How To Remove Pop Star ads From Browser

Pop Star ads: Step-by-step Delete Guide

If you continuously see Pop Star ads on your browser, then this means that Pop Star adware is installed on your computer. This nasty PC threat is generally distributed together with other free apps, so users hardly ever notice its infiltration. Due to its stealth intrusion way, it is also considered as a potentially unwanted program (PUP). Soon after getting into the Windows systems, this nasty threat starts running intrusive advertisement campaigns and interrupts victims’ web sessions badly. It aims to promote third-party websites, products, and services and make online profits for the developers.

Pop Star ads Come in Multiple Forms:

Pop Star ads keep showing up on each web page users visit and could be in several forms e.g., coupons, banners, pop-ups, deals, discounts, offers, etc. These adverts are designed to make pay-per-click income. So, the more users are tricked into clicking on them, they more revenue creators of the program generate. These ads cover the whole page content and severely diminish the online experience. Interacting with them may put your system’s security at high risk as they might redirect you to potentially insecure domains.

Some Pop Star ads might be harmless, but majority of them promote unreliable, malicious, and even dangerous web portals. They may reroute you to sites which contain tech support scams, malware, PUPs, push notification viruses, and other malevolent contents. Moreover, they can also trigger direct download and installation of malicious software by running specific scripts. Pop Star alters the settings of Windows registry in order to create persistence and get automatically activated with each PC startup. It may trigger boot errors, application malfunctioning, hard drive crash, software failure, data loss, and other perilous issues.

Pop Star ads look very attractive at the first glance since they are based on users’ browsing preferences and interests. This nasty adware uses spying cookies to track victims’ browsing activities and gathers several data that includes: IP addresses, geolocations, entered search queries, sites visited, links clicked, and even personal information like credit card and banking details, saved passwords, etc. The collected data is then shared with other parties and are employed for customizing advertisements, making fraudulent transactions, unauthorized purchases, and so on. Thus, this notorious PUP may lead to serious privacy issues, identity theft, and significant monetary losses. Hence, Pop Star removal should not be delayed from the system.

Software Bundling Leads To PUP Intrusion:

This nasty adware has “official” download site, nonetheless, potentially unwanted programs like this are in most cases, spread together with other free applications. This pre-packing of regular software along with spiteful and malicious additions is known as “bundling”. PUPs are hidden under the Quick or Recommended configuration settings. So, by choosing such as installation options, you allow all the bundled apps to get installed alongside without even realizing and noticing.

To avoid such situations, it is highly recommended to choose only official and verified sources for software downloads, and avoid using untrustworthy download channels, e.g., unofficial and freeware websites, Peer-to-Peer sharing networks, etc. Also, it is important to pick an appropriate configuration wizard where you can see the complete list of included programs. The Custom or Advanced options allow you take control of the installation process from start to end, so this is the settings you should be choosing and opt-out the components that are not required. But at the moment, you must remove Pop Star ads virus from the device as soon as possible.

Antimalware Details And User Guide

Click Here For Windows Click Here For Mac

Important Note: This malware asks you to enable the web browser notifications. So, before you go the manual removal process, execute these steps.

Google Chrome (PC)

• Go to right upper corner of the screen and click on three dots to open the Menu button
• Select “Settings”. Scroll the mouse downward to choose “Advanced” option
• Go to “Privacy and Security” section by scrolling downward and then select “Content settings” and then “Notification” option
• Find each suspicious URLs and click on three dots on the right side and choose “Block” or “Remove” option

Google Chrome (Android)

• Go to right upper corner of the screen and click on three dots to open the menu button and then click on “Settings”
• Scroll down further to click on “site settings” and then press on “notifications” option
• In the newly opened window, choose each suspicious URLs one by one
• In the permission section, select “notification” and “Off” the toggle button

Mozilla Firefox

• On the right corner of the screen, you will notice three dots which is the “Menu” button
• Select “Options” and choose “Privacy and Security” in the toolbar present in the left side of the screen
• Slowly scroll down and go to “Permission” section then choose “Settings” option next to “Notifications”
• In the newly opened window, select all the suspicious URLs. Click on the drop-down menu and select “Block”

Internet Explorer

• In the Internet Explorer window, select the Gear button present on the right corner
• Choose “Internet Options”
• Select “Privacy” tab and then “Settings” under the “Pop-up Blocker” section
• Select all the suspicious URLs one by one and click on the “Remove” option

Microsoft Edge

• Open the Microsoft Edge and click on the three dots on the right corner of the screen to open the menu
• Scroll down and select “Settings”
• Scroll down further to choose “view advanced settings”
• In the “Website Permission” option, click on “Manage” option
• Click on switch under every suspicious URL

