Below is a list of the best free ad blockers. But none of them is perfect, so it is most effective to use several solutions at once.
Types of Advertising
When choosing the best blockers, we adhered to the following criteria:
- Completely free;
- Good user ratings;
- No need to register account for use;
- Recently updated (within the last 12 months);
- Implementation as a plugin for at least one browser or operating system;
- Blocks “media ads” (pop-ups, banners, videos, static images, wallpapers, text ads);
- Blocks advertisements in videos (for example, on YouTube).
To test blockers, we used several sites with different types of advertisements. Among them: Forbes.com, Fark.com, YouTube and OrlandoSentinel.com.
At Orlando Sentinel we found aggressive advertising formats, which most ad blockers cannot block. In fact, only a few of them effectively blocked all ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel.
We've tested each of these free tools based on the criteria provided and given them a rating. In addition, the ad blockers listed below, with the exception of Stend Fair Adblocker, are software open source.
The best ad blockers - browser plugins and applications
The best option for blocking ads is to install a specialized plugin or use a browser with a built-in blocker. They interact with sites much more accurately than standalone programs running in the background on your computer.
Stands Fair AdBlocker
It is only available for the Google Chrome browser. With this plugin you can block all types of advertising. But it is only available as an add-on for the Google Chrome browser.
Stands Fair AdBlocker is not designed to block ad blocks, although it can be used for that as well. The development company believes in honest advertising and rewards users who create white lists of ads shown on sites.
Luckily, Stands does a great job of blocking all other ads. Including the aggressive advertising formats shown on the Orlando Sentinel. Plus display ads, autoplay videos, and YouTube ads.
Rating: 7/7
Main advantages: Block ads on Facebook and Google search.
Works with: Google Chrome
AdBuard AdBlock
AdGuard AdBlock was able to block all types of ads. But the biggest disadvantage of this ad blocker is that all the features are only available in the premium version. However, the difference between blocker versions is explained only in the reference documentation.
Many users have rated AdBuard AdBlock positively. It has been downloaded over 4 million times and received high ratings.
When we tested it, it was one of the ad blockers that not only effectively blocked ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel website, but also blocked advertising frames with the word “advertisement.”
Rating: 7/7
Main advantages: Possibility to convert whitelist to blacklist.
Works with: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Yandex Browser.
Opera Browser
One of the fastest and most productive browsers. He was one of the first to offer his users a built-in ad blocker.
Once you enable the ad blocker in your settings, it blocks almost every ad you come across. But the browser was unable to block interstitial ads on the Forbes website (blocks of quotes that appear before articles). Most other ad units were blocked.
In addition, the Opera ad blocker successfully blocked advertisements shown on the Orlando Sentinel.
Rating: 7/7
Main advantages: built into a popular browser, easy whitelisting.
Works: with Opera.
Adblock Plus
Is the most popular ad blocking software with over 10 million downloads in the Google Chrome browser alone. This is a free and open source project. Adblock Plus is the basis for many other free blockers.
By default, Adblock Plus is designed to only block ads that are considered intrusive or potentially harmful. Therefore, it requires additional configuration.
If you want to block most ads (including auto-playing videos), you'll need to disable the "Allow some non-intrusive ads" option in Settings. But even in this case, ABP does not block everything.
Adblock Plus was one of the tools that failed to do anything about the ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel. Unfortunately, even the “element blocking” function could not help. ABP is good and popular, but far from perfect.
Rating: 6.5 / 7
Main advantages: presence of anti-blocking filter.
Works with: Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, iOS, Android.
uBlock AdBlocker Plus
Unlike other tools, uBlock AdBlocker Plus is easy to use. However, there are some things that the developer could improve. For example, the blocker's website is just a page with the name of the plugin and no additional information.
Block AdBlocker Plus effectively blocks most advertisements, but still lets some through. For example, it did not block the automatic playback of advertising on one of the sites.
When some advertisements were loading, I used the "item blocking" feature to block specific advertisements on the webpage. For example, on the Orlando Sentinel, element blocking worked fine. And its use did not lead to a page reload (as was the case with other ad blockers).
