How to Remove Motious.com “Virus”

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In this article we are going to try and help you remove Motious.com “Virus”. Our instructions cover all Windows versions as well as most browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer etc.

If your Chrome or Firefox browser is behaving strangely these days and your searches are getting redirected to various sponsored web pages, ads and pop-ups, then most probably your browser has been hijacked and your homepage or search engine might have been replaced with some unfamiliar one. Fortunately, this is not a result of some nasty virus or malicious program like Ransomware or a Trojan horse, so there is no need to panic. A potentially unwanted program named Motious.com might have sneaked inside your PC and might have applied these strange changes to your browser. However, you still may wish to remove them and uninstall Motious.com. If it is so, then the removal guide below can show you exactly how to do that. So if you are really looking for how to effectively deal with the browser hijacker on your machine, then read the next lines.

A browser hijacker has invaded my browser – what should I know about these programs?

Browser hijackers are quite invasive programs, which can impose some very irritating changes to your browser. They usually affect the most famous browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari and others and often add some new toolbar, search engine or homepage and redirect most of the searches to various sponsored ads. The most annoying thing is that they don’t ask for the users’ approval for any of these changes and this is the main reason why many people get so irritated and wish to remove them from their system as soon as possible. But why are these programs so intrusive? Are they going to threaten my PC? Well, not really. Programs like Motious.com do not aim to do harm to your system. Fortunately, they are not created by criminal hackers for fraud and malicious purposes. Browser hijackers are software tools, used for online advertising. They basically advertise some specific products, services or web pages on your screen, however, they use a rather aggressive approach for that. The reason is, as you may guess, profit. These programs generate money for their developers through the Pay-Per-Click scheme and that’s why they are oftentimes so intrusive. 

Can a browser hijacker threaten my PC?

When we speak about online threats, we can’t really put browser hijackers among them. Viruses and malicious programs like Ransomware and Trojans are the real threats you should be afraid of. Motious.com and similar software usually cannot be classified as harmful or malicious, since it does not contain harmful scripts, capable of corrupting your system. However, there might be some unwanted effects related to the browser hijackers, which may give you a good reason to uninstall these programs from your PC. For example, even though a browser hijacker cannot destroy your system, it might significantly slow it down. To be able to load its dozens of pop-ups and promotional pages, Motious.com may eat up a serious amount of your CPU and RAM resources, thus, affect the performance of your machine. The hijacked browser may also stop responding to your searches and keep redirecting you to dozens of new tabs and sponsored websites instead. As a result, you may often happen to land on unfamiliar web locations, where fake ads and misleading links may easily sneak in and infect you with some malware or a virus. If you think about it, the risk of bumping into a nasty threat because of an invasive ad-generating program like Motious.com is just not worth it. So if you decide to remove it, feel free to follow the instructions in the removal guide below.

How to protect your PC once you remove Motious.com?

There are a couple of important tips that it is a good idea to follow if you would like to keep browser hijackers away. The most important thing is to be cautious when surfing the Internet. There is no need to say that the web space is full of potentially unwanted programs and threats, so if you generally avoid sketchy contents, spam emails, torrents and different non-reputable software sources you may not meet such programs that often. Another thing to keep in mind is that browser hijackers usually get distributed via software bundles. That’s why, if you want to prevent them from getting installed on your PC you have to manually customize the bundle that you are about to install. This can easily be done through the “Advanced/Custom” option during the installation itself. Also, don’t forget to read the EULA carefully for every new software that you are about to install on your PC and avoid the “Quick/Automatic” installation option because this is how you may end up with a potentially unwanted program on your system without being notified about it.

How to Remove Motious.com “Virus”

Many types of malware will restrict your access to their core files. It is highly recommended that you reboot your PC in safe mode before attempting to use this guide.

• To enable Safe Mode reboot you PC, then hit F8 repeatedly. When the corresponding menu opens please select Safe Mode with Networking.

WARNING! If you are using Windows 8,0 or later and/or your operating system is installed on a fast SSD drive this may fail to work. In this case click here to see how to start your PC in Safe Mode.

#1: Uninstall the malicious program from your control panel

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Enter control panel to look for any suspicious programs, which may have installed on your PC. To do that:

1. Navigate to your Desktop
2. Press simultaneously the Win button together with the R button (Win+R)
3. In the Run window that just opened type appwiz.cpl

4. Go through the list of programs and find Motious.com or anything else that may seem suspicious. Right-click on it and choose the uninstallation option

WARNING! Carefully read any confirmation messages that may be created in the process. Sometimes you may get offers to download more Adware applications and this can be linked to either the Yes or the No answer depending on the wording!

• Optional:

Go through the list of programs again and check online for any potentially unwanted programs. We have an article that covers this awesome free software that makes sure that your computer is free from bloatware and programs that you don’t need.

#2: Remove Motious.com From Chrome

Now we’ll remove the extensions that the malware has attached to your browser.

1. Open your Google Chrome browser.
2. Type chrome://extensions/  in the URL address bar and press Enter.
3. Click on “Developer Mode” on the top right and look for the extension installed by Motious.com and anything that might be related to it. Copy their IDs (the string of letters), then remove them by clicking on the trash bin icon.

1. Type Regedit in the Windows Start Menu and press Enter. Go in : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Chrome\Extensions and delete the entries corresponding to the suspicious IDs you recorded.

#3: Remove Motious.com From Firefox

1. Open Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. Type “about:support” in the URL address bar and press Enter.
3. Click on the “Refresh Firefox” button on the right and confirm.

#4 Remove Motious.com From Internet Explorer

1. Open your Internet Explorer internet browser.
2. Click on the Gear icon on the up right, then on manage add-ons.
3. Go through the list disable any suspicious extensions.

#5 Remove any leftover parasitic processes

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From the task manager:

1. Use Ctrl + Shift + Esc and open the Task manager, then click on the Processes
2. Go through the list of processes and look for unknown or otherwise suspicious entries.
3. If you see anything suspicious right click on the process and shoes Open File Location, then terminate the process and delete any files you find in the directory.

WARNING! If the directory you open from this menu has no files inside of it it’s probably because the malware has hidden them. You need to reveal hidden files and folders in order to be able to see them. Click here if you don’t know how to do that.

From the start menu:

1. Press simultaneously the Win button together with the R button (Win+R)
2. In the Run window that just opened type msconfig
3. Click on the Startup tab.

This menu controls which programs are loaded when windows starts after a reboot. Disable anything that seems suspicious. Optionally you can also disable any program that you don’t need and also has a high impact on your startup time.

Feel free to write to us in the comment section with any questions that you may have. Also if we have been helpful to you please share this article to help us reach more people like you.