Safari (Mac):

• On the upper right side corner, click on “Safari” and then select “Preferences”
• Go to “website” tab and then choose “Notification” section on the left pane
• Search for the suspicious URLs and choose “Deny” option for each one of them

Manual Steps to Remove Pop Star ads:

Remove the related items of Pop Star ads using Control-Panel

Windows 7 Users

Click “Start” (the windows logo at the bottom left corner of the desktop screen), select “Control Panel”. Locate the “Programs” and then followed by clicking on “Uninstall Program”

Windows XP Users

Click “Start” and then choose “Settings” and then click “Control Panel”. Search and click on “Add or Remove Program’ option

Windows 10 and 8 Users:

Go to the lower left corner of the screen and right-click. In the “Quick Access” menu, choose “Control Panel”. In the newly opened window, choose “Program and Features”

Mac OSX Users

Click on “Finder” option. Choose “Application” in the newly opened screen. In the “Application” folder, drag the app to “Trash”. Right click on the Trash icon and then click on “Empty Trash”.

In the uninstall programs window, search for the PUAs. Choose all the unwanted and suspicious entries and click on “Uninstall” or “Remove”.

After you uninstall all the potentially unwanted program causing Pop Star ads issues, scan your computer with an anti-malware tool for any remaining PUPs and PUAs or possible malware infection. To scan the PC, use the recommended the anti-malware tool.

How to Remove Adware (Pop Star ads) from Internet Browsers

Delete malicious add-ons and extensions from IE

Click on the gear icon at the top right corner of Internet Explorer. Select “Manage Add-ons”. Search for any recently installed plug-ins or add-ons and click on “Remove”.

Additional Option

If you still face issues related to Pop Star ads removal, you can reset the Internet Explorer to its default setting.

Windows XP users: Press on “Start” and click “Run”. In the newly opened window, type “inetcpl.cpl” and click on the “Advanced” tab and then press on “Reset”.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Users: Press the Windows logo, type inetcpl.cpl in the start search box and press enter.  In the newly opened window, click on the “Advanced Tab” followed by “Reset” button.

For Windows 8 Users: Open IE and click on the “gear” icon. Choose “Internet Options”

Select the “Advanced” tab in the newly opened window

Press on “Reset” option

You have to press on the “Reset” button again to confirm that you really want to reset the IE

Remove Doubtful and Harmful Extension from Google Chrome

Go to menu of Google Chrome by pressing on three vertical dots and select on “More tools” and then “Extensions”. You can search for all the recently installed add-ons and remove all of them.

Optional Method

If the problems related to Pop Star ads still persists or you face any issue in removing, then it is advised that your reset the Google Chrome browse settings. Go to three dotted points at the top right corner and choose “Settings”. Scroll down bottom and click on “Advanced”.

At the bottom, notice the “Reset” option and click on it.

In the next opened window, confirm that you want to reset the Google Chrome settings by click on the “Reset” button.

Remove Pop Star ads plugins (including all other doubtful plug-ins) from Firefox Mozilla

Open the Firefox menu and select “Add-ons”. Click “Extensions”.  Select all the recently installed browser plug-ins.

Optional Method

If you face problems in Pop Star ads removal then you have the option to rese the settings of Mozilla Firefox.

Open the browser (Mozilla Firefox) and click on the “menu” and then click on “Help”.

Choose “Troubleshooting Information”

In the newly opened pop-up window, click “Refresh Firefox” button

The next step is to confirm that really want to reset the Mozilla Firefox settings to its default by clicking on “Refresh Firefox” button.

Remove Malicious Extension from Safari

Open the Safari and go to its “Menu” and select “Preferences”.

Click on the “Extension” and select all the recently installed “Extensions” and then click on “Uninstall”.

Optional Method

Open the “Safari” and go menu. In the drop-down menu, choose “Clear History and Website Data”.

In the newly opened window, select “All History” and then press on “Clear History” option.

Delete Pop Star ads (malicious add-ons) from Microsoft Edge

Open Microsoft Edge and go to three horizontal dot icons at the top right corner of the browser. Select all the recently installed extensions and right click on the mouse to “uninstall”

Optional Method

Open the browser (Microsoft Edge) and select “Settings”

Next steps is to click on “Choose what to clear” button

Click on “show more” and then select everything and then press on “Clear” button.

Conclusion

In most cases, the PUPs and adware gets inside the marked PC through unsafe freeware downloads. It is advised that you should only choose developers website only while downloading any kind of free applications.  Choose custom or advanced installation process so that you can trace the additional PUPs listed for installation along with the main program.