Rating: 6.5 / 7
Main advantages: easy to use, ability to lock elements.
Works with: Google Chrome.
uBlock Plus Adblocker
The biggest drawback of this plugin is that it has a clunky interface. There are several settings that are activated using switches. But most of the work involves digging into the parameters. However, uBlock Plus Adblocker effectively blocked all advertisements, including autoplay videos.
The main advantage of the plugin is the presence of a large library of third-party filters. The tool also includes advanced custom settings that allow you to create your own content filters.
During testing, uBlock Plus Adblocker blocked most advertisements. But I couldn't do anything about the banner ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel.
Rating: 6.5 / 7
Main advantages: filters elements and unsafe advertisements.
Works with: Google Chrome.
AdBlocker Genesis Plus
If you have used uBlock Origin or AdBlock Plus, this plugin is for you. AdBlocker Genesis Plus is a fork of other popular plugins. It uses the same basic source code, but implements many of its own features.
Its user interface is slightly different, but the ad blocking functionality is the same. The plugin's developer claims to have specifically removed tracking code from the uBlock/AdBlock Plus source code to ensure greater privacy.
This ad blocker has high rating(4.34 out of 5) based on over 100,000 ratings. But I found that Genesis Plus doesn't block all ads. The plugin blocked simple display ads on one site (Fark.com), but was unable to block a display ad on the Orlando Sentinel.
Rating: 6/7
Main advantages: no tracking code, simple “ button White list", "lock elements" button.
Works with: Google Chrome.
Adblock Ultimate
Open source project. The tool allows you to deal with most advertisements. In testing, it was able to block YouTube ads and most display ads on websites. This ad blocker has high ratings: 4.84 out of 5 from Google Chrome users and over 600,000 installations.
The plugin was unable to handle the ads shown on the Orlando Sentinel. It did not block ads broadcast on this site at all. But for those who only need to cut out most of the ads, this is a good option. Unfortunately, the plugin has not been updated for over a year. Because of this, his rating was lowered.
Rating: 6/7
Main advantages: Quick function“Element blocking”, which allows you to instantly block any advertisements.
Works with: Google Chrome.
NoScript
This tool is only suitable for Firefox and is more of a script blocker than an ad blocker. NoScript prevents all types of scripts from loading on web pages: JavaScript, Java, Flash and others. You can allow certain types of scripts to be loaded. But by default, the tool applies a fairly “hard” filter.
As a result of its work, most display ads are blocked. This includes aggressive advertising on the Orlando Sentinel, which other tools could not cope with. But NoScript does not block ads in videos at all.
Rating: 5.5/7
Main advantages: Complete blocking of scripts.
Works with: Firefox.
Why aren't Privacy Badger and Ghostery on this list?
You may have heard about the popular ad blockers Privacy Badger and Ghostery. The fact is that these plugins are not designed to block ads, but to refuse ads and other elements of sites that violate user privacy. As a result, they both block certain types of advertisements. But first and foremost, the tools are aimed at protecting privacy.
This means that by using any of these plugins, you will not see the ads you may be interested in. They also provide limited control over what types of ads are blocked. And given their “good advertising” policy, you won’t be able to block a certain part of the ads at all.
Google Chrome Ad Blocker
Despite the loud statements of Google developers, the built-in Chrome ad blocker is not capable of much. While testing it, we found that it skips almost all advertisements.
At the same time, control of the built-in blocker is very limited. Even finding a site that had ads blocked was a challenge. And since Chrome's ad blocker is designed to block certain types of advertisements, most of them are not intercepted.
Google's ad blocker looks like a fake. Perhaps its appearance has forced some sites to remove particularly intrusive advertising. But you will not be able to use this tool for full blocking.
A note about ad blocking and site revenue
Users hate advertising for several reasons:
- It may slow down page loading;
- Many ads are intrusive and annoying;
- Advertising often does not meet the interests of users;
- Ads may interrupt the viewing experience (particularly on video streaming sites such as Hulu or Crunchyroll);
- Many advertisements contain tracking code that sends information about user behavior to third parties.
