Аmules “Virus” Removal

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Welcome to our Аmules “Virus” removal guide. The following instructions will aid you in removing the unwanted software from your PC.

If you have recently encountered a program called Аmules “Virus”, then you are most likely panicking, thinking how it could have ended up on your PC, what it’s doing there and what you can possibly do to remove it. Luckily, you’ve landed on the right place and here we will tell you all you need to know about this program and why it’s causing the changes to your regular browsing experience that it is. First of all, we should point out that Аmules is a representative of the aMuleC family – a software category better known as adware. As such, its primary objective it to flood your Chrome, Firefox, Edge or other default browser with numerous popups, banners, box messages, hyperlinks and various other advertising materials promoting different products and services. But you needn’t be worried about this activity, as below as a removal guide, which will show you exactly how to put a stop to it. Before you do, however, we would recommend finishing reading this article, as it will help you better understand the nature of this program and others of its kind.

Why does adware keep distributing these annoying ads?

The short and simple answer is money. But that may not say much, so let’s explain. Programs like Аmules that fall under the adware category tend to all in one way or another be involved in some online business model and more often than not this tends to be the Pay Per Click scheme. This is a very popular remuneration scheme, which ensures that the developers of adware and similar advertising software get paid based on the number of the times their ads got clicked by users such as yourself. They basically earn revenue from the product/service manufacturers or distributors. Now, this well-established scheme is known to breed certain practices that are commonly frowned upon in the online community.

For one, programs like Аmules can often be programmed to scan through your browsing history in search of valuable for them information. Such are your recent search queries, the websites you tend to hang out at most or that you have favorited/bookmarked. In addition, they may want to keep track of the kind of content you demonstrate interest in. They may obtain this info by monitoring the things you like and share on social media, for example, as well as on other platforms. Once the program in question has gathered a sufficient amount of data on you, it will then proceed to modify flow of ads on your screen, so that it corresponds to your interests and preferences. As you might guess, this will automatically increase the program’s chances of extracting more clicks from you and therefore more profit. However, this is the kind of activity that most security experts tend to disapprove of and with good reason. For one, it’s quite the obvious intrusion into one’s personal space and one that’s not advertised at that.

Is Аmules dangerous?

This brings us to our next point. Many people tend to think of adware and similar programs as of viruses or some form of malware. This is a popular misconception that comes from the fact that people most times have no idea where the program came from, what it is and so on. Аmules possesses no traits of a malicious program and cannot cause any harm to your system like viruses of the rank of Trojans and ransomware could. It does, however, have the capacity of exposing you to threats of that caliber via all the numerous popups, banners and other ads that it keeps displaying. For this reason we find it important to warn users against interacting with any form of online advertising, as you never know which particular ad may have been compromised by criminals.

And finally, to solve the mystery of how Аmules may have infiltrated your machine, most often this happens with the help of program bundles. This piece of adware may have been attached to the installation manager of another program that you downloaded of your own free will, only neglected to pay attention to the installation process, which is when you overlooked the adware. To avoid things like this in the future, we recommend that you manually customize the installation process of new programs by opting for the Custom of Advanced settings of the installer. This will provide you with more details about any added content, which you may then remove, before it becomes part of your system.

Аmules “Virus” Removal

I – Uninstallation

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1. Use the Winkey+R keyboard combination, write Control Panel in the search field and hit enter.
   
2. Go to Uninstall a program under Programs.
   
3. Seek the unwanted software, select it and then click on Uninstall
   1. If you are unable to spot Аmules, search for any unrecognized programs that you do not remember installing on your PC – the unwanted software might disguise itself by going under a different name.

II – Safe mode and revealing hidden files

1. Boot your PC into Safe Mode /link/
2. Reveal hidden files and folders /link/

III – Cleaning all your browsers

1. Go to your browser’s icon, right-click on it and select Properties.
   
2. Go to the Shortcut tab and in the Target make sure to delete anything written after “.exe”.
   
3. Now, open your browser and follow the instructions below depending on whether you are using Chrome, Mozilla or IE.

• Chrome users:

1. Go to your browser’s main menu located in the top-right corner of the screen and select Settings.
   
2. Scroll down, click on Show Advanced Settings and then select Clear browsing data. Just to be sure, tick everything and clear the data.
   
3. Now, in the left pane, go to Extensions and look through all extensions that are integrated within your browser. If you notice any suspicious add-on, disable it and then remove it.
   

• Firefox users:

1. Similarly to Chrome, go to the main menu and select Add-ons and then Extensions.
2. Remove any suspicious browser extensions that you may have even if they do not have the name Аmules on them.

• IE users:

1. Go to Tools and select Manage add-ons.
   
2. Click on all add-on types from the left pane and check if there is anything suspicious in the right panel. In case you find anything shade, make sure to remove it.

IV – Removing Shady processes

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1. Go to your start menu, type Task Manager in the search field and from the results open View running processes with Task Manager.
   
2. Thoroughly look through all processes. The name Аmules might not be there, but if you notice any shady looking process that consumes high amounts of memory it might be ran by the unwanted program.
3. If you spot the process ran by Аmules, right-click on it, open its file location and delete everything in there. Then go back to the Task Manager and end the process.
   

V – DNS check

1. In the start menu search box write View Network Connections and open the first result.
   
2. Right-click on the network connection you are using and go to Properties.
   
3. Select Internet Protocol Version (TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties.
   
4. If Obtain DNS server addresses automatically is not checked, check it.
   
5. Go to Advanced and select the DNS If there is anything in the DNS server addresses field, remove it and click OK.
   
6. Click OK on the rest of the opened windows.