Tpoxa.com “Virus” Search Removal (Chrome/Firefox)

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

Browser hijackers are very popular at the present moment. Generally, they belong to a relatively harmless category of software. However, they could infect your computer, influence your browsers (Firefox, Explorer, and Chrome) and annoy you greatly. The way they affect your browsers is the following:

• You may end up having a totally different homepage and/or default search engine.
• Your browser could begin to send you to various online locations (redirecting) as part of an advertising campaign.
• There may appear a great number of banners, boxes and pop-ups, which could disturb your browsing experience, especially if they are generated in great numbers and in an intensive way.

The particular hijacker we will be discussing is named Tpoxa.com “Virus”. This program usually possesses all the aforementioned characteristic features. However, we’ll be discussing that in more detail further down in the. In general, experts consider browser hijackers more or less harmless. These programs are legal and help the marketing industry by making it easier for producers and service providers to advertise their newly-developed website, search engines, products, services and all other sorts of products. However, some users regard them as potentially unwanted software because of some of their shady features. For instance, Tpoxa.com “Virus” could get access to your browser’s search request databases and research them thoroughly so that it could only produce the pop-ups you may take interest in. Also, the distribution methods some developers use to spread hijackers could be regarded as quite invasive. All of this is what often puts Browser Hijackers in the group of potentially unwanted programs or PUP for short.

Despite everything we have said, can these programs still be classified as malware?

Fortunately, there is nothing that could connect hijackers to any form of malware. To illustrate that statement with an example we are going to draw a comparison between Tpoxa.com and a random file-encrypting Ransomware virus. The malicious Ransomware could get into your system in a truly invasive way – automatically, no need for your approval and/or permission, knowing or unknowing. The hijacker, Tpoxa.com, will always need to confirm its installation process with you, though you may not necessarily be aware of it – it cannot get self-installed on your computer. The file-encrypting virus will encode your most important data after infiltrating your system, while the browser hijacker can only access and modify your browsers. In the case of a Ransomware-based infection, your data will be in serious danger, while in case of a hijacker infection you are only likely to be very annoyed by many redirections and pop-ups. Now that you know what differentiates Tpoxa.com from a virus program, we are going to talk about its potential sources, which have earned it the reputation of potentially unwanted software.

How do developers spread Tpoxa.com?

The most probable way of catching a hijacker is when you download and install a mixture of software called a program bundle in an improper way. Any bundle is a free combo of various apps, programs and games that you could get from anywhere on the web, usually for free. By an improper way we mean installing it via an installation feature that will not allow you to modify the installation process manually. Such features that we consider undesirable to be used are the Easy, the Quick or/and the Default ones. Always remember that you should look for the more elaborated installation methods once the installation wizard is generated. These options are most often called CUSTOM or ADVANCED. Installing any program or bundle via those detailed features will always let you change the installation process as you wish, to add or remove features, or to select and deselect programs from the list of to-be-installed ones.

Some more safety tips

Some more sources could be listed. Among them we can enlist torrent and video-sharing websites, torrents themselves, other infected web pages and all sorts of spam (emails, fake pop-ups). For further prevention you should learn to avoid all of them. What’s more, you are always supposed to update and renew the license of your top-quality anti-virus program, in order to ensure safe surfing and no annoying programs such as hijackers. Also, some pop-up blockers could be able to stop the web-page-hosted advertisements that you may end up seeing on your screen. Use one and see how it will work for you. Luckily, this non-malicious program can be successfully removed. Just follow the steps below (see “Removal Guide”).

Tpoxa.com “Virus” Removal

I – Uninstallation

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 Tpoxa.com, 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 Tpoxa.com 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

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 Tpoxa.com 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 Tpoxa.com, 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.