Remove Wstep4.biz Virus — How to Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Wstep4.biz pop-up notices may show up out of the blue, covering the subject of the website you went to or opening your web browser when you don’t need it to be opened.

Clicking the Wstep4.biz promotion may cause the injection of various malware or unwanted programs. In this post, you will see the tutorial of Wstep4.biz popups clearing in multiple manners, as well as inspecting your personal computer for extra malware existence.

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What are Wstep4.biz pop-ups?

Wstep4.biz popups are a consequence of adware action. Adware is a kind of malware that shows you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which produces a major volume of profit for adware representatives. These promotions might include explicit content, or have a web link to malicious content/website, because adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the content they are going to show – their single target is cash.

Wstep4.biz push notification

Wstep4.biz push notification.

Pop-up marketing itself is a good, low-priced and very productive advertising method1. It allows the seller to link the buyers’ interest to their site, as well as the buyers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they wish to buy. When the person will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to purchase is available at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will undoubtedly use this chance and purchase it. Considering the incredibly low cost for the popups and their targeting, such a promotion and marketing tool is a favorite thing amongst the advertising departments of large online stores.

However, such a profitable strategy could not be missed by virus developers. Option to demonstrate the popup ads by force to the people of malware attack is a great basis for malicious tricks with the popup advertisements. And Wstep4.biz ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a short details for the Wstep4.biz site
SiteWstep4.biz
HostingAS14061 DigitalOcean, LLC
Netherlands, Amsterdam
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address143.198.248.63
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorWstep5, Panyihavel, Earntthatyo
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Wstep4.biz virus?

There are a plenty of ways of getting contaminated by the adware that lead to the Wstep4.biz popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus cases is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may additionally be downloaded from the official website, and the adware is supplied as a legal bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A huge amount of people frequently utilize the dubious programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of utilities that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. Every one of these sorts of software are dangerous, since it is extremely easy to integrate a Wstep4.biz malware under the guise of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Wstep4.biz popup virus can additionally be concealed in the advertisement somewhere on the odd web page. Such sites are in most cases packed with colorful and blinking ads, and their proprietors often approve any type of promotions to be placed on their page. For this reason, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the ad provider realizes what will occur when you click this ad. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you may likewise get something a lot more unsafe, like ransomware or coin miner; the large share of coin miners circulation is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

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

Potentially unwanted applications, like Wstep4.biz pop-up virus may initiate a lot of troubles on your computer. Distracting is not the only effect – pop-ups may present you the banners, where you are offered to get one more dubious program, or “a amazing anti-malware tool”. Scareware is often distributed under the last motto. Potentially undesirable programs, in turn, can have spyware functionality. And it is quite hard to distinguish the undesirable app from a legit one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the potentially unwanted programs and pseudo antiviruses, popup-related banners are also exploited as a distribution method 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 whoever who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the situation can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without data and money loss. It is recommended to eliminate the viruses with antivirus programs as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Wstep4.biz pop-up advertisements?

The guide of Wstep4.biz adware clearing consists of 2 sections. Initially, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that correct the consequences of its action. The elimination process is pretty simple, since it can be executed even with making use of Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. However, as a result of its large resources consumption, as well as some errors that can be serious for some groups of individuals, Defender is often disabled by the users, so its utilization is likely impossible. In addition, a variety of trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to make use of the separated program that will not have such weakness.

I’d advise you to utilize Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven anti-malware tool that will surely eliminate the malware from your system and also create an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s manage Wstep4.biz adware initially.

Removing Wstep4.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 Wstep4.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 web browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your web browser will be connected the proper DNS while connecting to the site you need. Create a text file titled “hosts” on your 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.

Nonetheless, there is one trouble that makes the things a lot harder to repair, specifically without the anti-malware program. Most of adware variants that are used to show you the Wstep4.biz pop-up promotions are changing the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you attempt to fix your browser settings after your PC was infected by pop-up-related malware, your browser will certainly collapse quickly. Sometimes, you will see no crash, however, huge lag spike after pushing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 seconds, and afterwards it will be back to the typical, 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 Wstep4.biz Pop-ups?

Name: Wstep4.biz

Description: Wstep4.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 Wstep4.biz push notifications?” or “why do Wstep4.biz pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Wstep4.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 overview and the reasons why I recommend 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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