The quality of the ads shown has become so bad that even Google has started using an ad blocker in its Chrome browser. But Google's intentions. The company owns a large advertising division and, most likely, Chrome does not block AdSense ads.
The advertisements shown to us have various disadvantages. And they can be used to spread computer viruses by hackers.
Before installing any of the blockers, keep in mind that the sites you visit often rely on advertising revenue to survive. Profit received from broadcasting advertising still remains the main source of income for many Internet resources. Behind last years the use of ad blockers caused sites to lose $15.8 billion in revenue.
Whitelisting is a good way to ensure that sites you like receive ad revenue. Even if you never click on the ads, they still earn early income from ad views.
Translation of the article " 10 best free ad blockers to remove ads and popups» was prepared by the friendly project team
Often, everyone who uses the Internet has experienced inconvenience caused by advertising and pop-ups in.
It doesn’t matter whether you are an advanced Internet user or just like to chat with friends on the Internet after work or find a recipe for apple strudel, but advertising windows are in the way you can quickly and easily get what you need. Speeding up the Internet by increasing traffic is useless and ineffective.
Adblock browser extension
Adblock – browser extension To protect you from intrusive advertising when browsing the Internet, a bonus of this program is the ability to work with many browsers: , and others.
Chrome app
Firefox app
Advantages and capabilities of Adblock
But in order to protect your data when working online, completely get rid of advertising, including in video format, not see advertising in applications installed on your PC, and also eliminate the possibility of “reading” your search queries and, as a result, protect against viral advertising, you need more advanced protection. Will cope with this task successfully Adblock app.
Blocking video ads
For the Adblock application, blocking pop-up ads, even video ads, is not a problem. The browser extension is not capable of distinguishing regular videos from advertising on the Youtube website, and therefore is not capable of making video loading on this site faster.
Adblock app can read and block video ads, which significantly speeds up the loading of the necessary videos.
Benefits of working with Adguard
You can check out detailed information about the application and see its benefits. Like regular browser extensions, Adblock blocks requests for advertising materials and also processes sites with using CSS in order to hide items that the application has blocked.
If you are interested not only in ad blocking, but also in more secure Internet surfing and networking, then you simply need to additionally download the Adguard application.
This application is subject to not only blocking pop-ups in firefox and yandex, but also an advertising filter that starts working even before opening the page. This pop-up advertising program can remove windows with advertisements in applications on your computer.
You can also remove pop-up windows using browser extension Adblock Plus 2019, but Adguard can give you more - protection from malicious sites, as well as getting rid of remote tracking of your computer or mobile device, which guarantees you reliable protection of your personal data.
Parental control
Take care to protect not only your personal data, but also the protection of children while they are on the Internet. Advertising windows pop up – that’s not so bad; the safety of children on the Internet is something worth thinking about. The Adguard application will easily solve this situation - "Parental Control" function will hide unwanted information.
In addition to all the included advantages, there is a simple and intuitive application interface.
Adblock for other operating systems
We learned how to remove pop-up ads in Opera, Chrome and any other browser. But the software Windows is not the only platform this application works with. How to remove a pop-up window when browsing the Internet and applications on operating systems Mac, iOS And Android?
Advertising filtering when working on the Internet and in mobile applications and games, protection of personal data, acceleration of web pages and applications - and a lot of other excellent functions that Adguard provides to its users.
The free AdwCleaner program is designed to remove adware and potentially unwanted software from your computer. After removing such software, the security of your computer will increase.
Many users have often encountered the implicit installation of various unnecessary software on their computer. Toolbars and browser add-ons, advertising modules and banners, toolbars, and similar programs penetrate the computer during installation or after launching programs downloaded from the Internet.
The user expects to install a specific program on his computer, but in the end receives an unexpected “gift” that he will not be happy with at all. In some cases, the user himself allows such programs to appear on his computer without unchecking the appropriate boxes, and without paying attention to this when installing the program. In other cases, such unwanted software penetrates the computer secretly, without any notification to the user.
