Remove Updateenow Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Updateenow pop-up alerts can show up out of the blue, covering the content of the site you checked or opening your web browser when you don’t desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Updateenow ad can lead to the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this article, you will see the tutorial of Updateenow popups removal in several ways, as well as examining your computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Updateenow pop-ups?

Updateenow popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click advertisements, which produces a substantial amount of profit for adware suppliers. These promotions might include explicit composition, or have a link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the content they are going to show – their solitary target is cash.

Updateenow push notification

Updateenow push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-cost and extremely productive advertising tool1. It makes it possible for the vendor to attach the buyers’ attention to their website, as well as the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the consumer will get a pop-up notification that the TV set he likes to purchase is provided at the online store he/she checked out previously with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and buy it. Taking into consideration the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a marketing tool is a much-loved thing among the marketing departments of huge internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the victims of malware attack is a perfect basis for evil-minded tricks with the popup promotions. And Updateenow.com ads is one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short info for the Updateenow site
Site Updateenow.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 188.114.96.3
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Webanalyser, Protectutility, Gum
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Updateenow virus?

There are a lot of ways of getting infected by the adware that result in the Updateenow popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus incidents is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is provided as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people frequently make use of the uncertain programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, different apps that are free, and even hacked programs. Every one of these types of applications are dangerous, due to the fact that it is very easy to integrate a Updateenow 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.

Updateenow popup virus can likewise be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd web page. Such web pages are typically filled with intense and blinking advertisements, and their owners usually approve any type of promos to be posted on their web page. For this reason, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can additionally get something a lot more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the large 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 Updateenow popup virus may cause a variety of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups can present you the promotions, where you are offered to get one more unknown application, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually spread with the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is quite hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a good one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also chosen as a distribution way by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

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

The guide of Updateenow adware clearing consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and afterwards repair the consequences of its action. The elimination task is quite easy, because it can be performed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus tool that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its significant resources usage, as well as some failures that may be serious for some categories of users, Defender is frequently disabled by the users, so its usage is most likely impossible. What’s more, a wide range of trojan viruses can turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly recommend you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will surely exterminate the malware from your system and also make an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s deal with Updateenow adware first.

Removing Updateenow 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 Updateenow 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 definitely be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file named “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.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes things a lot more difficult to repair, particularly without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware variants that are used to show you the Updateenow pop-up promotions are altering the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your PC 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 pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 secs, and afterwards it will be back to the normal, till you attempt to open settings once more.

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 Updateenow Pop-ups?

Name: Updateenow

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