Utilityhub.info Ads Removal Guide — How to Fix It?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Utilityhub.info pop-up alerts can show up unexpectedly, covering the post of the website you explored or opening your browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Utilityhub.info ad may result in the injection of other malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the guide of Utilityhub.info popups removal in various ways, as well as examining your PC for additional malware presence.

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What are Utilityhub.info pop-ups?

Utilityhub.info popups are a consequence of adware activity. Adware is a type of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click ads, which generates a significant volume of profit for adware representatives. These ads might contain sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malicious content/website, since adware maintainers have no reason to examine the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their single target is cash.

Utilityhub.info push notification

Utilityhub.info push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a very good, low-cost and also really successful marketing method1. It enables the vendor to link the buyers’ attention to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to buy. When the customer will receive a pop-up notification that the TV set he wishes to buy is offered at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will surely use this possibility and buy it. Considering the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising method is a favourite thing amidst the advertising teams of large internet sellers.

However, such a rewarding plan could not be missed by malware developers. Ability to demonstrate the popup advertisements by force to the targets of malware invasion is a perfect basis for malicious manipulations with the popup promotions. And Utilityhub.info advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short details for the Utilityhub.info
SiteUtilityhub.info
HostingAS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address188.114.96.3
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorGetsecures, Edverys, Topimg
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Utilityhub.info virus?

There are a lot of ways of getting infected by the adware that trigger the Utilityhub.info popups tornado. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is presented as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A plenty of individuals oftentimes work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, various utilities that are free, or even hacked programs. All of these sorts of applications are dangerous, since it is extremely simple to integrate a Utilityhub.info malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm within the Windows optimization tool.

Utilityhub.info popup virus may also be concealed in the promotion somewhere on the unusual web page. Such web pages are typically loaded with bright and blinking ads, and their owners generally permit any promotions to be placed on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement provider knows what will occur when you press this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or undesirable programs, you can additionally get something much more hazardous, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious advertisements.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially undesirable programs, like Utilityhub.info pop-up virus can initiate a variety of problems on your personal computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-up notifications can show you the advertisements, where you are offered to download another dubious program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is usually spread under the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functions. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related promotions are also exploited as a distribution way by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such viruses is 100% unwanted, and can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these promotions, they can be clicked by whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to remove the viruses with antivirus applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Utilityhub.info pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Utilityhub.info adware elimination consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to deal with the malware, and after that deal with the consequences of its activity. The removal process is pretty simple, due to the fact that it can be done even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus program that is present on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its large resources consumption, as well as some problems that may be critical for some groups of users, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its use is likely impossible. In addition, various trojan viruses can switch off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d suggest you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will definitely eliminate the malware from your computer and also make an invulnerable cover with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s manage Utilityhub.info adware first.

Removing Utilityhub.info 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 Utilityhub.info 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 connect the accurate DNS while connecting to the site you want. Make a text file named “hosts” on your 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.

However, there is one problem that makes the things much harder to repair, particularly without the anti-malware software. The majority of adware versions that are used to show you the Utilityhub.info pop-up advertisements are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your computer was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will crash soon. In certain cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and after that it will be back to the normal, till 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 Utilityhub.info Pop-ups?

Name: Utilityhub.info

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