To prevent installation unnecessary programs You can use a program that will warn you about an attempt to install such unwanted software on your computer.
Often, such unwanted software, once installed on a computer, behaves quite aggressively. Home pages in browsers change, new search engines appear, for example, such as the notorious Webalta, advertising banners, etc. Webalta secretly penetrates the computer, changes the start page in the browser, makes itself the default search engine, changes the properties of the shortcut for opening your page in the browsers installed on your computer.
To combat such unwanted programs, you can use the AdwCleaner program. AdwCleaner will scan your computer for adware and potentially dangerous software. Then you will receive a report, then you will be asked to remove the found adware, malware, and other potentially unwanted programs after restarting your computer.
AdwCleaner successfully removes toolbars, toolbars, ad units, hijacker programs that change the browser home page, and other similar software. Once the cleanup is complete, your computer will be safer.
AdwCleaner does not require installation on your computer. It can be launched from anywhere on the computer, from a connected disk or flash drive. The AdwCleaner utility has Russian language support and is used in the Windows operating system.
AdwCleaner download
The AdwCleaner program was acquired by the famous antivirus company Malwarebytes. after that, changes occurred in the application interface and settings.
The article has been supplemented with a review new version Malwarebytes AwdCleaner.
Malwarebytes AwdCleaner Settings
Launch Malwarebytes AwdCleaner. In the main window of the application, there are several sections in the sidebar: “Control Panel”, “Quarantine”, “Report Files”, “Settings”, “Help”.
To change application settings, open the “Settings” section. The Settings section has three tabs: Application, Exception, Details.
The “Application” tab contains options for applying certain program parameters when restoring during a basic system cleanup. Here you can set more strict rules for scanning and cleaning the system, depending on the degree of problems encountered on a given computer. From here you can remove AdwCleaner.
In the “Exceptions” tab, the user adds applications to exceptions so that AdwCleaner ignores this data when scanning and cleaning.
The Quarantine section contains quarantined files.
From the “Report Files” section, you can copy the report to Notepad for saving on your computer, or for transferring to others.
Find adware and unwanted programs in Malwarebytes AwdCleaner
In the main window of Malwarebytes AwdCleaner, in the “Control Panel” section, click on the “Scan” button to start searching for unwanted and adware software on your PC.
After scanning your computer, the AdwCleaner window will display information about detected threats.
First, click on the “View scan report” button to obtain detailed information about the detected objects. I advise you to read the report, as the program lists unwanted applications associated with Mail.Ru.
Remove unwanted programs and adware with Malwarebytes AwdCleaner
In the main window of Malwarebytes AwdCleaner, you can uncheck the boxes next to the found files and folders that should not be deleted in your opinion.
After reviewing the information received, click on the “Clean and restore” button.
In the reboot warning window, click on the first button; the reboot will occur after the system is cleaned of unwanted software.
Then another window will open in which you need to click on the “Restart” button.
After Windows starts, the Malwarebytes AwdCleaner window will open with information about the cleaning results. If necessary, you can repeat the search and removal of unwanted applications again.
Removing unwanted programs in AdwCleaner (old version)
After downloading to your computer, run the AdwCleaner executable file. In the window that opens, you will need to click on the “J’accepte/I Agree” item to accept the terms of the license agreement.
Immediately after launch, the main window of the AdwCleaner program will open. The program is already running and is in the “Waiting for action” mode.
To start searching for potentially unwanted and malicious programs, in the AdwCleaner program you will need to click on the “Scan” button. The program will begin the process of searching for unwanted software, scanning services, folders, files, modified shortcuts, the registry, and browsers.
After the scanning process is completed, you will be able to look at the search results for the threats found. To do this, you will need to open the “Services”, “Folders”, “Files”, “Shortcuts”, “Registry”, “Internet Explorer” and other installed browsers tabs in turn in order to familiarize yourself with the detected data.
