Very often we have to deal with advertising viruses that display annoying banners in browsers and even on the desktop. Eliminating such threats is sometimes not easy, because they take root deep in the system (registry, folders, services and processes), and begin to “pull” other malicious scripts from the network.
One of the best ways to fight is the free utility AdwCleaner. What is this program, how to use - find out from our review.
AdvCleaner is beyond competition!
Recently, a friend asked me to clean the computer from debris, as it began to slow down a lot. It was all the fault of careless use on the part of her son, who installed a bunch of games and programs.
As a result, the system started up for almost five minutes, I immediately installed CCleaner and found a lot of suspicious items in startup. Their names consisted of their chaotic character set, and the developer was not indicated at all. This is direct evidence that the PC is infected. But it was not possible to delete these objects manually, the blocking worked.
Without thinking twice, I launched a scan using DrWeb CureIt, but after the procedure was completed and the PC was restarted, some threats remained untouched. And then I decided to try a new tool for me - AdwCleaner from Malwarebytes.
How to use?
The good news is that the utility is completely free and has no restrictions. And the fact that you do not need to install is an indisputable advantage. All you need is AdwCleaner, which you can find this program on the site install.download.
And now the instructions:
After downloading, you should have a file like this:
We launch it and see a small window with several tabs. The main function is available on the control panel - "Scan":
By default, the interface language must match the one installed on your system. But if this is not the case, then go to the settings and select the appropriate option from the list.
First, the AdwCleaner program will download fresh databases from its server, then it will start searching for threats in different areas of the system - the registry, processes, services, files, etc. This may take about 10 minutes;
At the end, you will see a report indicating the number and description of potential hazards. We look through, make adjustments if necessary and click on the clear button;
Once completed, the PC will restart automatically.
By the way, more than 600 threats were found on my friend! And when AdwCleaner finished its work, the computer began to "fly"!
In addition, very often viruses write their IP addresses or paths to servers in the system hosts file. Therefore, we recommend that you also leave the option to reset the Hosts file enabled, as shown in the screenshot above.
By the way, if you want to uninstall the program, then this is done at the very bottom of the settings page using the corresponding button:
The fact is that the utility is not fully installed, but only creates a folder on the C drive with its databases and quarantine. Therefore, when you do the above action, the directory will be cleared.