Win Snare “Virus” Removal

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

Win Snare is one of the numerous versions of adware that are released on a daily basis. This particular version is one of the latest and has been reported to us by our readers with requests of publishing a removal guide for this annoying piece of programming. If your Chrome, Firefox or Explorer browser has also been flooded by various popups, banners and other ads, then you too have been affected by Win Snare and are now in the right place. Our guide featured just below the following few paragraphs will help you remove this adware with all of its components. The instructions are simple and easy to follow, but please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment if you happen to come across any troubles. Our team will be happy to help.

What Win Snare and adware really is

To those of you who are unfamiliar with this form of software, we will gladly explain what it’s all about. To put it simply: adware is software that was created with the purpose of generating ads. That’s it. Those ads are how the software developers make their money. By distributing various popups and banners that showcase certain products and services, they get paid each time an interested (or clumsy) user clicks on one of those ads. As you can guess, the developers will therefore be striving to ensure that they get as many clicks as they can for higher revenue. So, this is usually where the problems start.

Adware such as the one you are currently facing is generally programmed to keep close track of the user’s browsing activities. It typically records you browsing history, your search queries and even the occasional personal details you may carelessly leave behind. All of this information represents invaluable data for the program, as it tells it what you are currently interested in and can therefore help it estimate what you would potentially be more willing and likely to click on. This is followed by Win Snare generating numerous ads that have been tailored to fit this information and then releasing it on the end user, usually also taking care to place the ads in the most inconvenient places.

Now, about the problems. The above practice is very widely frowned upon and seen as a privacy violation and irritation at best. Many jump to concluding that they’re dealing with a virus and the malicious program is after some precious data with the aim of stealing it or somehow damaging the infected machine. Such notions are mistaken, so you have nothing to worry about. You’re not dealing with a virus, and adware has pretty much nothing to do with genuine malware like ransomware, Trojans, spyware and other such harmful programs. Nevertheless, there is the risk of being exposed to such threats, indirectly, through Win Snare and this is not the program’s fault. You may have heard that ransomware has become the most feared cyber threat with its numbers and devastation levels rising with each day that goes by. The top method for distribution of this type of malware is what’s known as malvertising: the practice of injecting ads with malicious scripts. One click on one such compromised advertisement is often all it takes for the user to get infected with the dangerous virus. And to make matters worse, ransomware and Trojans infiltrate the victim’s machine without showing any sign of what’s going on. Therefore we highly recommend staying away from all the ads you see and uninstall Win Snare as soon as you’re done reading this.

How to prevent future infections

You may or may not be aware of when and how exactly you got Win Snare on your machine. Chances are you contracted it from within a program bundle and possibly didn’t even realize it at the time. Program bundles are a very convenient means for programmers to distribute their ad-generating software alongside other programs, like games, freeware, shareware, etc. The bundles are often distributed for free and are most commonly found on torrent sites, open source download platforms and other similar file sharing websites. The contents of the bundle, just like its existence, are rarely ever disclosed, so it’s important that you always customize the settings of setup wizard of any new program you aim to install. You can do this by choosing the respective option in the wizard, which is usually title advanced or custom.

Win Snare “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 Win Snare, 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 Win Snare 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 Win Snare 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 Win Snare, 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.