Carefully review the scan result in each tab. The program may suggest folders and files for deletion that should not be deleted from the computer. This mainly applies to services, programs and extensions of Yandex and Mail.Ru.
In the AdwCleaner program, the settings are made in such a way that, along with the removal of unnecessary toolbars, panels and add-ons, other software related to Yandex and Mail.Ru will be offered for removal. For example, the Yandex.Disk client program or the visual bookmarks extension from Yandex.
Therefore, carefully look at the list of what you found so as not to remove the add-ons or extensions that you use in your browser from your computer. Before deleting items, uncheck the boxes next to the appropriate items to prevent the programs you need from being deleted.
In this image you can see that I unchecked the boxes next to the corresponding items in order not to remove the “Alexa Toolbar” extension, which I myself installed in my Mozilla Firefox browser.
In order to view general information about the data found, you can click on the “Report” button.
Your computer's scan report will open in Notepad. If necessary, you can save this report on your computer. To do this, you will need to enter the “File” menu by selecting “Save as...” from the context menu.
Potentially to be removed unwanted programs, in the main window of the AdwCleaner program you will need to click on the “Clean” button.
Next, the “AdwCleaner – end programs” window will open. You will be prompted to close all running programs and also save open documents on your computer. After completing the programs and saving the documents, click on the “OK” button.
The AdwCleaner - Information window will then open with information that will give you tips on how to prevent unwanted software from being installed on your computer. After reading this information, click on the “OK” button.
After this, the computer will shut down, and then the computer will restart. After starting the operating system again, a notepad will be opened with a report on the work done in the AdwCleaner program. If necessary, you can save this report on your computer.
The AdwCleaner program quarantines data deleted from the computer. If necessary, you can restore erroneously deleted data from quarantine.
Restoring data from quarantine
To restore data from quarantine, in the “Tools” menu, click on the “Quarantine Manager” item. After this, the “AdwCleaner – Quarantine Management” window will open.
To restore erroneously deleted items, you will first need to check the corresponding items, and then you will need to click on the “Recover” button.
You can remove AdwCleaner from your computer from the main program window with one click. To remove the program, you will need to click on the “Delete” button, after which the AdwCleaner program will be removed from your computer.
Conclusions of the article
Using the free AdwCleaner program, adware, malware, and potentially unwanted software will be removed from the user's computer. By removing unwanted applications, your computer's security will be increased.
The browser is the main program for exploring the world of the Internet. With its help, you can browse websites to obtain information. But, as a rule, in addition to information, Internet resources have a lot of advertising.
It can be presented either in a light and discreet form, or in an overly intrusive manner, which, in turn, makes it very difficult to look through the pages. Advertising banners may pop up in different places on your monitor, may cover the desired area and, as a result, it becomes unclear where helpful information, and where are the advertising blocks. Along with advertising, viruses are often found that can threaten the functioning of your computer.
What is advertising for?
Earnings are based on it. The site on which it is presented is of impressive size; the target audience can bring good profits. Good resources, as a rule, provide advertising blocks that do not distract visitors from reading the text. In turn, visitors can click on the advertisement as a sign of gratitude, so that the site owner has an incentive to write many more interesting and educational things.
Unscrupulous owners of Internet resources can place advertisements so that the visitor has no choice but to click on it. Blocks or banners are specifically aimed at distracting attention and do not provide an opportunity to understand the posted information. In addition, the loading time of the page and its volume greatly increases. In this case, if the user uses limited Internet, viewing resources becomes many times more expensive. It is for this reason that it is necessary to block advertising resources. It is created directly in browsers. To do this, you will need to install either programs or extensions. So, we need to look at browsers and their software.
Browser add-ons and blockers
Google Chrome
Several optimal ad blocking extensions have been developed for these browsers: AdBlock and AdBlock Plus. To start working with them, you need to go to the Chrome extensions tab. In the search bar you need to type the name of the extension and install it. This procedure is quite simple and does not require additional skills and knowledge. The AdBlock add-on is more popular than the AdBlock Plus ad blocker, although the functions they perform are the same.
