Remove Window-safe Pop-up Virus — How to Remove?

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Window-safe pop-up notices can show up unexpectedly, covering the material of the page you visited or opening your browser when you do not desire it to be opened.

Clicking on the Window-safe ad may cause the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the guide of Window-safe popups clearing in several ways, and also checking your PC for other malware presence.

GridinSoft Anti-Malware Review
It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!
Removing Window-safe manually may take hours and may damage your PC in the process. I recommend you to download GridinSoft Anti-Malware for threats removal. Allows to complete scan and cure your PC during the trial period.
Gridinsoft Anti-Malware 6-day trial available.
EULA | Privacy Policy | 10% Off Coupon
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to be the first to know about news and our exclusive materials on information security.

What are Window-safe pop-ups?

Window-safe popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a sort of malware that suggests you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a substantial amount of revenue for adware distributors. These ads may consist of sometimes shocking content, or have a link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is cash.

Window-safe push notification

Window-safe push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is a good, low-cost and also very productive advertising method1. It enables the seller to attach the customers’ attention to their site, and the customers to receive the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the consumer will receive a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is offered at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this opportunity and purchase it. Taking into consideration the exceptionally low price for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing method is a much-loved thing among the marketing teams of big internet sellers.

Nonetheless, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Potential to demonstrate the popup advertisements forcibly to the people of malware invasion is an excellent basis for malevolent adjustments with the popup promotions. And Window-safe.com advertisements is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a info for the Window-safe
Site Window-safe.com
Hosting AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
United States, San Francisco
Infection Type Adware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address 188.114.96.7
Symptoms Annoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behavior Saumeechoa, Webpushpull, Blamedbuckie
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Window-safe virus?

There are a huge amount of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Window-safe 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 can also be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is supplied as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A lot of users oftentimes utilize the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various tools that are free of cost, or even hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of programs are risky, since it is very simple to build in a Window-safe 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.

Window-safe popup malware can likewise be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange website. Such sites are usually loaded with bright and blinking advertisements, and their owners generally permit any type of promos to be published on their web page. Thus, clicking such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will happen when you click this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise get something a lot more hazardous, 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 Window-safe pop-up virus can provoke a variety of different troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the single problem – pop-ups may show you the ads, where you are offered to download another strange program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed with the use of the last slogun. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, may have spyware functions. And it is very 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 promotions are also chosen as a spreading method by various trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not clicking these ads, they may be clicked by whoever who also uses your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation may become much more serious, and it will be much harder to deal with it without data loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Window-safe pop-up advertisements?

The manual of Window-safe adware clearing contains 2 parts. Initially, we need to get rid of the malware, and after that deal with the effects of its activity. The elimination task is pretty easy, due to the fact that it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, as a result of its huge resources usage, as well as some problems that may be critical for some kinds of individuals, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its utilization is most likely impossible. Additionally, a wide range of trojan viruses have the ability to shut off the embedded antivirus. It is better to use the separated program that will not have such exposures.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware device that will undoubtedly remove the viruses from your computer and also make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s handle Window-safe adware first.

Removing Window-safe 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 Window-safe 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 be connected the accurate DNS while connecting to the site you need. Make a text file named “hosts” on your pc’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 issue that makes the things much harder to fix, particularly without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variants that are utilized to show you the Window-safe pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser settings, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your machine was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, significant lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop reacting for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the normal, till you attempt 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 Window-safe Pop-ups?

Name: Window-safe

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

Sending
User Review
3.25 (4 votes)
Comments Rating 0 (0 reviews)

References

  1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware overview and 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.

Leave a Reply

Sending