Remove Wstep1.biz Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Wstep1.biz pop-up notices can appear unexpectedly, covering the material of the website you went to or opening your browser when you do not want it to be opened.

Clicking the Wstep1.biz promotion can result in the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Wstep1.biz popups clearing in multiple ways, as well as inspecting your personal computer for other viruses existence.

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What are Wstep1.biz pop-ups?

Wstep1.biz popups are an outcome of adware presence. Adware is a sort of malware that presents you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a major amount of earnings for adware representatives. These advertisements may include sometimes shocking content, or have a web link to malevolent content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no purpose to inspect the goodness of the web content they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Wstep1.biz push notification

Wstep1.biz push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, cheap and really productive advertising solution1. It allows the seller to attach the customers’ interest to their site, and the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to purchase. 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 saw earlier with a 15% discount, one will undoubtedly use this chance and get it. Considering the extremely small cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing method is a favorite thing amongst the advertising teams of huge internet retailers.

Nevertheless, such a successful strategy could not be missed by malware developers. Potential to show the popup ads forcibly to the targets of malware attack is a great basis for malicious tricks with the popup ads. And Wstep1.biz ads is just one of hundreds that are “employed” in this system.

Here is a short info for the Wstep1.biz site
SiteWstep1.biz
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address188.166.68.96
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorWstep3, Wstep4, Wstep5
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Wstep1.biz virus?

There are a number of methods of getting infected by the adware that lead to the Wstep1.biz popups storm. A lion’s part of this computer virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware can also be downloaded from the official web page, and the adware is presented as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of individuals frequently work with the dubious programs from untrusted providers: abandonware, various apps that are free, or even hacked programs. Every one of these kinds of programs are dangerous, due to the fact that it is quite easy to include a Wstep1.biz malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a component of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Wstep1.biz popup virus can additionally be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the unusual site. Such web pages are generally full of bright and blinking advertisements, and their proprietors generally permit any type of promotions to be posted on their page. Therefore, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement contractor realizes what will occur when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may additionally get something a lot more damaging, 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 programs, like Wstep1.biz pop-up virus may initiate a lot of different troubles on your PC. Distracting is not the single effect – pop-up notifications can show you the promotions, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a perfect security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the last slogun. Potentially undesirable applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and dubious antiviruses, popup-related banners are also used as a spreading 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 interacting with these advertisements, they may be clicked by someone who also makes use of your PC – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Wstep1.biz pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Wstep1.biz adware removal includes 2 parts. First, we need to exterminate the malware, and after that deal with the results of its action. The removal procedure is really simple, due to the fact that it may be executed even with the use of Microsoft Defender – anti-virus software that is available on all computers with Windows 8/10. Nevertheless, as a result of its substantial resources utilization, as well as some bugs that can be crucial for some groups of users, Defender is frequently turned off by the users, so its usage is probably impossible. Furthermore, a variety of trojan viruses have the ability to disable the embedded antivirus. It is better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I would certainly advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven security device that will undoubtedly exterminate the viruses from your computer and create an impenetrable cover with a Proactive protection function. But let’s deal with Wstep1.biz adware initially.

Removing Wstep1.biz 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 Wstep1.biz 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 be connected the appropriate DNS while connecting to the website you need. Create a text file named “hosts” on your computer’s desktop, after that 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.

However, there is one problem that makes things a lot more difficult to restore, especially without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variations that are utilized to show you the Wstep1.biz pop-up promotions are adjusting the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to change your browser settings after your system was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly crash quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and after that it will be back to the typical, up until you attempt 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 Wstep1.biz Pop-ups?

Name: Wstep1.biz

Description: Wstep1.biz - 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 Wstep1.biz push notifications?” or “why do Wstep1.biz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Wstep1.biz 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 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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