Internet Explorer
In principle, it is very similar to the AdBlock and AdBlock Plus extensions. In order to block advertising, you must go to the page with the blocking list and click “ADD TPL”. The disadvantage of this list is that it is not adapted to Russian sites. To do this, you need to create an additional list. You need to download and install RU AdList. This ensures protection from advertising.
Mozilla Firefox
Opera
The AdBlock Plus extension is also supported for browsers. You can download and install it by going to the Opera add-ons website. In the search bar you need to enter the name of the extension and click “add to Opera”.
All of the above add-ons or extensions can be disabled or removed at any time.
How to install a blocking shield from advertising on the Internet?
So how does this process happen on the Internet? For example, the Chrome browser is used. Ad blocking in the browser is done using AdBlock.
All digital ad-blocking products work using the same technology: they enter the advertising information of pages into a list. This list is downloaded and installed along with the add-on. For this reason, after adding an application, most sites stop showing ads.
What should I do if the add-on is installed, but some sites continue to show ad blocks? In this case, you need to manually block unnecessary advertising. To do this, you need to open a site that contains advertising, select the annoying banner and right-click on it. Then select AdBlock and execute the blocking command. After this, left-click on the banner to completely remove it.
Don't forget about. On the Internet you can download for free and install any antivirus that you like. It is a blocker of unnecessary information and viruses. You can install this program for both Windows 7 and later versions.
Block ads in two clicks, video instructions
Hello! Nowadays, the problem of viruses is not very acute - most users already generally understand what can be opened and what is highly discouraged... and modern Windows 10 is already less vulnerable to malware. And what do most users use a computer for? — surf the Internet and watch a movie. But with browsers, not everything is so simple, so the issue of blocking ads in the browser is more relevant than ever before.
If you are interested in the issue of ad blocking... or you have started to notice ads where there were never any (and even worse if advertising is already popping up in the browser), then I can tell you with confidence that you are not alone, and I will try to explain to you how to get rid of this illness.
How to block ads in your browser - simple steps to a clean Internet
- Advertising, which was deliberately installed by the site owner, is the most common and easiest method of advertising to block.
- Crashing, infuriating advertising on all sites... pop-up windows, spontaneous opening of the browser, various casinos and other nonsense - it is much more difficult to treat, but it’s possible (the problem is that your computer is showing you ads)
Initially, I want to show the basic setting of ad blocking in the browser (if this does not help, then you most likely have advertising modules or AdWare as they are called).
Recognizing AdWare is quite simple - it is a pop-up flashy advertisement in the browser on all pages (for example, on Yandex a Vulcan casino may be advertised or a browser with advertising may open spontaneously).
It’s clear that this is not normal... so I want to tell you about a method for blocking Yandex Browser (now I use it myself and can recommend it to you). In the instructions we will consider universal options that are suitable even for Internet Explorer or EDGE. Let's look at both paid and free extensions - don't switch, it will be interesting!
How to remove advertising in the Yandex browser
Do you know why I like the Yandex browser? — it contains a lot of useful things for a Russian-speaking user. In addition, there is a built-in ability to filter ads using the third-party service AdGuard (I previously used AdBlock Plus, but after switching from Firefox to Ya.Browser there is no point in installing a third-party extension). This extension can be turned on simply - open the menu and go to “Add-ons”... and turn on the “Adguard” extension.
By default, advertising from Yandex and Google will not be blocked (and even normal advertising there, sometimes even useful) - whether to disable it or not is up to you. On my own behalf I would like to add that sometimes this the only way the author of the resource can earn money... after all, you need to pay for hosting, spend time writing posts like this one. Well, monetization is a great motivation to develop and fill your resource.
Well, that was a small lyrical digression - you can go to the extension settings and disable the “Allow search advertising and sites’ own promotions” option. This way you will completely disable all advertising on websites known to the extension.
