Hipmy “Virus” Removal (Chrome/FF/IE)

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

Software pieces, which are programmed to generate and display various online advertisements, pop-ups, banners and tabs normally fall in a software category called adware. One typical representative of this category is Hipmy “Virus” – a program that usually affects Chrome, Firefox, Explorer or some of the other popular browsers. On this page, we are going to explain to you why this program is often referred to as potentially unwanted and intrusive and why so many people want to remove it. We will also share with you some important information about the way the adware spreads and gets installed on your computer. In case you find its constant ad-generating activity annoying, you may also find the removal guide below very helpful for the effective uninstallation of Hipmy from your computer. So, take a close look at the paragraphs that follow and let us know if they have been of use.

Is adware a reason to be concerned?

Integrating with your default browser and generating an enormous amount of ads, pop-ups, banners and different sponsored messages is what can happen to your PC if you have Hipmy on it. Many users may panic when they first face this intrusive activity, but, fortunately, this is nothing malicious and no harm can be caused to any of your programs or files. According to security experts, adware is not considered a virus or a malicious type of software. In fact, it doesn’t really have the harmful abilities of a computer virus, a Trojan horse or a Ransomware threat. What is more, programs like Hipmy don’t aim to do something criminal or destructive. These programs are specialized in displaying different ads on your screen, which is an activity, related to the online advertising industry, and according to the law, is absolutely legitimate. On the other hand, a real bad infection like a Ransomware cryptovirus, for example, is related to a nasty cyber criminal scheme, which aims to extort money out of you in a form of ransom for the access of your data. Fortunately, no adware can ever be related to this type of malicious activity, so there really isn’t a serious reason for you to be worried if you have Hipmy on your PC.

The only thing that may be affected is your browser and the way you interact with the web. This, however, may not be a small disturbance for some web users. The ads and the pop-ups may be really hard to deal with – they may come in dozens and constantly interrupt your browsing. Hipmy may also use a fair share of your system resources to get its ads displayed and even track your web activity to customize them as per your latest searches. For these reasons, many people may often wish to uninstall this program and refer to it as disturbing software, which interferes with their normal browsing activity.

How the adware spreads and gets installed on your computer?

A lot of users are bothered about the way the adware gets inside their computer. Most of the time, they install such software unknowingly and then they wonder how on the Earth they ended up with adware on their system. The truth is that this software uses a lot of distribution methods, such as spam, emails with attachments, drive-by downloads, direct downloads from the web, different ads and sponsored links or sketchy websites full of intrusive advertisements.  In most of the cases, a program like Hipmy may get delivered to you thanks to a software bundle – a setup of programs, packed and distributed together. Such bundles are usually given for free and can be mostly found on different torrent sites, shareware or freeware platforms.

However, no adware can get installed on your computer without your approval, which can be given knowingly or unknowingly.  For this, it really matters how you deal with the bundles you download and which options you use to install them. Many people simply follow the automatic installation option or the so-called Quick or Default one. This is a common mistake which often results in the installation of a bunch of potentially unwanted programs such as Hipmy. What the users may not know is that with a few clicks and a bit of customization, they can effectively disable the adware or any bundled program that they don’t desire. The easiest way to do that is to skip the Automatic installation option and to use the “Advanced” or the “Custom” one instead. This gives them the necessary control over the entire bundle and helps them to remove the unwanted software before it has been installed. 

Hipmy “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 Hipmy, 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 Hipmy 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 Hipmy 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 Hipmy, 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.