Pop-up ads when surfing the Internet, no viruses found.

posted in General
Wednesday, September 04 2013, 12:46 PM
0
I have been seeing various pop-up ads when visiting facebook and other sites, I don't think that they come from these sites, I suspect that there's some virus in my computer but my antivirus (McAfee) says that there are no infections. How can I remove these ads?

Accepted Answer

Wednesday, September 04 2013, 01:02 PM - #permalink
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Hi goldhawk7, pop-up ads are most commonly caused by potentially unwanted applications. Your antivirus program doesn't find any viruses because technically it's not a virus or malware, some security programs may categorize pop-up generating add-ons as adware or PUA. Notice that nowadays popular download websites (download.com, soft32.com, etc.) are using so called download clients or installers to monetize their free software download services. Computer users who doesn't pay close attention to the freeware installation steps can end up installing various free browser add-ons which causes pop-up ads, browser redirects, privacy issues, etc. Recent research shows that the most popular PUA (potentially unwanted applications) are WebCake (removal instructions here) and Lucky Leap (removal instructions here). These programs install without user's consent and they cause pop-up ads. Check you Internet browsers for these or any other unwanted browser add-ons and remove them.

Additionally you can watch this video which shows how to eliminate unwanted browser add-ons:
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