ADGUARD is an excellent ad blocker for any browser
Since we are talking about ad blocking, it would be a crime not to talk about the wonderful AdGuard application. What if I told you that you can block ads not only in the browser, but also in various applications where they are often found? Skype, Viber, uTorrent - all these programs are popular and constantly annoying with ads, but AdGuard will automatically remove them all. You can download it from the official website...
AdGuard deserves a separate note, which I plan to write in the future, but for now short review opportunities
Installation is the same as everywhere else, nothing new was invented... however, I would advise not to install recommended products (well, if we want, we’ll install it ourselves, I don’t like this intrusiveness)
What to tell about best app to block ads on your computer? Many people are looking for ways to disable advertising on Skype or torrent, delve into the code, edit something there - this is all real and tested in practice... but you can just install AdGuard and it will automatically block ads in all popular applications - isn’t it beautiful?!
The Parental Control feature seemed useful. I don’t know what filters this works on - but the joke is not in blocking porn sites and other bad resources... but in the inability to even find them in the search.
But of course, it is not without its drawbacks - the application is paid, but its price does not exceed the cost of pizza... support the developers, do not bother with torrents! And don’t forget - the AdGuard application is used to block ads; it will not help against viruses. You can use a good antivirus for free against all evil spirits.
How to remove ads in Google Chrome browser and other browsers
Now let's get down to it simple way get rid of advertising in the browser - I used this extension until I switched to Yandex Browser with the AdGuard extension. Suitable for any browser (or almost, all known to me are supported) - just go to the official website of the extension...
I’ll tell you using Google Chrome as an example (but everything is similar for any other - be it Firefox or Opera) - find the largest button “Install for YOUR_BROWSER”. Agree with the installation of the extension and restart your web browser - the lion's share of advertising on sites will disappear.
How to remove ads in the browser? — We choose the best
If you are constantly seeing ads pop up in your browser, and all the methods described above have not corrected the situation, then you most likely have a malicious program on your computer, a browser extension, or the system settings have been changed. The whole problem with this infection is that antiviruses don’t see them, in fact it doesn’t harm the computer... but it infuriates the user. Let's start with disassembling pop-up advertising in the browser.
How to remove pop-up ads automatically
With the spread of this infection, it is not surprising that entire companies gradually began to appear producing applications to combat this advertising ransomware. Thanks to them, most advertising inserts are treated automatically and require virtually no user intervention - I highly recommend you use them.
AdwCleaner - an easy way to remove ads from your computer
In order not to bother you too much and not to bother you with places in the Windows system that are unclear to the average user, I suggest initially trying to remove pop-up ads in the browser automatically. There are many software products for removing AdWare, but my experience tells me to stick with AdwCleaner - in my opinion, the best solution to remove all known extensions from any browser.
Download only from !OFFICIAL site and nowhere else! After launching the application, click “Scan” and wait for the end of the search for harmful programs... check that the results do not contain anything unnecessary and click clean - check after rebooting.
Please note that AdvCleaner also considers all programs from Mail.RU to be malicious. If you use any Mail Agent, do not forget to remove it from the purge list.
HitmanPro is a good way to remove pop-up ads in your browser
A small utility from Malwarebytes, Hitman Pro will find most malware on your computer and can remove them. The application is paid, but with a test period - it will be more useful than ever for us for a one-time cleaning. As usual, download from the official website of the program.
To avoid installing the program on your computer, use the “I’m going to scan the system only once” option. In this case, we will immediately start scanning the operating system for unwanted programs.
As you can see, malware was found in our system (in our example it is a system activator, but it will do for the example) - just click “Next” to clear the found threats.
Remember I wrote that the application is paid? - so, to clean the system, you can activate a free license... click the appropriate button and specify email to issue you a temporary license.
After cleaning, you should restart your computer and check whether our problem with pop-up advertising inserts has been resolved or not.
Removed pop-up ads in the browser - the Internet does not work
An unpleasant situation happens - you removed pop-ups and ads in your browser and now the Internet does not work. The browser reports that it is unable to connect to the proxy server. The problem is quite common, but has an elementary solution.
