-captcha.top adware first.

Removing Trusted-captcha.top 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 Trusted-captcha.top 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 ensure that your browser will connect the correct DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file named “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that 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.

However, there is one issue that makes the things much more difficult to fix, specifically without the anti-malware program. A lot of adware variants that are used to show you the Trusted-captcha.top pop-up ads are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to change your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and then it will be back to the typical, 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.

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 Trusted-captcha.top Pop-ups?

Name: Trusted-captcha.top

Description: Trusted-captcha.top - 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 Trusted-captcha.top push notifications?” or “why do Trusted-captcha.top pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Trusted-captcha.top 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 also the reasons why I advise 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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