Welcome to our Adfocus “Virus” removal instructions. This article intends to help you remove Adfocus from your system and is designed to work for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer and all Windows versions.

Adfocus “Virus”. What is it?

If you’re reading this article, then you’ve probably already experienced the annoyance of having your browser filled with all sorts of obstructive ads that just don’t seem to go away. You may have even tried to switch to another browser only to find out the intrusive pop-ups are everywhere. Many users, once faced with this annoyance, assume that some kind of a nasty virus has gotten to their computer. If the ads are the only issue you experience, then it’s probably not a virus that you have, but a browser add-on of the adware type such as Adfocus “Virus”. Many people refer to it as Adfocus “Virus” but that is not really accurate.  Once you start getting the ads, it might indeed seem like some kind of a malicious software is messing with your PC. However, adware cannot be classified as viruses. Instead, they fall under the category of bloatware. There’s a major difference between bloatware and actual viruses. The former are pretty much harmless – it’s just that they are annoying and sometimes even frustrating, but only that. It’s the latter that you should be more concerned about, because they are the real threat and can heavily damage your computer and compromise your virtual security. Some of the most infamous examples of malicious viruses are Trojan Horses and Ransomware – should your PC get infected by those, you’ve gotten yourself into trouble. Things like ransomware can deny you access to your files until ransom is payed or worse.
But let’s go back to adware and Adfocus – the topic of our article. Since Adfocus is one of the newest of its kind, it is highly likely that this is exactly what you may be currently dealing with. As we already said, there’s no need to panic since adware are usually not dangerous. Still, their ads can get annoying as hell, therefore, we have a guide down below this article on how to get the intrusive program uninstalled and removed. However, before we get to that, there are a few important things that you need to know about this type of unwanted programs.

Potential security risks

Firstly, it should be said that even if they don’t usually pose any threats to your system, there are still some security hazards that you should know about. Most of adware’s ads are not fake or harmful. However, though rarely, clicking on some of them may redirect you to a malicious webpage or download a more problematic program onto your PC. Therefore, we advise you to avoid clicking on those ads. Besides, even the safe ones usually don’t provide anything useful. Another important note to make is that it’s possible that you may get redirected to a page you did not intend to open. If that page is unknown or seems shady/potentially dangerous, make sure to close it as quickly as possible without interacting with it – there’s just no need to put your PC under unnecessary risks.

Distribution

Another important thing to note is how Adfocus gets installed on your computer. There are quite a few methods for that. Here we will only list the most common and effective ones.

• Torrent and file-sharing sites – this is a very widely-spread and quite effective method for spreading adware throughout the internet. The reason for that is because almost everyone can upload whatever they want on those sites. Therefore, always pay extra attention when attempting to download anything for them. Look in the comment sections and at the rating of the torrent. You may also want to check the download count. If the thing looks suspicious, you might be better off without downloading it.
• Spam e-mails – yet another very popular way of distributing unwanted programs as a whole. A good rule of thumb here is to double-check the e-mails in your regular inbox before opening them. Even though there’s a spam folder, it is always possible that a spam letter might get sent into your regular one among the legit e-mails.
• Program-bundling – This is where you should be the most careful. This is arguably the most successful distribution method. Note that usually it is a perfectly legal one. In fact, though users rarely notice this, they actually give their permission for the installation of Adfocus. Here’s how this works. The adware is bundled with a third-party program and once you install that program, you get the intrusive browser add-on as well. In order to avoid this from happening, make sure to always opt for the custom/advanced settings, where you can see the list of any added content. There you can uncheck everything that you may not want getting installed on your PC. Just remember that Adfocus might go under a different name. Still, it shouldn’t be hard to single it out and uncheck it.

Adfocus “Virus” Chrome Removal

Reveal Hidden Files. If you don’t know how to do this, ask us in the comments.

Press  => Control Panel => Uninstall a program.

Locate the Adware and any other suspicious looking programs and uninstall them.

Additional 2.1:

Sort the programs by Installed On.

Delete recent suspicious entries.

Additional 2.2:

In the search field type => msconfig => hit Enter.

Go to Startup and disable all entries with Unknown as Manufacturer.

 => Search=> Copy/Paste “notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts” => Enter.

If you notice other IPs different from the localhost IPs – you might be in danger!

Ask for additional help in the comments.

Adfocus Removal from Chrome

Click => More Tools => Extensions.

Locate the Adware and remove it.

Adfocus Removal from Firefox

Click  => Add-ons=> Extensions.

Locate the Adware and delete it.

Removal from Internet Explorer

Press on  => Manage Add-ons =>

Find the Adware and remove it.

Right click on the Taskbar => Start Task Manager.

Navigate to Processes.

Locate any suspicious processes associated with Adfocus. Right click on the process = > Open File Location => End Process = > Delete the directories with the suspicious files.

 => Search => Type:

• %AppData%
• %LocalAppData%
• %ProgramData%
• %WinDir%
• %Temp%

Hit Enter after each new search. Check each Folder and delete recent entries.

If you run into any trouble – ask us for help in the comments section!