Most likely, the left DNS server was used, and since we removed the malicious application - using DNS data turned out to be impossible and useless - you just need to reset the settings to standard
To solve the problem with the error “Cannot connect to the proxy server,” we need to go to the “Control Panel,” open the “Network and Internet” section and in the “Browser Options” category, select “Manage browser settings.”
Make sure that the “Use a proxy server for local connections” checkbox is unchecked and that the “Automatic detection of parameters” option is active.
If the actions taken did not give desired result— write in the comments, we’ll try to figure out the problem together.
How to remove pop-up ads in your browser manually
If all the methods described above to get rid of viral advertising in the browser did not help, then extreme measures remain - let’s try to fix the situation manually.
Task Scheduler - if ads pop up in the browser
The trend of 2017 is not a new frameless iPhone, but a problem of users who periodically have ads popping up in their browser... and not a single program sees them. I first encountered this species at the end of 2016 (and to be honest, for a very long time I could not understand what the problem was). The situation is as follows: an advertising site periodically opened, even if the browser was closed.
As it turned out, the malware used a task scheduler and simply periodically launched a task - launch the browser at the required time interval and open the site it needed in it (! brilliant).
To improve the health of our system, let’s open the task scheduler and delete it from there...
Open the Start menu and type “Task Scheduler” - find it in the search list and open it. Alternatively, press WIN + R on your keyboard and type taskschd.msc
In one of the tasks, you will probably see the path to the browser with a postscript in the form of a site that constantly opens for you - you should delete it (right-click on the task - delete). There are situations when different sites open all the time - in this case, one site opens, and then redirects to one of many (you just don’t have time to notice it) - just delete dubious tasks with additions to the path to the browser file.
What to do if advertising appears in the browser? — Disable extensions
You can clear your browser of ads and pop-ups simply by disabling the bad extension. Not long ago I installed a browser add-on that allowed me to watch torrents online... everything was great until I noticed that advertising appeared where there had never been one. Unfortunately, I did not notice this right away and therefore the solitaire did not work out right away - it helped that the extension was not installed in another browser and there were no left-handed advertisements there.
I just disabled the browser add-on and the ads disappeared. Try going to the list of extensions:
- For Yandex Browser this is Settings > Add-ons (in the same place where you enabled AdGuard)
- For Google Chrome - Settings > More tools > Extensions
Disable all extensions one by one until the ads stop appearing. This way you will identify a malicious extension - you need to remove it and forget about it forever.
Unfortunately, this point is often ignored, but it is one of the most common. You can’t trust anyone... there are often cases in which the extension that everyone is familiar with starts telling us all sorts of nasty things. We trust him, why do we need to turn him off and check him?! We will look in the place where it is not there... but until the last minute we will not try to simply turn it off for a minute and check.
The Hosts file is the reason for advertising in the browser
Many Adware use the hosts file for their purposes to display ads. Windows systems. Currently, it is practically not used by advertising malware - usually left-handed Google addresses are registered there or social networks are replaced.
You can correct the hosts file using notepad (which, by the way, must be opened as an administrator, otherwise you will not be able to save changes in it). It is necessary to delete all lines that are under the lines starting with a hash.
Why do ads pop up in the browser? — Editing shortcuts
If, after completing all the steps described above, advertising starts only when you launch the browser itself, then it’s time to pay attention to program shortcuts. In the shortcut properties, delete everything that is outside the quotes (usually the address of the annoying site)... and create new shortcuts for the browser.
This method is incredibly simple, but many people overlook it. In my practice, this option of pop-up advertising occurs very often, so do not underestimate it.
Conclusions about pop-up advertising in the browser and blocking it
Constantly popping up ads in the browser can be very annoying, so be careful when installing different applications and try to use official download sites to minimize the possibility of catching something unusual, but extremely unpleasant.
I hope this small instruction was useful to you (and it is really small - I described only a small part of the problem areas, but they are the most common) and you were able to defeat advertising in the browser. If something doesn’t work out, write in the comments, we’ll figure it out together!